Jason Stellman and the crew continue to debate the merits of an agape or list paradigm, as Bryan Cross described them way back when. What I find hard to fathom is the plausibility of the so-called agape paradigm if human sinfulness really is as profound as Christianity and Judaism have taught. If human beings really are dead in trespasses and sins, as Paul describes them in Ephesians 2, the agape paradigm doesn’t make a lot of sense. We might cooperate with grace all we want, we might do works that show a genuine faith, but what if we still have a sinful nature? This was part of the doubt that haunted Luther.
Rome’s own teaching on the fall would suggest the implausibility of the agape paradigm. The Baltimore Catechism, for instance, is none too cheery about the prospects of human goodness:
45. Q. What evil befell us on account of the disobedience of our first parents?
A. On account of the disobedience of our first parents, we all share in their sin and punishment, as we should have shared in their happiness if they had remained faithful.46. Q. What other effects followed from the sin of our first parents?
A. Our nature was corrupted by the sin of our first parents, which darkened our understanding, weakened our will, and left in us a strong inclination to evil.
This is not as strong as Heidelberg:
Question 8. Are we then so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good, and inclined to all wickedness?
Answer: Indeed we are; except we are regenerated by the Spirit of God.
But it is not that far off. Both talk about corruption of human nature and an inclination to evil.
The Baltimore Catechism also teaches the need for a perfect savior who can satisfy God’s wrath for sin:
84. Q. What lessons do we learn from the sufferings and death of Christ?
A. From the sufferings and death of Christ we learn the great evil of sin, the hatred God bears to it, and the necessity of satisfying for it.
Again, this resembles the logic of Heidelberg:
Question 12. Since then, by the righteous judgment of God, we deserve temporal and eternal punishment, is there no way by which we may escape that punishment, and be again received into favour?
Answer: God will have his justice satisfied: and therefore we must make this full satisfaction, either by ourselves, or by another.
Where Rome and Protestants differ, then, is whether Christ fully satisfies for all of a sinner’s sin. According to the Baltimore Catechism:
Q. 801. Why should we have to satisfy for our sins if Christ has fully satisfied for them?
A. Christ has fully satisfied for our sins and after our baptism we were free from all guilt and had no satisfaction to make. But when we willfully sinned after baptism, it is but just that we should be obliged to make some satisfaction.
In contrast, Heidelberg teaches:
Question 60. How are thou righteous before God?
Answer: Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; so that, though my conscience accuse me, that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil; notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor committed any sin: yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart.
This may seem fairly elementary to anyone who knows the differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants. But the extent and depth of sin seems to be a category not sufficiently considered in the ongoing debates about how we become right with God, whether by faith alone or by a faith that has within it charity of love which will produce good works and will unite us with God. Those wonder-working aspects of the agape paradigm do not address the real problem of sinfulness and God’s just demand for a perfect righteousness. We may love till we’re blue in the face, but given our sinfulness and the ongoing sin in believers’ lives, how do we know if we have really loved enough?
Maybe the agape paradigm is right. If it is, we’re all toast.
88 Comments
My pastor was preaching on the Belgic article on baptism last night and he mentioned that Calvin and Luther disliked the Anabaptists more than they disliked Rome. I laughed out loud.
DGH,
CD and Jed, I wasn’t thinking of 2nd Temple Judaism. I was thinking of the Garden of Eden — one strike and you’re out — and of all those sacrifices which surely reminded the Israelites of all their sins.
Got it. I thought this was where you were going, but CD seemed to take a more formal interpretation of “Judaism” which technically doesn’t emerge until the Babylonian Exile, and doesn’t formalize until the 2nd Temple was built. Before Judaism, there were the Israelites (and Judahites post-split). But this doesn’t change the fact that elements within Judaism understood human depravity in ways that no Reformed scholar would disagree with – and these sources form the backbone of the NT and especially Pauline hamartiology, which is reflected in your point.
CD and Jed, I wasn’t thinking of 2nd Temple Judaism. I was thinking of the Garden of Eden — one strike and you’re out — and of all those sacrifices which surely reminded the Israelites of all their sins.
DG — The problem is that Augustinian view of Eden was unknown to Judaism. That’s not how they viewed it. For one thing they see a story about a man names “the man” and a woman names “water” living in a magic garden with a talking snake as purely allegorical, not as an actual event in history. Their focus was on Genesis 3:22 that in eating of the tree man progressed from the naiveté of childhood into the responsibilities of adulthood, to toil to give birth… So for example in Hebrew they discover they are naked, but (remember no vowels) they also discover they are cunning.
Similarly in Hellenistic Judaism the whole thing is seen as an allegory about the senses vs.the mind (http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book4.html). This isn’t viewed as a story about sin in the Christian way at all. The paradigm doesn’t exist.
As for the sacrificial system, yes absolutely they were reminders of their sins. They sinned they made atonement and one of the ways of making atonement is to participate in the sacrificial rites. The same way as if I violate the New Jersey’s traffic laws one of the ways that I can become justified before the state when I am caught is to pay the fine. Remember this is still until 69 CD part of a a real effectual legal system under which real people live. This isn’t some theological abstraction.
For Hellenists it is becoming an abstraction and some of them are drawn towards deeper theological implications. Paul is part of one of those groups.
CD,
I am not sure how you are so assured in what “Judaism’s” view of Adam and Eve were, or that it can be so easily reduced into the “loss of innocence, sexual awakening” motif. Frankly, the Rabbinic sources I have investigated on this are not exactly unanimous on the matter, and the subsequent OT textual witness doesn’t exactly make this interpretation of the Eden narratives a foregone conclusion. It seems to me that you are reading Judaism through the lens of modern liberal and dialectical theologians that placed a good deal of capital on the notion that Eden was about human maturation. They also were quick to bifurcate “Greek Thought” and “Hebrew Thought”, so as to argue that Paul was introducing a Hellenistic interpretation of the OT. However, James Barr has gone a long way to shatter the misnomer that there are distinguishable categories of Greek versus Hebrew thought.
A good deal of modern scholarship, including non-conservative scholars in OT studies, and in Biblical Theology, have done a lot more work on the relation between the Testaments and how the inter-testamental literature and certain 1st century Rabbinic Judaism coalesce in a rather unified theological witness. What has emerged, especially in disciplines such as typology and analysis of NT interpretation of OT passages (e.g. Gen. 1-3), is that the NT authors, rather than awkwardly Hellenizing the OT and ripping it out of its context, are engaging in an eschatological interpretation of OT texts where they are demonstrating how the eschatological “kernel” present in early OT texts have blossomed and developed into a full flowered NT doctrine. Pauline theology is essentially Christologically, and eschatologically warranted readings of OT texts, faithful to the original intent of the protological OT passages he refers to.
