The Return of This and That

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kitchen sinkHide it under a bushel? No! But under camouflage? Yes. At least that the implied message of the new “Camo” edition of the American Patriot’s Bible. (Thanks to our mid-West correspondent.)

This pocket version of the popular American Patriot’s Bible reminds Christians of the Bible’s living legacy in the history of America, a nation built on the biblical values of God and family.

If it is fair to describe The Law is Not of Faith book as embodying the Escondido Hermeneutic, would it also be fair to describe the Kerux Apologetic as evidientialist?

And if union was as important to Calvin as many allege, why does he bury his catechetical instruction on the topic in the section on the Lord’s Supper? (Do a word search of the 1545 Catechism – who wants to read all 340-plus questions? – and check it out.)

(BTW, if we’re going to follow Calvin on union, why aren’t we also following him on eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ? If you’re going to take Calvin literally on union, don’t you also have to take him literally on Christ’s real presence in the Supper?)

Master. – Do we therefore eat the body and blood of the Lord?

Scholar. – I understand so. For as our whole reliance for salvation depends on him, in order that the obedience which he yielded to the Father may be imputed to us just as if it were ours, it is necessary that he be possessed by us; for the only way in which he communicates his blessings to us is by making himself ours.

Master. – But did he not give himself when he exposed himself to death, that he might redeem us from the sentence of death, and reconcile us to God?

Scholar. – That is indeed true; but it is not enough for us unless we now receive him, that thus the efficacy and fruit of his death may reach us.

Master. – Does not the manner of receiving consist in faith?

Scholar. – I admit it does. But I at the same time add, that this is done when we not only believe that he died in order to free us from death, and was raised up that he might purchase life for us, but recognise that he dwells in us, and that we are united to him by a union the same in kind as that which unites the members to the head, that by virtue of this union we may become partakers of all his blessings.

Master. – Do we obtain this communion by the Supper alone?

Scholar. – No, indeed. For by the gospel also, as Paul declares, Christ is communicated to us. And Paul justly declares this, seeing we are there told that we are flesh of his flesh and bones of his bones-that he is the living bread which came down from heaven to nourish our souls-that we are one with him as he is one with the Father, &c. (1 Cor. i. 6; Eph. v. 30; John vi. 51; John xvii. 21.)

Master. – What more do we obtain from the sacrament, or what other benefit does it confer upon us?

Scholar. – The communion of which I spoke is thereby confirmed and increased; for although Christ is exhibited to us both in baptism and in the gospel, we do not however receive him entire, but in part only.

Master. – What then have we in the symbol of bread?

Scholar. – As the body of Christ was once sacrificed for us to reconcile us to God, so now also is it given to us, that we may certainly know that reconciliation belongs to us.

Master. – What in the symbol of wine?

Scholar. – That as Christ once shed his blood for the satisfaction of our sins, and as the price of our redemption, so he now also gives it to us to drink, that we may feel the benefit which should thence accrue to us.

Master. – According to these two answers, the holy Supper of the Lord refers us to his death, that we may communicate in its virtue?

Scholar. – Wholly so; for then the one perpetual sacrifice, sufficient for our salvation, was performed. Hence nothing more remains for us but to enjoy it.

Epistemology and a Two-Kingdoms View

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Darryl G. Hart and Camden Bucey discuss the relationship of various Christian epistemologies to a two-kingdoms approach to Christ and culture.  The discussion has been posted at Reformed Forum.

download the mp3

post photo by Joel Bedford

The Noetic Effects of Regeneration and Christian America

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us flag and bibleBelow are two clips with distinct views of religion in the American founding. One comes from a decidely Christian perspective, the other from a leading historian of the United States in the era of the Constitution — some might call it secular (I prefer learned).

How Religious Were the American Founders?

America's Christian Heritage

The issue worth raising here is not whether the U.S. is a Christian country. It is instead what role regeneration plays in the interpretation of history, specifically the history of American independence and nation building. Do Christians, by virtue of regeneration, have more insight into history, can they interpret documents and events better, than non-Christians? Or could it be that faith actually makes one predisposed to overlook contrary evidence?

My own view is that the clip by Gordon Wood is far more accurate in weighing all the evidence about the founders than the views of David Barton. What is particularly interesting is that Wood is very kind to Baptists and Methodists, and acknowledges the importance of revivalism and evangelicalism to the new nation. He is not hostile to religion.

But for many Christian culture warriors, such concessions are not good enough, and supposedly Wood has an axe to grind because he won’t go all the way and recognize the orthodoxy of such founders as George Washington.

Meanwhile, some may want to chalk up Wood’s ability as a historian to common grace. I myself prefer to attribute it to his own vast knowledge of the American founding and the amount of time he has spent reading the sources and subjecting his arguments to peers in the field. In other words, I think Wood is smart.

