We have already considered hymns that don’t square with the thisworldliness of transformationalism, now a few teachings from Christ himself. First, one that you would think would give urbanphiles pause: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on the earth, where rust and the moth consume, where theives break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither rust nor moth consumes, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure shall be, there will also your heart be” (Matt 6:19-21). Here is a paleo-Calvinist interpretation:
This deadly plague reigns everywhere throughout the world. Men are grown mad with an insatiable desire of gain. Christ charges them with folly, in collecting wealth with great care, and then giving up their happiness to moths and to rust, or exposing it as a prey to thieves. What is more unreasonable than to place their property, where it may perish of itself, or be carried off by men? Covetous men, indeed, take no thought of this. They lock up their riches in well-secured chests, but cannot prevent them from being exposed to thieves or to moths. They are blind and destitute of sound judgment, who give themselves so much toil and uneasiness in amassing wealth, which is liable to putrefaction, or robbery, or a thousand other accidents: particularly, when God allows us a place in heaven for laying up a treasure, and kindly invites us to enjoy riches which never perish. . . .
By this statement Christ proves that they are unhappy men who have their treasures laid up on the earth: because their happiness is uncertain and of short duration. Covetous men cannot be prevented from breathing in their hearts a wish for heaven: but Christ lays down an opposite principle, that, wherever men imagine the greatest happiness to be, there they are surrounded and confined. Hence it follows, that they who desire to be happy in the world renounce heaven. We know how carefully the philosophers conducted their inquiries respecting the supreme good. It was the chief point on which they bestowed their labor, and justly: for it is the principle on which the regulation of our life entirely depends, and the object to which all our senses are directed. If honor is reckoned the supreme good, the minds of men must be wholly occupied with ambition: if money, covetousness will immediately predominate: if pleasure, it will be impossible to prevent men from sinking into brutal indulgence. We have all a natural desire to pursue happiness; and the consequence is, that false imaginations carry us away in every direction. But if we were honestly and firmly convinced that our happiness is in heaven, it would be easy for us to trample upon the world, to despise earthly blessings, (by the deceitful attractions of which the greater part of men are fascinated,) and to rise towards heaven.
Can anyone say with a straight face that cities are places known for men avoiding wealth, people restraining ambition, or residents sublimating pleasure? Of course, the desirability of wealth and pleasure also afflicts suburbanites and farmers. But in cities, wealth, ambition, and pleasure are the way of life. They are what make cities great. Wouldn’t redeeming the city mean not celebrating its accomplishments but warning people about its dangers?
And when it comes to the debate over continuity between this world and the world to come, how does a neo-Calvinist read Jesus’ words and continue to think that the life to come will be a lot like life in this world? If that were so, if the new heavens and earth will be similar to the old version, why does Calvin instruct us to “despise earthly blessings”? Could it be that Bach, Cezanne, and Shakespeare do not even compare with heavenly blessings?
And then we have Matt 10:39: “He who findeth his life shall lose it; and he who loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” About which Calvin writes:
[Christ] affirms that persons of excessive caution and foresight, when they look upon themselves as having very well defended their life, will be disappointed and will lose it; and, on the other hand, that those who disregard their life will sustain no loss, for they will recover it. We know that there is nothing which men will not do or leave undone for the sake of life, (so powerful is that attachment to it which is natural to us all;) and, therefore, it was necessary that Christ should employ such promises and threatenings in exciting his followers to despise death.
To find the life means here to possess it, or to have it in safe keeping. Those who are excessively desirous of an earthly life, take pains to guard themselves against every kind of danger, and flatter themselves with unfounded confidence, as if they were looking well to themselves, (Psalm 49:18:) but their life, though defended by such powerful safeguards, will pass away; for they will at last die, and death will bring to them everlasting ruin. On the other hand, when believers surrender themselves to die, their soul, which appears to vanish in a moment, passes into a better life. Yet as persons are sometimes found, who heedlessly lay down their life, either for the sake of ambition or of madness, Christ expressly states the reason why we ought to expose ourselves to death.
I guess it is possible that someone can try to convince himself that he is losing his life by having it all, or that he is really pursuing eternal life by studying philosophy, going to a good restaurant, or living on the Upper West Side. But that would make him an adherent of the prosperity gospel.
Old Life 
Simple yet devastating verses to the transformationalist cause. I’m also thinking of Colossians 3 where we are told to set our affections on things above as opposed to “earthly things”. Furthermore, if the apostles were transformationalists, why would Paul have to correct the Thessalonians who were quitting work in the light of Christ’s return? If apostolic teaching was radically transformational, there would have been no temptation to quit work; empire building would have been the problem.