On top of this, if one analyzes Gen 1-3ff. in light of the available Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cognate literature, the casting off of naivete in Eden in a highly improbable reading. Eden was a protological temple, and given the fact that Adam had engaged in priestly/kingly activity in naming the animals, which in the ANE world would have indicated a good deal of wisdom (Cf. Solomon’s mastery of zoology and botany). Adam’s sin was far more horrific than mere adolescent rebellion necessary to move on to maturity, he had the necessary faculties to obey, yet he chose to acquiesce to a creature he was commanded to rule – it was a rejection of his role as priest and king in the sacred space consigned to him. The fact that later OT reflection, starting in the repeated failures of the Patriarchs in Genesis and in the Psalms (e.g. 14; 51:5; 130:3) trace the theological contours of the curse established in Gen. 3 lends far more plausibility to a Protestant reading of human depravity. And if you would like to see similar interpretations in 2T Judaism sources, 1 Enoch is replete with references to human depravity stemming from the garden, and becomes important in Paul’s remedy for depravity in his development of Adam-Christology in places such as Romans 5, and 2 Cor 4-5.
It just seems to me like you are rehashing theological stances matter-of-factly that may be popular in certain circles, but certainly is contested, and in some respects rather convincingly.
Ted,
That is the beauty of Revelation, it speaks of Christ the Lamb and His bride the church having victory, and through the figurative language you do not need to worry and misguess secret meanings in all the numbers and figures. Sometimes ,Ted, the figurative interpretation is the literal (exact or primary meaning of the text) interpretation.
The failure of dispensationalism has led to the sensational predictions of the last 150 years about the end, the Antichrist, and all the rest that have left followers lonely, depressed, and unsure because the rapture that WWI, WWII, Hitler, Stalin, The UN, etc… etc… were to usher in, never came to pass, however, I would not have minded being a rcipient of left behind royalties
It is the amil system that sees the scripture as a unified whole with one author and one focus and not a broken disjointed group that is difficult to make sense of and which contradicts itself in many points. I don’t think this is really the place for this discussion but it seems you are applying an inconsistent hermeneutic to your interpretation of Revelation rather than interpreting it through the lens of the more clear Scripture in the other 65 books. For me personally, my view of revelation came from my reading of the remainder of Scripture before I was even old enough to figure out what the amil, premil, or postmil systems were. When Peter, Paul, & John said that they were in the last days about 2000 years ago and the signs of the last days were present than and now, that seemed obvious to me that the last days are from the Reaurrection until Christ’s second coming in glory and judgment and not in any way secret. I was glad to know this position had a good theological backing but it was definitely Scripture that led me there first.
I am sorry this could not be a more friendly conversation from the start, I may have retaliated against your sarcasm with some of my own, hense stirring up further emotion. Maybe we can have further discussions off blog.
The neo-anabaptists I know say they are “neither Catholic or Protestant”. Of course when they say this they are not thinking of soteriology. Most “protestants” today have a soteriology which is more Pelagian than that of Augustine or Pascal. And of course there are quite a few credobaptists (primitives, landmarkers, and others) who would be quick to claim that they were there before the protestants, and hence “never protestants”.
“Galatians 3 will say that all who have the faith of Abraham are of the seed of Abraham even though they aren’t of the blood of Abraham.”
mark: Which in no way denies that all those with the blood of Abraham were in one sense the seed of Abraham and given the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham. Which in no way teaches that those who are the blood of parents who “have a valid confession of faith” are children of the new covenant. So, if you want to say that the genealogical principle associated with the Abrahamic covenant was not temporary and is not yet fulfilled, then you had best minimize any difference between biblical covenants and call all these covenants one big “the covenant of grace” (except of course if you have to agree to some minor unimportant discontinuities, like for example the ceremonial reference to a certain land promised Abraham). Ie, if there is only one gospel, you think, then the genealogical principle also must come along for the ride.
“Both Galatians 3 and Romans 4 indicate that Gentiles can now be called Israel.”
Elect justified gentiles who believe the gospel are part of Israel. As Romans 9:6 indicates, there is an Israel which is not Israel. Which of course is a little different from saying that there was never an Israel which was not Israel. In the Abrahamic covenant, there most definitely was an Israel which was not Israel, and people in that covenant who were not elect to eternal life and the forgiveness of sins.
Just to let remind that some of us credobaptists are neither premill or dispy. But hatred of “anabaptist disorder” does not lend itself well to accuracy of description.
Ted, it’s odd to me that you treat didactic passages in epistles as figurative, but a description of heaven and the regeneration as strictly literal.
Seems to me that genre ought to be a good place to start in terms of deciding which is which.
Can you explain why you make the choices you do?
Mark: Which in no way denies that all those with the blood of Abraham were in one sense the seed of Abraham and given the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham. Which in no way teaches that those who are the blood of parents who “have a valid confession of faith” are children of the new covenant. So, if you want to say that the genealogical principle associated with the Abrahamic covenant was not temporary and is not yet fulfilled, then you had best minimize any difference between biblical covenants and call all these covenants one big “the covenant of grace” (except of course if you have to agree to some minor unimportant discontinuities, like for example the ceremonial reference to a certain land promised Abraham). Ie, if there is only one gospel, you think, then the genealogical principle also must come along for the ride.
Yeah, pretty much.
But actually, there are a couple of reasons to think this. For one thing, the promise of land to Abraham is, I believe, expanded in Romans 4 to include the whole world. The type of “land” becomes the antitype of “the whole shooting match” — the new earth.
So I’m not troubled by land promises to Abraham, as if they somehow prove that the covenant with Abraham can be sliced up into parts: land to the literal descendants, salvation to the figurative. Paul attributes the whole of the Abrahamic covenant to believers.
Second, you make a very good point that the inclusion of descendants could have been typological, but is now abrogated since faith has come.
BUT
The problem is Matt 19.13 – 15: Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away.
We know that these children included infants (Luke 18). And we know that Jesus said that to such (infants) was the kingdom of heaven, implying that at least some infants are included.
How? On what grounds?
What’s up with the ‘sanctification’ of spouses and children in 1 Cor 7?
And are those features consistent with the picture of a new covenant in which children of believers are no longer included?
What evidence would lead us to conclude that the inclusion of children was, in fact, typological?
Where were you on the night of Oct 15, 1986?
Prosecution rests.
@Jed –
The fact of the matter is Paul is picking up on interpretative themes in the OT and inter-testemental literature that are not totally lacking in the Judiasm of his day in his insistence on justification by faith alone, nor is the historic Protestant reading of justification totally lacking in 1T Judaism
By fact of the matter… what source you talking about, can you get a bit more specific about Jewish sources that support Pauline theology. For example if we stick to 2T since, I’d use the Mishnah for Judaism 200 BCE – 200 CE to represent mainstream theology for the Palestinian factions. And something like Philo for the mainstream Hellenism. What sources are you using to assert that anything like Pauline theology is common and mainstream?
Jeff, I don’t get the question about where I was in 1986. I must have missed something.
As for these other arguments (prooftexts?) for infant water baptism, I certainly am eager to give attention to them, because the practice (and argument for) infant baptism for many many years was in no way dependent on a view of covenants. The use of “covenant” to justify the practice mainly got its emphasis from Zwingli and Calvin. You won’t hear Lutherans using it, and it wasn’t the common argument before Zwingli and Calvin (although you can find it some in Cyprian)
My guess is that many folks in churches with confessions which argue from “covenant” don’t think of the practice in those terms, but rather in terms of an infusionist cure for corruption. (I also find that many in confessionally “non-sacramental” churches still think of the Lord’s Supper as a means of infusion and feeding, so it’s an easy conversion for them to the sacramental claim that “God is doing ‘something”".
“The problem is Matt 19.13 – 15: Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away.”
We know that these children included infants (Luke 18). And we know that Jesus said that to such (infants) was the kingdom of heaven, implying that at least some infants are included.
mark: No water in the text. Also no “the covenant”. Agreed that some are infants. But it is not agreed that any of them are welcome to the Lord’s table.
How? On what grounds?
mark: Certainly not on the basis of ritual water. Of course I know that you give water not to put your children of blood in “the covenant” but because you think they are born in the covenant, and that because you think the typological genealogical principle must continue (even though it has found its conclusion in the circumcision of Christ, both his literal day 8 circumcision and in the gospel of His death).
What’s up with the ‘sanctification’ of spouses and children in 1 Cor 7?
mark: Again, no water in the text. There has been some discussion in this group about if a spouse who does not have “a valid profession of faith” should be given the water ritual. Also some discussion about if the teenage children with no “profession of faith” born to one parent “with a valid profession of faith” should be given the water ritual. And also some disagreement about what discipline is called for when that non-professing child decides to walk. Since you already fence the table against the non-professing (disagreeing with Stoddard about “converting sacrament”), what more could you do?
And are those features consistent with the picture of a new covenant in which children of believers are no longer included?
mark: Well, sure. Since there is no water in either of your two texts, no problem. What would you say to a dispy who told you to prove your presumption of fulfilled typology when it comes to land? If the covenants are not the same, and the new covenant is a new covenant, and if the seed promised to Abraham has arrived, why should the burden of proof be on the other side to say that this (genealogical) type is not yet finished?
Water baptism is not the fulfillment of circumcision. The circumcision of Christ is the fulfillment of circumcision.
@Jed –
I am not sure how you are so assured in what “Judaism’s” view of Adam and Eve were
Because starting from about 200 BCE they were a literate culture and we have their literature. Pharisaic Judaism survived and so we have contiguous literature that helps to contextualize it. Mainstream Jewish faiths were heavily practiced so we have a wealth of historical artifacts which help to explicate practices. We have contemporaneous historians like Josephus who break down the existing sects and their analysis has been confirmed by these archeological finds and later literary finds. Trying to determine how early Christianity evolved is a complex question because it was the religion of a tiny minority, it is not a complex question for mainstream Judaism because it was so heavily practiced.
As for my specifics, we have Targum interpretations like Targum Jonathan, Gen. Rabbah 21:5 (Genesis 3:22) which held that in the act of eating, “[Adam] has become like one of us, having the ability: He is unique among the earthly beings, just as I [God] am unique among the heavenly beings, and what is his uniqueness? To know good and evil, unlike the cattle and the beasts.”
Let me just address Enoch. Enoch clearly had influence on the Essenes. And if you want to argue that the Essenes are the community Christianity emerged from that’s plausible. Essenes theology though was not mainstream Judaism. The question is about mainstream Jewish theology not existent Jewish theology.
If you have alternative sources from that time period which are mainstream and agree with Paul, cite them.
What has emerged, especially in disciplines such as typology and analysis of NT interpretation of OT passages (e.g. Gen. 1-3), is that the NT authors, rather than awkwardly Hellenizing the OT and ripping it out of its context, are engaging in an eschatological interpretation of OT texts where they are demonstrating how the eschatological “kernel” present in early OT texts have blossomed and developed into a full flowered NT doctrine.
I kinda agree with you there. The Hellenistic Jewish community had Hebrew and Aramaic literacy and understanding. I didn’t say that Paul was ripping the context apart or anything like that. His interpretation was obviously compelling given that he’s gone on to be the most successful biblical interpreter in all of human history standing head and shoulders ahead of 2nd place. What I said was his views are alien to the theology of mainstream Judaism. Whether the cultic communities of Paul or the mainstream communities more accurately reflected the kernel present in OT texts is a theological not a historical question. I’ll stick to historical questions: Group X believed book Y taught doctrine Z. Whether they were right or wrong, has nothing to do with my assertions.
Eden was a protological temple, and given the fact that Adam had engaged in priestly/kingly activity
This is precisely what I mean. Mainstream Judaism has no theology of priestly/kingly activity. Priests belonged to different tribes than kings. There was no notion of priest kings in mainstream Judaism. Priests are ceremonial functionaries and kings are political officers not particularly tied to the sacrificial cult. That’s why the author of Hebrews expands upon the Psalms and builds out the entire theology of a priest of the order of Melchizedek, because he is trying to explain how Jesus can be both priest and king. If the idea was well understood as a mainstream notion that whole exposition wouldn’t have been needed. Incidentally this idea of a priest king and a new messianic priestly order is popular among Essenes. There is no question that by about 100 BCE various cultic Judaism are starting to adopt Melchizedek and reconsider this role. 11Q13 which I linked to earlier proves that, but these ideas are not mainstream and aren’t accepted by the wider Jewish community ever. They become part of Christianity not Judaism.
Mormonism evolved from non mainstream theologies that had come into being as a response to the crisis of American Christianity. Joseph Smith, Orson Pratt, Brigham Young pull these non mainstream theologies together to form a new hybrid of Mormonism. If Mormonism went on to become the dominant faith by say 2200 and mainstream Protestantism was a tiny minority faith, it would be accurate to say that Mormonism is derived from a reading of the Christian bible. It would by wholly inaccurate to say that Mormonism was derived from a mainstream reading of the Christian bible. The situation with Christianity and 1st century Judaism is analogous, just 1800 years earlier.
In any case we are now totally off topic regarding this thread. The argument between CtC and yourselves is about Pauline theology as understood by later Christianity, not Pauline theology in its original Jewish Christian context nor mainstream Judaism.
Mark, we switched horses here. Perhaps I wasn’t understanding something. I wasn’t trying to address water, but the question of whether children of believers are included (externally) in the New Covenant.
You wrote: My guess is that many folks in churches with confessions which argue from “covenant” don’t think of the practice in those terms, but rather in terms of an infusionist cure for corruption.
Wow, no. I’m a strong ‘efficacy’ guy, and I sure don’t think that way!
Quite the contrary, we teach strongly that the efficacy of sacraments consists of faith in the promises depicted, and that that efficacy takes place at the moment of faith. At any given PCA baptism, you are more likely to hear about what baptism *doesn’t* do than to hear about sacramental efficacy.
Perhaps the Episcopalians or Lutherans?
CD,
I’d be happy to cite more sources, but that will simply take some time for me to dig them up. One of the weaknesses of the blog format is when addressing matters that require research to back them up, one simply struggles to a) be timely; and b) be brief. I don’t want to end up with a research paper, and certainly wouldn’t require one on your end. To tip my hand though, I’ll cite the secondary sources that have dealt with the primary lit, and have shaped my thinking on the matter:
— C. Marvin Pate: (my old hermenutics prof) Adam Christology as the Exegetical and Theological Substructure of II Corinthians 4:7-5:21 (Long title – it was his PhD dissertation we used in class). He delves a good deal into Paul’s use/reuse/departure from inter-testamental lit, and deals a lot with Adam as the fallen representative, and Christ as the new Adam which obviously entails dealing with Gen 2-3.