Did he get those smarts from God? I believe he did. But he also used them well. I am not sure that Christian apologists for a Christian nation use either their smarts or their illumination as well.

Sixteen Reasons Not To Watch the Super Bowl

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Tom Brookshire
16. Remember the Sabbath day.
15. Keep it holy.
14. You have six days for all your work.
13. The Sabbath belongs to God.
12. Don’t work on it.
11. Don’t let your son work on it.
10. Or your daughter.
9. Or football players.
8. Or cheerleaders.
7. Or advertizing executives.
6. Or broadcasters.
5. For God made the world in six days.
4. Then he rested on the Sabbath.
3. For that reason he blessed the Sabbath.
2. And made it a holy day.

And the number one reason not to watch the Super Bowl. . . .

1. The Eagles aren’t playing.

Forensic Friday — E. J. Young's Turn

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ej_young

This verse (Is 53:6) is a veritable compend of life-giving theology. Here is the doctrine of total depravity – we had gone astray, we had turned each one to his own way. These words set forth the fact of our sinfulness. We had already sinned and were gone out of the way. This is to say that we were in no condition to save ourselves. If one has gone astray, he is lost and needs to be found.

Here too is the doctrine of God’s sovereignty – for He is the ultimate cause in the Servant’s suffering. Up until this point the LORD is not explicitly mentioned in Isaiah fifty-three. Now, however, it appears that it is He who causes our iniquity to strike upon the Servant. It is well to consider the thought carefully. The Servant was a righteous One, with no sin of His own. His death therefore must have been the work of evil men. It was an unjust death, for He did not deserve to die. Yet even this unjust death could not have occurred apart from the Lord’s so decreeing. The LORD does reign supreme in the heavens, and He foreordains all things that come to pass upon this earth.

In this verse there is also found the doctrine of salvation by grace, for the Lord, by causing our iniquity to light upon Him, has done that which was necessary to save His people. This verse, therefore is in perfect harmony with the remainder of the Bible, for everywhere throughout the pages of Scripture, salvation is set forth as the work of God and not of man. It is His free gift and all of grace. Here too is the doctrine of a vicarious punishment, for the terrible wrath of God which we deserved, struck Him in the stead of us. How clearly the Scripture sets before us the vicarious or substitutionary nature of the Servant’s death! If we do not believe, it is because the blindness of our hearts which is a result of our fall in Adam, still remains, and the veil has not been taken from our eyes.

Here too are the doctrines of satisfaction and expiation. It is the Servant who by His death offers a sacrifice to put away sin. It is He who sprinkles many nations. The iniquity which meets in his Soul is expiated by His death and that death satisfies every accusation that can be brought against the sinner, for it is because of His suffering that we are made right with God. And lastly, here is the comforting doctrine of Divine Providence. The Servant’s suffering was not accidental. It was brought about by God Himself who ordereth all things according to His own will. (E. J. Young, Isaiah 53: A Devotional and Expository Study, pp 57-58)

Man, Life In Geneva Must Have Been Rough

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sentry postIf Calvinism is tranformational, why was Calvin so otherworldly?

Let the aim of believers in judging the mortal life, then, be that while they understand it to be of itself nothing but misery, they may with greater eagerness and dispatch betake themselves wholly to meditate upon that eternal life to come. When it comes to a comparison with the life to come, the present life can not only be safely neglected but, compared to the former, must be utterly despised and loathed. For, if heaven is our homeland, what else is the earth but our place of exile? If departure from the world is entry into life, what else is the world but a sepulcher? And what else is it for us to remain in life but to be immersed in death. If to be freed from the body is to be released from perfect freedom, what else is the body but a prison? . . . Therefore, if the earthly life be compared with the heavenly, it is doubtless to be at once despised and trampled underfoot. Of course it is never to be hated except in so far as it holds us subject to sin; although not even hatred of that condition may ever properly be turned against life itself. In any case, it is still fitting for us to be so affected either by weariness or hatred of it that, desiring its end, we may also be prepared to abide in it at the Lord’s pleasure, so that our weariness may be far from all murmuring and impatience. For it is like a sentry post at which the Lord has posted us, which we must hold until he recalls us. (Institutes, III.ix.4)

(More) This and That

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kitchen sinkEven republication deniers wind up affirming republication. For them the Covenant of Works is gracious, and so is the Mosaic covenant. So at Sinai there was a republication of grace. (In fact, the way some Federal Visionaries can’t distinguish grace from works, I wonder if they actually think the Covenant of Grace was a republication of the Covenant of Works.)

My, how the three-point shot is ruining basketball (thanks to our mid-West correspondent). