Author: D. G. Hart

Where's Waldo Wednesday

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Chapter 13 – Of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of the Promises, and of the Spirit and Letter

The Ancients Had Evangelical Promises. The Gospel, is indeed, opposed to the law. For the law works wrath and announces a curse, whereas the Gospel preaches grace and blessing. John says: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). Yet not withstanding it is most certain that those who were before the law and under the law, were not altogether destitute of the Gospel. For they had extraordinary evangelical promises such as these are: “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head” (Gen. 3:15). “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 22:18). “The scepter shall not depart from Judah . . . until he comes” (Gen. 49:10). “The Lord will raise up a prophet from among his own brethren” (Deut. 18:15; Acts 3:22), etc.

The Promises Twofold. And we acknowledge that two kinds of promises were revealed to the fathers, as also to us. For some were of present or earthly things, such as the promises of the Land of Canaan and of victories, and as the promise today still of daily bread. Others were then and are still now of heavenly and eternal things, namely, divine grace, remission of sins, and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.

The Fathers Also Had Not Only Carnal but Spiritual Promises. Moreover, the ancients had not only external and earthly but also spiritual and heavenly promises in Christ. Peter says: “The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired about this salvation” (1 Peter 1:10). Wherefore the apostle Paul also said: “The Gospel of God was promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures” (Rom. 1:2). Thereby it is clear that the ancients were not entirely destitute of the whole Gospel.

What Is the Gospel Properly Speaking? And although our fathers had the Gospel in this way in the writings of the prophets by which they attained salvation in Christ through faith, yet the Gospel is properly called glad and joyous news, in which, first by John the Baptist, then by Christ the Lord himself, and afterwards by the apostles and their successors, is preached to us in the world that God has now performed what he promised from the beginning of the world, and has sent, nay more, has given us his only Son and in him reconciliation with the Father, the remission of sins, all fullness and everlasting life. Therefore, the history delineated by the four Evangelists and explaining how these things were done or fulfilled by Christ, what things Christ taught and did, and that those who believe in him have all fullness, is rightly called the Gospel. The preaching and writings of the apostles, in which the apostles explain for us how the Son was given to us by the Father, and in him everything that has to do with life and salvation, is also rightly called evangelical doctrine, so that not even today, if sincerely preached, does it lose its illustrious title.

Of the Spirit and the Letter. That same preaching of the Gospel is also called by the apostle “the spirit” and “the ministry of the spirit” because by faith it becomes effectual and living in the ears, nay more, in the hearts of believers through the illumination of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 3:6). For the letter, which is opposed to the Spirit, signifies everything external, but especially the doctrine of the law which, without the Spirit and faith, works wrath and provokes sin in the minds of those who do not have a living faith. For this reason the apostle calls it “the ministry of death.” In this connection the saying of the apostle is pertinent: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” And false apostles preached a corrupted Gospel, having combined it with the law, as if Christ could not save without the law. (Second Helvetic Confession)

Machen and the Crisis of Western Civilization

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Darryl G. Hart speaks about Machen’s experience through World War I.  This is part three of a series on Machen taught at Calvary OPC in Glenside, PA.

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This and That's Big Adventure

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For those who may be wondering why N.T. Wright is speaking at the church of one of the founders of the Gospel Coalition – as in justification by faith alone coalition – Justin Taylor may have a clue. Here is a quotation from a piece in Christianity Today from 2008 on Keller and the gospel:

Tim Keller and his Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City fall somewhere between Wright and Dever. Writing for Leadership [JT: , Keller answered this year’s question for the Christian Vision Project, “Is our gospel too small?” (The article is not yet available online.) In so doing he took a stab at defining the gospel. “Through the person and work of Jesus Christ, God fully accomplishes salvation for us, rescuing us from the judgment for sin into fellowship with him, and then restores the creation in which we can enjoy our new life together with him forever.”

It’s the last clause of this sentence that makes the difference. Is God’s plan to renew creation part of the gospel message? If so, is it the center of the gospel or a peripheral component of the Good News? Again, how you answer these questions affects how you will live, and how you will expect fellow church members to act.

“When the third, ‘eschatological’ element is left out, Christians get the impression that nothing much about this world matters,” Keller wrote. “Theoretically, grasping the full outline should make Christians interested in both evangelistic conversions as well as service to our neighbor and working for peace and justice in the world.”

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Doug Wilson is sounding more and more like Mark Horne.