– James Barr: Semantics of Biblical Language; The Concept of Biblical Theology; Biblical Faith and Natural Theology. Barr’s main value, for me is his role as a debunker of fashionable, but ultimately unsustainable theological and hermenutical approaches to the OT especially, and Scripture in general. While he is not a conservative, he takes giants in 20th century scholarship to the woodshed (e.g. Barth, Eichrodt, Von Rad, even Childs to a degree) for their hermenutical largesse, especially when it comes to pitting Hebrew vs. Greek thought, whether in Scripture, Apocryphal lit, or Rabbinical lit. He rather convincingly argues that biblical thought is fairly unified, even in it’s diversity, and the dichotomy between Greek and Hebrew trains of thought are a modern invention that serve as a caricature of biblical thought. He is most hard on the dialectical theologians – but also critical of some of his colleagues in the NPP school such as Dunn.
– John Walton (my old ANE and OT prof) The NIV Application Commentary: Genesis; Genesis 1 As Ancient Cosmology; Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context et. al. I could list more of his works here, including work he has edited such as the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Old Testament, as he is probably the biggest influence on how I look at the OT from a hermenutical level. He rather convincingly argues that the OT can only be properly understood when read in it’s cultural context. His work in Genesis (esp. 1-11) simply has to be dealt with, as he makes a very convincing case of how it would have been understood by the original Israelite audience – which IMO is far more important than how later sources in Judaism viewed them (even though there are areas where Judaism and ANE Israelite understanding certainly converge).
– G.K Beale: In his Revelation commentary, his edited work with DA Carson Commentary on the New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament; and New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New; Beale shows his theological mastery over the Scriptures as a whole. If Walton is most influential for me in terms of hermenutics of the OT; Beale is most influential in how he synthesizes Scriptural exegesis into theological analysis. He has a keen understanding of how the NT authors are utilizing the OT in the eschatological movement of salvation history. He is very attuned to how the NT is responding to 2nd Temple Judaism, where they share common assumptions with their Jewish counterparts, and where they depart from them.
I’ll provide a more detailed discussion of how I put together my conclusions, and how the NT authors and aspects within 2nd Temple Judaism do in fact assume a stance on human depravity (the point of DGH’s post) that is highly consistent with a modern Protestant and Reformed understanding of the issue. I get the sense that 1) in relying on the Palestinian sources of Rabbinic Judaism; along with Philo you are still only seeing one or two, albeit important, aspect of 2T Judaism; and 2) that you must also account for Qumranic lit.(as distinct from the Palestinian Talmud), Apocryphal and Pseudipigriphal lit. to gain an appreciation for the wide diversity of 2T Judaism – and the sources that are most influential in the NT. This might go beyond the purview of Hart’s original post, so if you would prefer to take this to a private correspondence you can hit me up over e-mail (Darryl can give you my address or you can hit my name and it will redirect you over to my blog, and if you leave a quick comment I can find you from there). Suffice to say, I am not pulling my opinions out of thin air on this matter, and I don’t assume you are either, but it sure seems like we are working from a different set of influences and assumptions and I’d be curious to see what those are.
CD,
BTW, I just saw that you are already working through some of the issues I brought up. I’ll try to get to those in the coming day or so. Thanks for the response though, it does give me a bit more of an idea of where you are coming from. I realize that this conversation has probably wandered afield from the original post. However, if you are assuming that something along the lines of covenantal nomism is normative for 2T Judaism; and that Judaism on the whole had a far more limited notion of human depravity I think it does relate to the Catholic-Reformed debates at a very fundamental exegetical level. I do see a good deal of convergence between what some of the CtC guys are espousing and a Christian version of covenantal nomism and works righteousness.
And, to be fair to you and some of the points you are contending with respect to 2T Judaism, it does seem that NT authors, and Jesus himself are offering a stark corrective to mainstream (esp. Palestinian Pharisaic/Sadducaic) Judaism on the matter of the depths of human sinfulness. Jesus especially seems to recapture an understanding of human sinfulness that is more in line with the OT than various Rabbinic sources of the day with statements like “your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees…” (among others), he seems to hammer away at the point that many upstanding Jews had no idea of how deeply sinful they really were. So I don’t want to say that your positions on 2T Judaism are totally off, I just think they are incomplete and one-sided, which is something I think many of the NPP scholars such as Saunders, Dunn, and Wright are also guilty of. For Protestants however, the real issue is what Scripture, rather than what extrabiblical sources have to say on the issue, whether apocryphal, Rabbinic, or even Patristic – not a small point of contention between us and the CtC crowd.
@Zrim –
CDH, my understanding is that Cross was raised Pentecostal, so I’m not sure it’s accurate to suggest he has no experience with the faiths that came out of the Radical Reformation.
When he’s describing his own crisis after seminary he doesn’t sound Pentecostal to me, “I realized at the time that I too, as a Protestant, could not appeal to the early Church Fathers or the councils in a principled way to support my position against that of the Mormons. Of course, at that time I agreed with Nicene Trinitarianism and Chalcedonian Christology, but like the Mormons I too believed that shortly after the death of the Apostles the Church had begun to fall into various errors, minor at first but progressively more serious. So in my mind, everything any Church Father said had to be tested against [my own interpretation of] Scripture.”
I don’t know any Pentecostals who would appeal to creeds and the church fathers first in this sort of historical / intellectual approach. They would rather aim for a direct experience. Which incidentally is similar to the Mormon apologetic, that you experience the truth of the book of Mormon through prayer, you don’t come to believe it by reason.
Agreed that today’s descendants of the RR consider themselves Protestant, but this seems to confirm the widespread historical ignorance of the fact that the PR was a battle on two fronts. Even Radicals seem to forget that their ancestors told ours they didn’t reform nearly enough.
Don’t take it personally. They have a de-historical theology. They don’t focus on any specifics of any events. Christianity is about the here and now.
Now as far as my $.02. I don’t think the reformation was a battle on two fronts. I think there were 3 major factions with different goals:
a) Political reformers, mostly nobility who had few if any doctrinal issues but often had disputes with the church. They wanted the church under state control (think Henry VIII)
b) Doctrinal reformers who were concerned with issues like sola fide (think Luther or Calvin).
c) Radical reformers who hated the Catholic Church and wanted to create a new religion (anabaptist for example)
Those 3 groups had all existed for about 500 year but had mistrusted and disliked each other. What was unique about 1517 was they were so frustrated by the Catholic church that they agreed to start working together even though they knew their eventual aims conflicted. Certainly the doctrinal reformers after they beat back the Catholics turned on the radicals, but the radicals thrived under Protestantism and at this point the Pentecostals are set to overtake Catholics in terms of numbers with the Baptists having a healthy membership as well.
You could say all 3 groups won a partial victory.
The political reformers did not end up with state control but often ended up with churches so weak politically that they no longer threaten or trouble the state meaningfully.
The doctrinal reformers ended up with the loyalty of almost all of Christiandom. Even Catholics now appeal to the bible and need to defend their faith in biblical terms, argue that salvation is by grace and by faith (though not faith alone), the church’s role in salvation is now quite abstract… The rest of Christianity they accept their doctrines rather freely. They got the reforms they sought at least in part.