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1 Corinthians 1:25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
“We ought to expose ourselves to death.”
Doesn’t Calvin know that this is tempting God, like asking the angels to save you after you jump off a building? Why sit on your hands, when you could have a gun and expose the other guy to death first? Only a parasite would expose their wife and children death to death, when they could join non-Christians in the strength of that other second secular kingdom.
2 Corinthians 11:30 I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:5 I will not boast except of my weaknesses.
2 Corinthians 12:9 I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses
2 Corinthians 13:4 For we are weak in Christ
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Darryl, I thought of this:
Colossians 3:1-4, as one of the previous commentators noted, is fairly important in this whole discussion. Surely Christ’s hiddenness, together with our own hiddenness in him, has fairly wide-reaching implications for the suggestion that His pre-eminence must equate to contemporary prominence?
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Chris,
Word.
Colossians 3:1-4
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I’m with you, Mark. Together, we were slaughtered by the Lutherman01 in the 2014 OL NCAA tourney. I’d have taken the cup had this mysterious creature not come along and expose my ignorance of sports..
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Lutherman 01, well done,
good and faithful servant(you guessed it – insert emoticon).LikeLike
I have been meditating recently on some of the commendations to “A Secular Faith”, a book which I am much enjoying. One of these presents DGH as “America’s latter-day Roger Williams.” Much deserved praise, and great that a baptist is invoked as master-minding the narrative that has become the salvation of the Reformed … Williams, I mean.
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Roger?
Interesting correlation. I think the man prefers allusions to The Dude, though.
I’m done.
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cg, beware the triumphalism. Especially unbecoming among Baptists.
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This is tricky, but Christians can be sure our work matters to God and will be a part of our heavenly experience. Further, pure dualism influenced by enlightenment rationalism, or perhaps just a logic chopping rationalism, fails because our creations do not occupy a purely physical space, but as for example, books, paintings and art, they occupy that space the puritans recognized as bordering the physical and spiritual. The very word of God which is a physical manifestation of a spiritual reality points us to the fact that physical creations have a moral quality. Moreover, our creations can be good.
I think the verse regarding storing up your treasure in heaven can be interpreted from a neo-calvinist, or just plain calvinist perspective to show that God cares about our creations/deeds in this world for three reasons. First, Calvin himself says these verses are about placing ultimate moral value into heaven and don’t in anyway devalue the good things which God has given us to enjoy on earth: “Christ charges them with folly, in collecting wealth with great care, and then giving up their happiness to moths and to rust, or exposing it as a prey to thieves” Second in light of other verses indicating that our deeds will follow us past the waking life, a robust interpretation of this verse means that because of sin, we should not put our ultimate hope in material possessions. Lastly and most importantly neo-calvinists no where argue that our final hope should be in any material creation, but that by God’s grace these creations will be part of our experience in Heaven. Our creations here, are part of worshiping God, 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, ‘Whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.’ As Bob Dylan penned many years ago, everyone’s gotta serve somebody, and we can be sure that no effort of God’s people, even in their daily callings will be wasted as we earnestly seek to live out the Lord’s prayer wishing that God’s kingdom come.
The primary pitfall in your position is that you fail to recognize the tension we feel in this world, that God is making all things new and that “change and decay” are in all that we see. This conundrum is at the heart of good literature (Great Gatsby, All the King’s Men, etc). The point is that Christians are called to aid in making all things new, because our spirituality is tied to our physical actions (not in a monist type of way), despite the presence of sin by the power of the Spirit.
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John,
Where in the NT does it say that God is NOW making all things new, and that Christians are to take part in that?
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Chris,
But God is making all things new. You can see it if you ignore the death, decay,dust, rust, mold, & mildew. See, good as new.
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In the immortal words of Bernadette Peters, it’s not giving up all the money, it’s giving up all the stuffff…
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Well, he allows for the death and decay as part of his claim and admits to some irony; I want to know where the claim is made at all in the first place. I want to see the exegesis.
For that matter, taking I Cor 10:31 in its context of Christian Freedom would also be a rare, and welcome gesture, in these discussions.
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I just ordered the Kindle edition of “A Secular Faith”. The negative reviews on Amazon were decisive, a first time experience.
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But don’t forget Luke 14 where the cost of discipleship is a more sober take on the highest temporal goods and institutions of life (hate it) and family (leave it). Also not useful for certain parts of cultural concerns, influence and take over.
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“Well, he allows for the death and decay as part of his claim and admits to some irony”
Joel Osteen/Robert Schuller light.