So, saving faith yields, trembles, and embraces. It yields obedience, it trembles at threats, and it embraces promises. But its principal acts are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification. These are indeed its principal acts, but saving faith does other things. It hunts down the red law passages and yields obedience to them. It comes across passages which threaten divine displeasure, and saving faith trembles at these red law passages also. But what is saving faith doing responding to the law passages at all? Don’t the law passages just beat you up? No — in the broader context they are part of God’s saving intention for us. They are gospel. They are totus lex, part of the covenant of grace.

Then what do you do with Paul’s assertion that “the law is not of faith”? Or what do you do with the Protestant protest against Rome that we are saved not by works but by faith?

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Apparently Craig Higgins, who pastors one of the congregations in the Redeemer New York network of Redeemer-like churches in the New York vicinity, is still a Presbyterian. Will N. T. Wright tempt him to become an English Christian?

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If abortion is an abomination, why isn’t this blasphemy?

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Forensic Friday: Calvin on Faith and Repentance

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Even though we have taught in part how faith possesses Christ, and how through it we enjoy his benefits, this would still remain obscure if we did not add an explanation of the effects we feel. With good reason, the sum of the gospel is held to consist in repentance and forgiveness of sins [Luke 24:47; Acts 5:31]. Any discussion of faith, therefore, that omitted these two topics would be barren and mutilated and well-nigh useless. . . . For when this topic is rightly understood it will better appear how man is justified by faith alone, and simple pardon; nevertheless actual holiness of life, so to speak, is not separated from free imputation of righteousness. Now it ought to be a fact beyond controversy that repentance not only constantly follows faith, but is also born of faith. For since pardon and forgiveness are offered through the preaching of the gospel in order that the sinner, freed from the tyranny of Satan, the yoke of sin, and the miserable bondage of vices, may cross over into the Kingdom of God, surely no one can embrace the grace of the gospel without breaking himself from the errors of his past life into the right way, and applying his whole effort to the practice of repentance. There are some, however, who suppose that repentance precedes faith, rather than flows from it, or is produced by it as fruit from a tree. Such persons have never known the power of repentance, and are moved to feel this way by an unduly slight argument. (Institutes, III.3.1)

Church Cemeteries Make Sense

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I got lost on the way out of a cemetery in Bucks County, Pa. yesterday. This was slightly embarrassing since I was escorting relatives from out of town who were completely unfamiliar with the local roads. I knew the roads. My problem was getting out on to the road.

Like many “memorial” parks, this one had roads that go in circles. Its sweeping access lanes are supposed to mingle with the greenery to create a pastoral feeling. Never mind that you are in a machine using fossil fuels to negotiate this “green” space. These sorts of burial grounds arose as alternatives to church cemeteries both to accommodate non-believes and to emphasize death as a wholesome form of rest, one not necessarily connected to church teaching about the fall, sin, death, and the resurrection.

These “secular” cemeteries were also designed to be more user friendly in that they functioned as parks where not only survivors of loved ones would go to continue to pay their respects on anniversaries and holidays but even those unrelated to the deceased might go to enjoy the scenery.

What any observer of urban history knows, though, is that grids function much better than cow paths when designing a city. William Penn’s original plan for Philadelphia, with streets running East and West between the Delaware and Schukyl rivers, and others running perpendicularly North and South between South and Vine Streets, made the city much easier for pedestrians, developers, and even drivers. Compared to Boston or New York which as villages relied on existing Native American and livestock trails, Philadelphia was a real city.

Church cemeteries (as well as military) tend to follow Penn’s ideas about arranging space – rows, grids, symmetry. They are more efficient by providing more space for bodies and they accommodate more visitors in search of loved ones.

Ironically, memorial parks tend to follow the patterns of suburban developers like William Levitt, who bequeathed to us Levittown. His subsections with pastoral names like Stonybrook, or Farmbrook, or Holly Hill, also included circular drives that surrounded winding streets to give, apparently, the featureless design of his homes a natural and inviting feel. What he didn’t account for was how many of the new residents in Levittown would get lost, like I did yesterday, because of curving lanes and cookie cutter facades.

Where's Waldo (a Day After) Wednesday

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The office of the Holy Ghost is to produce sanctification in the people of God. This he performs immediately from the Father and the Son. It is for this reason that he is called the Spirit of holiness. The office of the Holy Ghost may be said to embrace the following things: to instruct, to regenerate, to unite to Christ and God, to rule, to comfort and strengthen.

1. The Holy Ghost enlightens and teaches us that we may know those things which we ought, and correctly understand them according to the promise of Christ . . . .

2. The Holy Spirit regenerates us, when he creates in our hearts new feelings, desires and inclinations, or effects in us faith and repentance. . . .