And radicals have managed to end religious persecution and are able to create all manner of sects.
So I don’t identify the reformation with just group (b). If anything I’d identify it more with group (a).
There were also the humanists
McGrath has identified two different lines of humanists that influenced Luther and Zwingli (separately), apart from the thought of Erasmus.
The Anglicans perceived not only the political aspects, but also, their (to use the word anachronistically) “continuity” with the church of England from the sixth century onward.
There were lot of groups at the time of the Reformation, and the one thing that they all wanted was to get out from under Rome’s oppression.
Jeff: I wasn’t trying to address water, but the question of whether children of believers are included (externally) in the New Covenant.
mark: Certainly the two topics are related, but I also am much more interested in the covenants. In regard to your two texts, perhaps I should have replied that there were no “covenants” in the texts. I still would be very interested in hearing you think through the typology of land and genealogical principle. Of course I can argue with my imaginary friend (who tells me that type succeeds type by expansion to the whole earth and expansion to female infants), but I would rather “overhear” you talking to a dispy about this.
Is the land promise non-typological of the new creation and thus not here yet despite the finished work of Christ and the inauguration of the new covenant?
Was Ishmael “externally” in the covenant? Could Ishmael’s children of blood NOT be circumcised? What would it mean for them to be “cut off”? Genesis 17: 12 He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, 13 both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people”
mark: My guess is that many folks in churches with confessions which argue from “covenant”
don’t think of the practice in those terms, but rather in terms of an infusionist cure for corruption.
jeff: Wow, no. I’m a strong ‘efficacy’ guy, and I sure don’t think that way!
mark: glad to hear it, and I sincerely hope it’s not true of most of the folks in your congregations. AS I sincerely hope that credobaptists are not secretly sacramental when it comes to the Lord’s Supper. But it might do us both good to notice the other arguments out there, for me to agree that many credobaptists base their practice on “freewill” and for you to see that many paedobaptists base their practice on what they think is a solution for original corruption.
Jeff:At any given PCA baptism, you are more likely to hear about what baptism *doesn’t* do than to hear about sacramental efficacy.
mark: I wish I remembered if you were PCA, and then I would know if you meant this as a criticism or as a complaint/confession. I have witnessed several of these ceremonies myself, and as you say, the “evangelical” clergy in the PCA seem very anxious to say what the sacrament isn’t. Of course these clergy later read from the confession some stuff (sign of THEIR ingrafting and THEIR regeneration) which doesn’t quite fit with what they say. But to agree with your point, the ceremony sure looks like a “wet dedication” to me. And I don’t even like dry dedications!
oh i forgot, Jeff
“Where were you on the night of Oct 15, 1986?”
mark: are you going to explain that one to me? It might keep me up tonight, if you don’t.
We are told by advocates of ECT (Timothy George) that we cannot insist on forensic justification as gospel because to do so would call into question the salvation of all those people before the Reformation.
I agree with his second point—if we say that you must believe in Christ as the justifier of the ungodly to believe the gospel, then we certainly ARE calling into question the Christian status of all those with a paradigm that conditions grace on something they do after they are in the family.
Do those in the new perspective who call into question our “scholastic” finished work paradigm also call into question the experience of we who keep using the language of Calvin and Luther? They claim not to. NT Wright says, well, sure they are too stupid to understand Paul (of course very few did until I started writing), but if their wrong paradigm helps them through the night, fine, why bother them with the truth of the matter (ie, my books).
If the Reformation paradigm should have never happened, then it is clear that all of us should stop using Reformation language to describe our relation to God. If Reformation thought about salvation is only a situation paradigm, or only an “application of the gospel”, then we must ask if the gospel needs to be applied in our day the way it was in that day.
The new perspective tells us that in the NT the gospel is opposing Jewish privilege and is not opposing merit. Since merit is not the problem, we are told that we should not read texts like Philippians 3 as opposing merit. In other words, as long as you say that God makes you different by grace and not by being Jewish, then there is no need to get picky about HOW you talk about the righteousness of Christ.
As long as you talk about the righteousness and not about your blood and heritage, then it will not matter so much if this righteousness is in you or in the finished work That distinction is scholastic, they say, and matters not. But then why does the distinction between heritage and “covenantal nomism” matter? Isn’t it “scholastic” also in its own way?
Why does the new perspective insist on a distinction between Christ’s righteousness perfectly satisfying the law and some “family” righteousness done imperfectly in us? How is that distinction different from the Roman Catholic paradigm? And most importantly, why is the NP pushing their distinction onto us? Why their many wordy attempts to re-educate the next generation so that we will not talk the language of “alien righteousness” and ‘finished work”?
Oh, sorry. I was poking fun at myself for asking you so many questions in a row. For whatever reason, I “hear” what I type, and I heard myself asking you question after question without pause, like a prosecutor might.
Jeff Cagle: The problem is Matt 19.13 – 15: Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away.
We know that these children included infants (Luke 18). And we know that Jesus said that to such (infants) was the kingdom of heaven, implying that at least some infants are included.
What’s up with the ‘sanctification’ of spouses and children in 1 Cor 7?
Mat 19:13 Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But Jesus said, “Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” 15 After laying His hands on them, He departed from there.
Matthew 18:1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
RS: Perhaps infants are included in Luke and Matthew, but it is not necessarily the case. Luke 19 says that “the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Note that it is to “such as these.” The Matthew passage says that a person must be turned and become like children to enter the kingdom of heaven. Perhaps that is what “such as these” really means. The point seems to be something other than the covenant, but what must happen in the heart. A person must be turned from self-reliance to utter reliance upon Christ. So one must become like a child (infant?) in some way to enter the kingdom, but it does not say that children themselves were in the covenant.
I Corinthians 7 is in the context of marriage and divorce. A believing spouse in some way sanctifies the unbelieving spouse and in some way the children are holy. In other words, don’t divorce the unbeliever just because s/he is an unbeliever. The children are still legitimate (as opposed to illegitimate) and the marriage is still a marriage. But the covenant concept and the idea of infant baptism is simply not there. But again, if the child can be baptized based on I Cor 7 there is no real reason the unbelieving spouse could not be baptized either. Both are made holy on the basis of the connection with the believer.
B – words have consequences. Linking dispensationalism to Jehovah’s Witness theology will tend to evoke something less than respect. Same as Zrim linking dispensationalism to RC soteriology.
That’s why the Word is like a sword to judge between the thoughts and intent of the heart – to expose where your affections bleed. If i were amil, I too would evade question the questions above on mat. 19:28. The verse, spoken by the Lord, doesn’t fit amillenialism unless it gets the “work over” from the amil lexicon first.
@Jed
I do see a good deal of convergence between what some of the CtC guys are espousing and a Christian version of covenantal nomism and works righteousness.
I see what you are saying, I wasn’t thinking about the question from that dimension. Yes, my position would place Catholic theology of grace and works closer than Reformed to Jewish theology. I don’t think either one is very close at all so I wouldn’t weigh this vote heavily. The crucifixion and a heavenly savior plays a rather large role in both Catholic and Reformed and none in mainstream Judaism. Judaism’s doesn’t have anything like the Christian notion of salvation that Jesus can be an effectual part of. On the other hand, the Reformed doctrines of ministers are far closer to mainstream Judaism, I’d even say that Presbyterian polity is a faithful development of their view of religious leadership while the Catholic hierarchical system mixes things in ways completely alien to Judaism.
My take would be to accept that Christianity evolved a long way away from Judaism, having been on separate branches by the time of the Hasmonean dynasty (140 BCE) and really from the time of first contact with Hellenism (322 BCE) and history has not brought them closer. Christianity is its own religion and should not look to Judaism for validation at all. It is possible to dialogue with Judaism on issues of interpretation of the Old Testament and without the pressure of validation possibly an even more fruitful dialogue.
For Protestants however, the real issue is what Scripture, rather than what extrabiblical sources have to say on the issue, whether apocryphal, Rabbinic, or even Patristic – not a small point of contention between us and the CtC crowd.
Understood this historical question doesn’t have to be a high impact conversation. I’m trying to keep the historical claims and the theological claims separate. What the Old Testament “really means” is a theological question. And what the Old Testament should mean in light of later NT revelations, which is the question both the Reformed and Catholics are really interested in, is even more a theological question. Whether group X interpreted book Y to generate doctrine Z is a historical question totally separate.
Let me pulls something in from an older response:
The biggest problem with Sanders, Dunn, Wright, et. al. is that they picked up on something that was certainly present in Judaism – covenantal nomism, and ran roughshod over the NT and Paul in particular, interpreting everything through that grid. When the fact of the matter is that the NT authors were going in a different theological direction that covenantal nomism, as their theological reflections are often standing in contrast to the covenantal nomism of Judaism of their day.
I agree with you here, that was my critique of Sanders / NPP to Jeff. The analogy I used was trying to derive a doctrine about the proper relationship of Ali to Mohammed from Christian writers of the day. That question is a fundamentally Muslim question, the correct answer is that Christianity doesn’t have a theology of Ali. In precisely the same way what Sanders and Wright (I’d disagree with you a bit about Dunn) are doing is reading Christian questions back into Judaism. Jews never had a Paul, they never had a antinomian movement, they never had reformation. There just isn’t a historical context in Judaism then or now that makes these questions interesting or important.
Sanders is not doing justice to Paul in trying to fit him back into a mainstream context. I don’t disagree with you there. To understand early Christianity means looking at Jewish movements that were heavily influenced by the Tzadok movement which were not then, and never became part of the Jewish mainstream.
Ted,
I would remind you that it was you who began with the amil decoder scheme comments that were hardly intended to have a theological discussion. (Ted-“Can I use this secret decoder scheme elsewhere in Holy Scripture? Looks fun.”)
As I said in my comment, I was not making a direct connection between JWs and Dispensationalists, just that it is the JWs and some Dispensationalists who take the 144,000 number as an exact number and not representing many many people like “cattle on a thousand hills” represents all cattle on all hills. I take 144,000 to represent all the elect who may be many times greater than 144,000.
I do not believe I was the one sidestepping, if you remember you just made fun of me and others for suggesting that Galatians 3 and Romans 4, along with other passages make it pretty clear that those of the seed of Abraham by faith are Israel. You simply said you did not see that and moved on. (Ted-“That’s news to me. Must be more of that figurative language Zrim talks about in places that are decidedly non-figurative.”) I would counter…just because you do not see it does not mean it isn’t there and isn’t true. The literal Israel is all the elect of all nations and tongues. This is consistent throughout Scripture. You also seem to have ignored the fact that the literal interpretation of a passage can be figurative. Who has “decidedly” determined all of Revelation to not be figurative?
In regards to Matthew 19, at the day of judgment there does seem to be some who will be judging with Christ. Not having the Scripture in front of me, I believe other passages talk about the elect as a whole even judging the angels. I am not sure how this passage proves a dispensational point?
You also offered the idea of following a system and fitting Scripture into it rather than Scripture giving a system. I explained to you how I came to an understanding from Scripture and you seem to have sidestepped that issue as well to push on Matthew. It seems from the discussion chain you are the one evading questions and jumping from point to point. Can we stick with one item at a time rather than jumping around and never coming to a conclusion?
Ted, no disrespect is intended. Consider the proposed link between Dispensational eschatology and Catholic soteriology a friendly shot across the bow for the sustained link between Reformed baptismal sacramentology and Catholic theology.
@Mark
And most importantly, why is the NP pushing their distinction onto us? Why their many wordy attempts to re-educate the next generation so that we will not talk the language of “alien righteousness” and ‘finished work”?
The NPP guys are Christians. They are concerned fundamentally that followers of Calvin and Luther are misreading the bible and misunderstanding the message of Jesus. I think the why is that they don’t want Protestant theology to be tied to the historical accident of having emerged from a conflict with a Catholic church. For them the conflict is over, and it is time to try and understand the New Testament in a 1st century context and ignore the 16th century context. This is a typical Protestant theme, that tradition are like barnacles on a ship but in this case it is being applied to Protestant tradition not Catholic.
NPP can be seen as an answer to Machen’s Liberalism and Christianity. A full theological defense of how one can remain both committed to the gospel and committed to the social gospel of liberal Christianity. If a Conservative Evangelical wanted to consider NPP a full blown heresy I wouldn’t consider that off the mark.
And as a aside, FWIW I think Sanders is full of it. Any honest reading of Paul makes it immediately apparent that his themes are much broader than a few dozen ceremonial customs like dietary law or circumcision. You don’t need to construct an entire theology of human sexuality if you just want to be indifferent to the relatively minor differences that existed between Greek and Jewish marriage custom. You don’t need to construct an entire theology of the relationship between children of Adam and ephemeral agents which torment them if you just want to attack circumcision. From the first line to the last Romans is a theological text which explains the intrinsic nature and key history of man’s relationship to God. It is the sort of book that people with broad aims write. I agree with Sanders that Calvin sometimes fails to take the 1st century context into account and he misreads Paul by thinking of 1st century Judaism as the equivalent of the Catholic Church. But Sander’s solution is like amputating an arm to solve the problem of long fingernails.
RS, Luke explicitly uses the word “infants”: προσεφερον δε αυτω και τα βρεφη (Luke 18.15), NASB “babies.”
And yes, Jesus makes a point of saying that we must receive the kingdom of God like a child. What force would that point have, if the very babies he’s holding up are not part of that kingdom?!
This is the key point of logic that gets glossed over. People rush to figure out how the analogy applies to themselves without first considering what Jesus is saying about the actual people present. Why did He rebuke the disciples? Grasp that, and you will see that Jesus is saying that some children, yes babies, are a part of the kingdom of heaven.
Then one will have to wrestle with “which ones, and on what ground?” and then the covenant piece will fall into place, IMHO.
/dev/cd-host: I agree with Sanders that Calvin sometimes fails to take the 1st century context into account and he misreads Paul by thinking of 1st century Judaism as the equivalent of the Catholic Church.
I haven’t read Sanders, but I have read Wright saying much the same thing. Here’s the intriguing thing for me:
Once we re-cast 1st c. Judaism in terms of covenantal nomism, it becomes clear that the Catholic doctrine of “salvation by grace through sacrament leading to merit” is actually convenantally nomistic.