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Here’s Piper on Babylon:
http://www.desiringgod.org/sermons/the-pride-of-babel-and-the-praise-of-christ
I remember listening to that sermon years ago and find it interesting the unabashed endorsement of cities given the fairly straightforward teaching in scripture about cities. I don’t know if I have heard Piper issue the kind of endorsement that the other New Calvinists have for the city, but some simple exegesis shows the antithesis that Christianity has towards the earthly city.
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I Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, new creation! The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
Galatians 6:15 “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but new creation.”
When we consider the “new creation” in these two texts, we need to first think about legal justification, and not about regeneration?Where does the Bible talk about the new creation being an “union” or a “new nature”? The “ one new man” has to do with a change in legal state.
II Corinthians 5:14 “one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live would no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sakes died and was raised. From now on, we regard no one according to the flesh”.
“Those who live” means first of all those who are justified. The category of “we died” is not about a change of substance or nature but about an imputed legal reality. The new creation is not about a gradual process of transformation. There is a legal either or—- before and after God’s imputation of what God did in Christ in His death and resurrection.
Only for those now in Christ legally has the old has passed. For some of the elect, God has already declared the legal verdict. One day, at the resurrection, there will be visible evidence of that verdict.
Carol Hoch Jr—The background of the “new creation language is Isaiah 43:16-21, Is 65:17, and Is 66:22…Should “he is” be supplied in II Cor 5:17a? No–if any person is in Christ, new creation. To insert “he is” in 5:17 wrongly narrows the scope of the new creation to an individual. , p 161, The Significance of Newness for Biblical Theology: All Things New, Baker, 1995
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Jacques Ellul (not a baptist) —-The city for Cain is a material sign of his security. He is responsible for himself and for his life. He is far from the Lord’s face, and so he will shift for himself. The City is the direct consequence of his refusal to accept God’s protection. Cain has built a City. For God’s Eden he substitutes his own, for the goal given to his life by God, he substitutes a goal chosen by himself — just as he substituted his own security for God’s.
http://vftonline.org/VFTINC/cp/append_B.htm
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So I take it that Old Lifers tend toward a- in the millenial department rather than post-.
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Nate,
Good observation.
Perhaps Brother Piper needs to repent and relocate from the Twin Cities to the Twin Rural Areas.
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d-x, ding, the eschatology of the Creed. And posties think of the Ecclesiastes what Luther said of James–book of straw.
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7. In short, God’s gifts of life, time, talent, possessions, skills are realized as blessings when used to sustain us in our callings, and to support the needy in their callings, and to get justice done among men to the fullest extent of our ability and power. But these gifts become a curse when exclusively ab-used for our own selfish designs.
Excerpt from: God’s Yardstick page 47 by Berghoef/DeKoster
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John, you may have a point, but to start off by dismissing dualism as enlightenment rationalism hardly does justice to Christ’s words or to Calvin, both of whom I believe preceded the so-called enlightenment.
Then it does not seem that you do justice to biblical teaching that we are wasting away — or to the texts cited here. Instead, you seem to see in the Bible what you want to see.
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Dan, negative reviews?!? Not from New Horizons.
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Romans 8:19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
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Darryl’s right. No need to read anything else once New Horizons has spoken.
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I wish transformationalists would explain exactly what it means to renew and burn up the dross in earthly music, art, or literature.
Does the 5th shift to a major key?
Does Jack live while Rose keeps her clothes on?
Does David get a fig leaf, bigger biceps, or take up Tebowing?
How many changes can you make to art and leave it as the same work, or even guarantee it’s recognizable?
What about the saints in Heaven who were from a completely different culture or time? Is Moses stuck listening to the Well-Tempered Clavier for all eternity? What did he listen to before that?
And why is it always the creative works? How is the Christian plumber’s work transformed? Are the pipes always pristine, with seals that never fail and contents sweeter than earthly perfume?
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DGH, don’t know if you have looked at the Amazon page, several of the reviews left there would pretty much summarize how I would imagine the BB’s would react. Anne Rice liked it, though.
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from the review of dgh by neoCalvinist James Bratt-
Strict definition makes for clear ecclesiology but also for a whole lot more ecclesiae to consider. As -the Scots Presbyterians especially show, the fight for confessional principle offers fertile ground for the narcissism of small differences….This book is an antipolitical political history… in that any concerted venture by believers into the public domain is deemed to entail dreams of reestablishing hegemony in society and to be a threat to the integrity of the church….. But there are any number of intermediate locations between quietism and establishmentarianism,
http://www.christiancentury.org/reviews/2014-03/reformed-and-antimodern
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dv4, yes we are probably all a-mills (and exceptions always prove the rule)
burn baby burn
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Darryl‘s legacy is pretty much sealed (to the BB’s chagrin). He’s not infallible. But the dude rocks..
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Wouldn’t these verses also cause to pause those who hold up worldly things as things to be celebrated and as fundamental rights of the Christian life- such as tobacco or alcohol; and to view worldly things as of spiritual value? Or is it only transformationalists who are to be criticised for their love of worldly things? And maybe I’m wrong: but don’t the transformationalists understand that there is something wrong with the world- and that’s why they seek to change it? Whereas I can think of those who seem to think the world’s just fine and dandy…
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At least there is some comfort in that we assume that neo-Calvinists care what Scripture says.
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Zrim- Where do the Westminster standards teach amillenialism? I can’t find it. Q.192 of the LC seems rather “postie” to me though. Also, what problem do “posties” have with Ecclesiastes?
Also, aren’t most classical Reformed theologians Postmillenialist?
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The world that WW I left behind ended leaps of optimism on eternal progress and ever increasing future happiness.
An Act of God’s Providence could make this world into a post-mill kingdom, I have faith to hold out that possibility. I also have to admit that even the wildest dispensational pre-mill theory can be tweaked out of Scripture.
To see others go around bragging that they will force this Kingdom into existence by their works and to berate others for not jumping on board is painful to watch.
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Kent-“To see others go around bragging that they will force this Kingdom into existence by their works and to berate others for not jumping on board is painful to watch.”
Since the transformationalists have no clue as to how social, political and cultural change really happens, I find humor in their efforts. If you haven’t read it, James Davison Hunter’s ” To change the World” might ease your pain.
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Alexander, maybe there are two kinds of worldliness, one that affirms creation as very good (while also grasping its temporal nature) and another that gives undue favor to things seen and temporal (and is a practical denial of creation’s very goodness by calling for its transformation).
My point was about the amil tendency of old lifers, not what brand of eschatology the confessions favor, though Belgic 37 seems pretty amill-ish. Postmillenialism has a sunny outlook that doesn’t seem to know what to do with that of Ecclesiastes’ more realistic and amil notion that what has been will be again, what has been done will be done again, and there is nothing new under the sun.
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Dan, 100 dings to you and 1000 to Hunter.
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Zrim, restrain your enthusiasm. I do worry about the transformationalists impact on our churches, though I trust Jesus to work it all out.
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Dan, I prefer to curb it. (But don’t tell Alexander.)
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Mike K.,
Well done.
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Alexander – Wouldn’t these verses also cause to pause those who hold up worldly things as things to be celebrated and as fundamental rights of the Christian life- such as tobacco or alcohol; and to view worldly things as of spiritual value?
Erik – No, worldly things are of worldly value. We do live in the world in our physical bodies. Might as well make the best of it within reasonable limits.
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“….undamental rights of the Christian life”
Demanding rights is an antinomian position.
Then again, the most rock-and-pig headed of anti-2K posters accuse us of being that as well.
Makes for a good laugh.
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I just want to say that all y’all seem to have scared John away. I really wanted him to look at his Bible and look for where it said that God is making all things new NOW. The only time that phrase shows up is Revelation 21, which last I checked, is spoken in the new heavens and earth. Oh well, it might have been a drive by, anyway. But I need to blame someone for him not answering, so that is all y’all.
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One of the beauties of being in a reformed church with good eccelsiology and biblical elders and deacons is that you don’t have to worry so much about this life (knowing that your local church is there to help care for you) and you can focus on the life to come (since you’re not having the impossible demands of world/urban/community transformation placed on your heart, mind, schedule, and conscience). And it’s cool if those biblical elders are not beating you about the head and shoulders with legalism, too.
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all y’all. That’s what I’m sayin’.
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Erik-
So, what is the value of inhaling smoke into your lungs and digesting tar?
So what you’re saying is we should eat and drink because tomorrow we die?
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Zrim-
I asked about the Confession because you said amil was the position of the Creed. Does your church subscribe the Belgic Confession?
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Alexander, any 16th century protestant creeds which mention the millennium explicitly repudiate it; the 17th century creeds tend to ignore the issue, though there are glimpses of a non-millennial latter-day glory motif in eg the Directory for Public Worship and the Savoy Declaration.
What is interesting is that the silence of the Westminster Confession as to the possibility of a millennium doesn’t reflect the exuberant latter-day glory hopes of some of the Independents and the Scots Commissioners at the Assembly, who were strongly represented on the cttee that put together the Directory and were the most optimistic of the divines. But their enthusiasm came out in odd ways – George Gillespie and Thomas Goodwin both went so far as to calculate dates for eschatological events.
Individual puritans held to a wide variety of millennial positions. Hardly any puritans were anti-millennial or amillennial. Most held to premillennial or postmillennial positions, though rarely offering systems similar to those we would recognise by those titles today. Some puritans held to three advents of Christ. Others argued that Rev 20 referred to two periods of 1000 years, rather than one.
So lots of individual variety, but, generally speaking, a prudent confessional silence.
Lots of good info here.
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Since we don’t want to die, and WILL NOT in this life…God does it for us.
In Baptism He puts us to death. Romans 6.
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Alexander, yes, it does. The eschatology of the Creed is that Jesus came, ascended into heaven, and is coming again. Simple. That’s amil.
ps what you ask about tobacco could also be asked of wine (with all it’s alleged nastiness). And the answer from the Bible is that the value is a glad heart. See, old lifers have affections.
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I’m grateful for our P&R brethren over in Scotland and Ireland and No. Ireland who seem to be living in the 1600s, or at least do a great job faking that they are.
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Alexander –
So, what is the value of inhaling smoke into your lungs and digesting tar?
So what you’re saying is we should eat and drink because tomorrow we die?
Erik – I’m not a smoker so you’ll have to ask someone who is.
No, I’m saying you need to loosen up and stop being such an unnecessary pain.
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“George Gillespie and Thomas Goodwin both went so far as to calculate dates for eschatological events.”
Always a prudent move by a pastor, right up there with saying God is going to call them home if a certain amount of money isn’t raised.
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What were the escatological events they calculated, the day that they officially lost their marbles?
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Kent, George Gillespie preached that the calling of the Westminster Assembly coincided with the end of the Beast’s reign, and Thomas Goodwin preached that the Jews would be converted by 1656, the papacy defeated by 1666, and the millennium begun by 1700. Lots of other of these kinds of examples too.
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Thanks cg, wish they were concerned with nothing but Christ cricified
Worship of the divines is rampant in the blogs and posts of too many today
They had no special stranglehold on righteousness
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McMark, I like that, “political antipolitical history.”
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kent, that’s why they call it the old world. I guess that makes us neo-Old Lifers.
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DGH, it is hard to exhaustively define what OL is, but I know what it does to help in my struggle to conform to the image of Jesus Christ
And I sure know what skeeves me that goes on in His name when a church strives to keep up with the world’s demands for entertainment and coolness and ignores the delivery of the simple but vital means of grace for a believer
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Sorry, Darryl, but this transformationalism ax you continue to grind doesn’t square at all with the original intent of the reformation. In fact, it recalls some of the abuses of the Roman Catholic church – separation of the clergy/ministerial calling from the callings of the laity. Of course there is some silliness and lack of discernment within the engaging culture movement. But there’s a lot more that scares me about the old life position.
I agree with David Bahnsen: “A message that pretends that God is not interested in our achievements, our careers, and our material prosperity is devoid of Biblical basis. Pointing out that God doesn’t NEED our careers to accomplish his ends is a worthless point; He doesn’t NEED heart surgery to heal a sick patient either but we don’t spend time bemoaning the evils of modern medicine. God has certainly planned to use our careers and good endeavors for His purposes, and to pietistically suggest that these things are peripheral to the “really important stuff” is offensive to any decent theology of Kingdom living.”
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Jay, you’re scared by an emphasis on means of grace ministry, simple worship, and biblically-bounded church activities.What else scares you? Mice? Vacuum cleaners?
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Another disciple of Bahnsen… nah… that’s too easy a target…
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chortles: ingrown toe nails and ankle biters.
kent: nope, different bahnsen.
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Cue the R.C. Sproul, Jr. followers…
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Jay, Mr. Leadership, you, why doesn’t a religion that makes up what God is interested scare you?
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Stan is the only Bahnsen whom I have respect for.
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“this transformationalism ax you continue to grind doesn’t square at all with the original intent of the reformation.”
Great, Jay is going to single-handedly plunge Presbyterians into a dark age of discussions involving what the original intent of the Reformation was so we can authoritatively apply it to current Presbyterianism. Then others will propose a living, breathing Reformation while others will find intent in the penumbra of the Reformation.
I like using “penumbra.”
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Penumbra. I’m stealing that. And it’s a multi-use. A penumbra of words prevented understanding and tipped him off that it was BS.
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Kent, muddy-
I’m sorry, I thought our churches all subscribed documents written in the 1600s as binding ecclesiastical constitutions?
Erik-
Which commandment is “loosen up” again? And does it come before or after “chill out” and “be cool”?
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