3. He unites us to Christ, that we may be his members and be quickened by him, and so be made partakers of all his benefits. . . .

4. He rules us. To be ruled by the Holy Spirit is to be guided and directed by him in all our actions, to be inclined to follow that which is right and good, and to do those things which love to God and our neighbor require, which comprehends all the christian virtues of the first and second table. . . .

5. The Holy Ghost comforts us in our dangers and afflictions. . . .

6. The Holy Ghost strengthens and establishes us when weak and wavering in our faith, and assures us of our salvation, or what is the same thing, he continues and preserves in us the benefits of Christ even unto the end. . . . (Zacharias Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, “Lord’s Day Twenty, Of God, the Holy Ghost,” pp. 277-78)

What Prepared Machen to Fight?

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Darryl G. Hart continues his course on J. Gresham Machen at Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Glenside, PA.  Hart explore several key aspects to Machen’s family and early life.

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The Bible and the Politics of Sex

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Discussions about the relative value of special (i.e. the Bible) or general revelation (e.g. natural law) for politics and society often bog down on the politics of sex. What about abortion? It is a heinous practice that cannot be outlawed on as flimsy a basis as natural law or private conscience. What about gay marriage? The Greeks were pretty good at natural law sorts of arguments but not necessarily reliable on same-sex relationships. Or what about women in the military? (I actually think nature is far more instructive here than God’s word, having seen some of the tortured reasoning from Presbyterian communions on women serving in the military.) The idea that most Americans will rally around an argument from general revelation to ban women from the armed services seems far fetched.

And of course beyond whether or not natural law will be more effective than Scripture in public debate is the issue of what’s right. If God requires certain kinds of holiness from his people, and believers are implicated in a host of immoral activities by virtue of their citizenship and taxes at work, then shouldn’t Christians object to laws and policies on the clear grounds of the Bible?

The problem for sufficiency-of-Scripture advocates, though, is that government these days involves a lot more than sex. After all, the president’s health care legislation is more than 1,000 pages. I haven’t seen it. I know many believers are concerned about the potential for government-funded abortion. But can this piece of legislation simply be boiled down to pro-life implications? At stake are questions about the power of the federal government, the private sectors of medical insurers, drug companies, the livelihoods of physicians, and even public health. In other words, I’d bet that 99 percent of the document involves matters that Scripture won’t resolve. And yet, Christians only seem to react to those aspects of law that pertain to abortion while insisting that the Bible is the standard for public life.

An article in the New Republic recently about copyright laws and Google’s attempts to make all books available on line illustrates the weak link in the Bible only argument. The author, Laurence Lessig, starts with the case of Grace Guggenheim, the daughter of a successful documentary film maker who wanted to reproduce digitally all the films made by her father. But Guggenheim could not complete the task. Lessig explains:

Her project faced two challenges, one obvious, one not. The obvious challenge was technical: gathering fifty years of film and restoring it digitally. The non-obvious challenge was legal: clearing the rights to move this creative work onto this new platform for distribution. Most people might be puzzled about just why there would be any legal issue with a child restoring her father’s life’s work. After all, when we decide to repaint our grandfather’s old desk, or sell it to a neighbor, or use it as a workbench or a kitchen table, no one thinks to call a lawyer first. But the property that Grace Guggenheim curates is of a special kind. It is protected by copyright law.

Documentaries in particular are property of a special kind. The copyright and contract claims that burden these compilations of creativity are impossibly complex. The reason is not hard to see. A part of it is the ordinary complexity of copyright in any film. A film is made up of many different creative elements–music, plot, characters, images, and so on. Once the film is made, any effort at remaking it–moving it to DVD, for example–could require clearing permissions for each of these original elements. But documentaries add another layer of complexity to this already healthy thicket, as they typically also include quotations, in the sense of film clips. So just as a book about Franklin Delano Roosevelt by Jonathan Alter might have quotes from famous people talking about its subject, a film about civil rights produced in the 1960s would include quotations–clips from news stations–from famous people of the time talking about the issue of the day. Unlike a book, however, these quotations are in film–typically, news footage from CBS or NBC.

The point of Lessig’s example is that reproducing documentaries becomes impossible because of the fees necessary to secure permission (again) to use footage contained in the original product. For instance, one documentary on the Civil Rights movement, considered the most complete visual chronicle of the events, will never be seen again because the original permissions have expired and the company that made the film no longer exists.