In other words, Calvin was actually right to identify the two but not on the grounds of a purely legal theory; rather, on the grounds of a legal-relational theory. Calvin’s criticism is not shallowly true, but profoundly true.
And that’s the second point. Wright decries imputation (as pure legality), and then ends up re-discovering imputation (as legal-relational). Somehow he misses that Augustine and Calvin had been teaching that all along.
Jeff Cagle: RS, Luke explicitly uses the word “infants”: προσεφερον δε αυτω και τα βρεφη (Luke 18.15), NASB “babies.”
And yes, Jesus makes a point of saying that we must receive the kingdom of God like a child. What force would that point have, if the very babies he’s holding up are not part of that kingdom?
This is the key point of logic that gets glossed over. People rush to figure out how the analogy applies to themselves without first considering what Jesus is saying about the actual people present. Why did He rebuke the disciples? Grasp that, and you will see that Jesus is saying that some children, yes babies, are a part of the kingdom of heaven.
RS:
Luke 18:15 And they were bringing even their babies to Him so that He would touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them.
16 But Jesus called for them, saying, “Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
17 “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.”
RS: Notice just a few things in the text. 1. Indeed the word in v. 15 is used primarily of infants, but that is not the case with the word in v. 16. 2. It is the children that the kingdom belongs to such as these. 3. But the such as these statement is given its explanation in v. 17.
Jeff Cagle: Then one will have to wrestle with “which ones, and on what ground?” and then the covenant piece will fall into place, IMHO.
RS: When the text is looked into rather than brought into, the covenant piece in that sense does not fall into place. The text explains itself.
Zrim – shot accepted and appreciated. Even snarks at how non-Old Life i am always get me laughing in part for your incredible talent at posting just a few words that are crazily pithy and precise. Maybe I’m just irked by your comments because I’m jelly.
B – I was snarking at Zrim when you buzzed in and snarked back at me first. So there
. And what makes you think Mat. 19:28 speaks about the day of judgment? Jesus said the time of the apostles sitting on 12 thrones and judging the12 tribes of Israel judging was “in the regeneration” not at the judgment.
Justification in Perspective: Historical Developments and Contemporary Challenges (Paperback), Bruce McCormack, editor, (Baker, 2006) I recommend the book, especially the essay by the editor McCormack. He does a good job of showing how Barth’s doctrine of justification is both like and different from the classical Reformed views of Calvin and Luther. For Barth, there is no imputation to individuals in time— the only transition from wrath to forensic favor takes place in the history of Christ.
The good thing about Barth’s doctrine of justification is that Barth does not make the Holy Spirit the agent who puts the elect into union with Christ. The bad thing is that Barth makes the gift of faith to the elect to be only the recognition of a transition from wrath to favor that took place in Christ; there is no passing from death to life by imputation in the life of the individual elect person. Of course this goes with Barth’s idea that all sinners are elected in Christ.
The only truly bad essay in the volume is by NT Wright. While avoiding the difficult questions (was Adam’s guilt imputed to us humans?), Wright caricatures his critics. But to me the clear reason that Wright is so comfortable discarding justification based only on Christ’s finished work is that he has confidence in the water of “the church” to make Christians . What Wright thinks this watery birth has to do with “the covenant” is less clear.
I quote from Wright on p 260: “This declaration, this vindication, occurs twice. It occurs in the future, as we have seen, on the basis of the entire life a person has led in the power of the Spirit, that is, it occurs, on the basis of ‘works’ in Paul’s redefined sense…even so the present justification consists not so much in words but in an event, the event in which one dies with the Messiah and rises to new life with him. In other words, baptism. I was delighted to rediscover that not only Chrysostom and Augustine but also Luther would here have AGREED WITH ME.”
NT Wright has come to the place in his life when he can only keep rediscovering how he is correct once again.
from the Protestant Reformed Seminary Journal, April 2002, by David Engelsma
Against the interpretation of Calvin that has him teaching original guilt, albeit in embryonic form, however, stands Calvin’s commentary on Romans 5:12ff. He explains our relation to Adam in terms of Adam’s extending his corruption to us, which corruption constitutes our only guilt in the matter of Adam’s sin. Calvin explicitly rejects the doctrine of original guilt in the sense of our responsibility for Adam’s deed of disobedience.
There are indeed some who contend, that we are so lost through Adam’s sin, as though we perished through no fault of our own, but only, because he had sinned for us. But Paul distinctly affirms, that sin extends to all who suffer its punishment: and this he after wards more fully declares, when subsequently he assigns a reason why all the posterity of Adam are subject to the dominion of death; and it is even this—because we have all, he says, sinned. But to sin in this case, is to become corrupt and vicious; for the natural depravity which we bring from our mother’s womb, though it brings not forth immediately its own fruits, is yet sin before God, and deserves his vengeance: and this is that sin which they call original.
Commenting on verse 17, which compares death’s reigning by Adam and our reigning in life by Jesus Christ, Calvin calls attention to a “difference between Christ and Adam”:
By Adam’s sin we are not condemned through imputation alone, as though we were punished only for the sin of another; but we suffer his punishment, because we also ourselves are guilty; for as our nature is vitiated in him, it is regarded by God as having committed sin. But through the righteousness of Christ we are restored in a different way to salvation.
Jeff: Calvin was actually right to identify the two but not on the grounds of a purely legal theory; rather, on the grounds of a legal-relational theory. Calvin’s criticism is not shallowly true, but profoundly true. And that’s the second point. Wright decries imputation (as pure legality), and then ends up re-discovering imputation (as legal-relational). Somehow he misses that Augustine and Calvin had been teaching that all along.”
mcmark quotes David Engelsma:
For Calvin, our sinning in Adam, as taught in Romans 5:12, is strictly that “we are all imbued with natural corruption, and so are become sinful and wicked.” The race becomes guilty for Adam’s transgression only by sharing in Adam’s depraved nature. Adam sinned. The punishment for Adam was, in part, the immediate corruption of his nature. All of Adam’s posterity are held responsible for the corrupted nature. Not sheer legal representation by a covenant head, but involvement in a corporate nature renders the race guilty before God. I am not responsible for Adam’s disobedience of eating the forbidden fruit. But I am responsible for the sinful nature with which God punished Adam for his act of disobedience.
DE: This view of original sin leaves Calvin with a problem. By what right did God inflict the punishment of a corrupt nature on Adam’s posterity? That the corruption of human nature was divine punishment on Adam, Calvin acknowledges. But it was as well punishment of Adam’s posterity. This, Calvin does not like to acknowledge. Rather, he likes to regard the depraved nature only as the guilt of Adam’s posterity. The question that exposes the serious weakness of Calvin’s doctrine here is this: If I am not guilty for Adam’s act of disobedience, with what right does God punish me — not Adam, but me — with a totally depraved nature?
Calvin’s explanation of the origin of the sin of the human race also has an important implication for the headship of Adam. Adam was head of the race, to be sure. But his headship consisted only of his depraving the human nature of which all partake. For Calvin, Adam’s was not the headship of legal representation. Adam did not stand in such a covenantal relation to all men, that, altogether apart from the consequent corrupting of the nature, all are responsible before God for Adam’s act of disobedience.
In view of the apostle’s comparison between Adam and Christ in Romans 5:12ff. (“as by the offence of one … even so by the righteousness of one,” v. 18), Calvin’s explanation of the headship of Adam would mean that Christ’s headship also consists only of His being the source of righteousness to His people by actually infusing it into them. If Adam’s headship was not legal representation, neither is Christ’s headship legal representation. But this destroys the fundamental gospel-truth of justification as the imputation of Christ’s satisfaction of the law.
Calvin recognizes the danger. Therefore, in his commentary on Romans 5:17 Calvin proposes a “difference between Christ and Adam.” “By Adam’s sin we are not condemned through imputation alone,” but “through the righteousness of Christ we are restored in a different way to salvation.”
The trouble is that Paul does not teach such a “difference between Christ and Adam.” Paul rather declares, “as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Rom. 5:18).
If our guilt in Adam is not by imputation of disobedience, neither is our righteousness in Christ by imputation of obedience. This is the theology of Rome, dishonoring the God of grace. It is also the heresy that increasingly finds favor with Protestant theologians.
The “difference between Christ and Adam” that Calvin injects into Romans 5:12ff. does not exist. Verse 18 teaches that the transgression of one man — Adam, according to verse 14 — was the condemnation of all men. In verse 19, the apostle states that the disobedience of the one man rendered many people sinners. The verb translated “made” by the King James Version does not mean “made” in the sense of causing people actually to become sinful. Rather, it means “constituted” in the sense of a legal standing of guilt before God the judge.
The comparison between the two covenant heads of the human race in history consists exactly of this, that both are legal representatives of others, Adam, of the entire human race, Christ only excepted, and Christ, of the new human race of the elect church. Because Adam was covenant (federal) head of the race, his act of disobedience was imputed to the race as their guilt. Because Christ is covenant (federal) head of the elect church, His obedience is imputed to the church as our righteousness.
Though I don’t call myself “conservative” (I like discontinuity) or “Reformed” (one covenant at a time please), I don’t think the NPP guys are Christians.
Michael Bird, in his “progressive Reformed view” (Justification: Five Views, IVP) writes: “For some commentators, Adam’s disobedience is imputed to sinners and then believers have Jesus’ obedience imputed to them for justification…No matter how much people may try, kathistemi does not mean logizomai. The word kathistemi refers to an actual state of affairs and not to transactions. To say that believers will be made righteous is to posit a rectification in both their legal status and in their moral status.” p113
My point is not simply that NPP guys (and folks like Bird who assume NPP and now move on from theire) define justification so it includes transformation. My point is that the NPP argument is based on the rejection of the legal transfer of guilt from Adam to sinners. This debate is not only about the NPP saying that only the status and not the legal record of Christ’s obedience is transferred to the justified elect. The debate is also about penal substitution.
The debate is about a denial that the guilt of the elect was transferred to Christ. Representative “union” will be allowed, but legal “exclusive substitution” is rejected, not only by NT Wright but by all the other NPP folks. And what they call “inclusive substitution” means transformation by ontological participation. So though they claim not to deny anything but give us more, the NPP in reality denies the “alones” .
Mark McC: For Calvin, our sinning in Adam, as taught in Romans 5:12, is strictly that “we are all imbued with natural corruption, and so are become sinful and wicked
I think the word “strictly” needs closer scrutiny here.
For the Confession renders the situation thus: 6.3. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed; and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.
And while the Confession does not always imitate Calvin’s structure of thought and language, it frequently does — so much so that I treat Calvin as a kind of “precommentary” on the Confession.
So without close study, my prior probability on the word ‘strictly’ is that it is probably incorrect.
For myself, I think the parallel between Adam and Christ is exact: The guilt of Adam is imputed to us so that we are legally/relationally in the kingdom of darkness. Further, the sin nature of Adam is infused to us, so that we become ontologically what we are legally.
Likewise, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, so that we are legally/relationally in the kingdom of the Son. Further, the righteousness of Christ is infused into us, so that we become ontologically what we are legally.
Yes, my read of Comm 5.17 is identical to the Confession’s language.
The first is, that by Adam’s sin we are not condemned through imputation alone, as though we were punished only for the sin of another; but we suffer his punishment, because we also ourselves are guilty; for as our nature is vitiated in him, it is regarded by God as having committed sin. But through the righteousness of Christ we are restored in a different way to salvation; for it is not said to be accepted for us, because it is in us, but because we possess Christ himself with all his blessings, as given to us through the bountiful kindness of the Father. Hence the gift of righteousness is not a quality with which God endows us, as some absurdly explain it, but a gratuitous imputation of righteousness; for the Apostle plainly declares what he understood by the word grace.
Adam’s guilt is both imputed and infused. The difference for Calvin (and where I might take issue with him?) is that our guilt is on account of both imputation and infusion; but our righteousness is on the ground of imputation alone.
Jeff, I am not always a John Murray fan, but on this topic, he’s excellent. The imputation of Adam’s Sin. When God gives humanity the corruption, God does that because of imputed guilt. But Calvin denies that—”because we also ourselves are guilty; for as our nature is vitiated in him, it is regarded by God as having committed sin.” You summarise well what Engelsma is saying–”because of infusion and and imputation”, which comes to mean the imputation is because of union with corrupt nature.
I think both Engelsma and Murray show that Calvin is still too “Augustinian” at this point. But at least, to his credit, Calvin (mostly) gets the justification side correct—”for it is not said to be accepted for us, because it is in us, but because we possess Christ himself with all his blessings, ”
On original sin, Calvin’s claim is that we are condemned because of the corrupt nature IN US rather than because of immediate imputation of Adam’s guilt.
So it’s a good thing when Calvin claims the two headships are not alike. Even though (as you agree) the “not alike at this point” isn’t what the Romans 5 text teaches. And of course there is sometimes inconsistency on the justification side as well, when Calvin sees “union by the Spirit” (regeneration in us, eucharistic feeding, as ways we possess Christ) as the condition of imputation.
Jason Stellman (Dual Citizens, Reformation Trust, 2009, p143) “ When Paul wrote that Jesus was born under the law, did he mean that Christ was born under the condemnation of the law?… If under law and under grace are existential categories describing an individual’s condemnation or justification, then Paul’s argument is a non-sequiter. It is not justification but sanctification that frees us from the dominion of the sin.”
mark: Does Christ’s death to sin mean that Christ needed a deliverance from “the old covenant age”? I don’t think so. Christ’s death to sin in Romans 6 means that the law of God demanded death for the sins of the elect imputed to Christ. As long as those sins were imputed to
Christ, He was under sin, he was under law, He was under death. Death has no more power over Christ because those sins are no longer imputed to Him, but have been paid for by His death..
Much is written about “imputation” these days, a lot of it loose language about an exchange brought about by the sinner’s faith. Less is written about the imputation of Adam’s sin. Blocher, for example,
in his book on Original Sin concludes that Adam’s sin only moved the redemptive historical clock forward (bringing in death) so that individual sins could then start to be imputed.
But even LESS is written about the imputation of sins to Christ. I think at least part of the reason for this silence is that most Reformed clergy does not want to talk about whose sins are imputed or
when those sins are imputed. Most Reformed clergy doesn’t want to say anything about imputation that a Lutheran couldn’t say just as well.