Lessig goes on to raise questions about the recent settlement of Google’s plans to reproduce books on-line. He believes that a similar set of hurdles has entered the realm of books that once only applied to other media. He concludes:

I have no clear view. I only know that the two extremes that are before us would, each of them, if operating alone, be awful for our culture. The one extreme, pushed by copyright abolitionists, that forces free access on every form of culture, would shrink the range and the diversity of culture. I am against abolitionism. And I see no reason to support the other extreme either–pushed by the content industry–that seeks to license every single use of culture, in whatever context. That extreme would radically shrink access to our past.

Instead we need an approach that recognizes the errors in both extremes, and that crafts the balance that any culture needs: incentives to support a diverse range of creativity, with an assurance that the creativity inspired remains for generations to access and understand. This may be too much to ask. The idea of balanced public policy in this area will strike many as oxymoronic. It is thus no wonder, perhaps, that the likes of Google sought progress not through better legislation, but through a clever kludge, enabled by genius technologists. But this is too important a matter to be left to private enterprises and private deals. Private deals and outdated law are what got us into this mess. Whether or not a sensible public policy is possible, it is urgently needed.

This is a long article, well worth reading for those interested in law and the future of the book. And this post hardly does justice either to the article or issues involved. But the article does illustrate a point: most of what magistrates do pertains to matters far removed from the clear moral teaching of Scripture about sex and marriage. So if some are going to fault natural law for not performing a slam dunk on the hot button topics of the culture wars (abortion and gay marriage), when will those advocates of a biblical approach to politics admit that Scripture won’t resolve important questions like this one about the copyright of words and images?

Forensic Friday: Antinomianism, False and True

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One of the more arresting claims in recent theological discussions is that an emphasis on the forensic nature of justification can nurture antinomianism. This claim looks amazingly unreal given the traction that various forms of transformationalism have among conservative Reformed Protestants – from Doug Wilson’s defense of Constantinianism, the Baylys’ war with Reformed “pacifists” in the culture wars, to Tim Keller’s conception of word and deed ministry. If anything, the conservative Reformed world is awash with various expressions of neo-nomianism and legalism – not antinomianism.

What is even more amazing is that the concern with antinomianism would ever classify Lutheranism as a wing of Christianity that disregards the law. In point of fact, the real antinomians around the time of the Westminster Assembly were not Lutherans but Quakers. I know conservative Presbyterians (myself included) don’t get out much. But it is important to remember sometimes the wider setting in which the Reformed faith has grown. The people who believed they had the Spirit so truly – in Luther’s words, swallowing the Holy Ghost “feathers and all” – were not his followers in Germany but on the radical fringes of the Puritan movement.

For this reason, it may be useful to remember what Lutherans actually profess about good works and their importance for the Christian life, and compare those teachings with the musing of the Quakers.

How One is Justified before God, and of Good Works.

What I have hitherto and constantly taught concerning this I know not how to change in the least, namely, that by faith, as St. Peter says, we acquire a new and clean heart, and God will and does account us entirely righteous and holy for the sake of Christ, our Mediator. And although sin in the flesh has not yet been altogether removed or become dead, yet He will not punish or remember it.

And such faith, renewal, and forgiveness of sins is followed by good works. And what there is still sinful or imperfect also in them shall not be accounted as sin or defect, even [and that, too] for Christ’s sake; but the entire man, both as to his person and his works, is to be called and to be righteous and holy from pure grace and mercy, shed upon us [unfolded] and spread over us in Christ. Therefore we cannot boast of many merits and works, if they are viewed apart from grace and mercy, but as it is written, 1 Cor. 1:31: He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord, namely, that he has a gracious God. For thus all is well. We say, besides, that if good works do not follow, faith is false and not true. (Smalcald Articles, XIII [1537])

And now for something completely different. This is from the 1655 letter of John Lilburn, a Quaker, held captive in England for the better part of a decade for his religious convictions and their legal and political implications.

. . . the contrariety is so great between the foresaid two Kings and Masters, that whatsoever in the King, or Ruler in the Kingdom of the world, (or fallen, or unrenewed man) and the Subjects thereof, is esteemed highly or excellent, is an abomination in the sight of God: And therefore this spiritual King having purchased all his Subjects and Servants with a glorious price, (as the greatest demonstration of love) of his own blood, by his spiritual Command requires them not to be the servants of men, but to glorify him both in body and soul; and therefore his grown up servant Paul, declares himself to be no man-pleaser, avowing himself that if he were a man-pleaser, he should, nor could not be the servant of Christ.

And therefore the same apostle, by the infallible spirit of the Lord, requires the spiritual Subjects of this spiritual King Jesus, to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which (says he) is your reasonable service; and do not be conformed to this world (the kingdom of the Prince of darkness, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect will of a God; and therefore when any man once becomes a spiritual subject of this spiritual King Christ, and dwells in him, he becomes a new creature, and old things in him are passed away, and all things in him are become new, spiritual and savoury, yes even his very thought and his words are found few and divine, his behaviour righteous and solid, his deeds upright, and free like God from all respect of persons: and although there be such a perfect and absolute contrariety between all the laws and constitutions of these two Kings or Masters, and a continual and perpetual war between the Subjects thereof, yet the weapons of the warfare of Christ’s Spiritual, Heavenly, and glorious Kingdom, handled and used by his Servants and true Subjects, who although they do walk in the flesh, yet do they not war after the flesh, and therefore their weapons of warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and brings into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. . .

Of course, this doesn’t sound very antinomian. In fact, it reads a lot like those anti-2k folks who wail and gnash their teeth over the moral failings of the United States, and also insist that Christians need to take back the nation for Christ because the antithesis between believers and non-believers is so great, and the moral gulf between the saints and pagans so wide, and the denial of Christ’s lordship so great, that we cannot trust civil affairs to the likes of Obama, Kerry, or Gore.

But what does make this quotation antinomian is that Quakers like Lilburne (along with Anabaptists) renounced by the sword and believed any government that used force was of the Devil. As such, they did not recognize the existing government as legitimate, thus making them antinomian (as in, against the established law and order).

Looks to me like there are lessons all around on the contrast between the true and false antinomians. In fact, it is hard to miss the irony that those who criticize 2k the most for being antinomian may harbor a good dose of the antithetical reading of humanity and civil authorities that put Quakers like Lilburne in jail.

Where to Put What We Sing

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Hymnals are something that Presbyterians take for granted. Rare is the lay person who picks up the book to examine it like any other, looking say at the table of contents, then at some of the indexes, and then at one or two hymns to see which tune the compilers used for a certain text. Instead, most church members look at the bulletin at the specific time for singing in the service, find the number in the hymnal, stand, and sing the chosen hymn.

Perhaps just as rare is a church member who reflects on a hymn in relation to what goes before and after it in the service. Does it follow a prayer, a Bible reading, the sermon? Did the pastor choose the hymn for a specific reason? Was it to reinforce the theme of the biblical passage, to resonate with the sermon topic, or as is often the case for hymns before the sermon, just a way to let people stand and stretch?

And most important, did the pastor choose the hymn to function as a prayer in response to what just transpired in divine worship?

This is the most important question if the dialogical principle guides the way that we order a service. If God speaks and we respond, then the way God speaks is through word (read and preached) and sacraments, and we respond by prayer (and offering). This means that congregational singing needs to fit the category of prayer, which is exactly what Calvin considered worship songs to be, and which is also why he only sang psalms. The psalter is the Bible’s prayer book.

So what then should we do with hymns like “How Firm a Foundation”? Don’t get me wrong, it is a wonderful hymn and testifies to God’s faithfulness. And as the years pass it is very hard not to be moved by the line, “And when hoary hairs shall their temple to adorn, Like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne.” It is a great hymn but it is not much of a prayer since almost all of the stanzas are in quotation marks, indicating that God is speaking to those who are supposed to be lifting up their voices to him. In which case, if we are responding to God in song, and if our response is actually words that God speaks to his people, then we are singing in a manner so that God is speaking to himself.

This dilemma may explain why Presbyterians are prone to regard hymns not according to their type of prayer – praise, thanksgiving, confession, petition – but according to the doctrine they teach. The Trinity Hymnal of the OPC puts “How Firm a Foundation” in the section dealing with “The Glory of God: His Faithfulness.” The old PCUS hymnal from 1955 put this hymn in the section, “Life in Christ, Faith and Assurance.” Neither are bad calls. But both hymnals are arranged, as reflected in their table of contents, according to doctrinal categories rather than forms of prayer for different parts of the service as part of the congregation’s response to God. In fact, the Trinity Hymnal goes so far in the direction of doctrine that it arranges the hymnal according to the chapters of the Westminster Confession.

This decision to arrange hymns according to doctrine makes sense if you buy the adage that more people learn their theology from hymns than from systematic theology. I for one do not buy this adage because of the way that most people use hymnals (mentioned above) they sing on command with little attention to the point of the song. I am also suspicious of the assumption contained in the adage because I am not convinced that the theology contained in hymns is all that clear. Granted, the answer from the catechism about saving faith may not rhyme, but it is clear.

But this begs the question of what songs are supposed to do in worship. If they are a form of prayer, then why do we have so many songs that are mini-sermons?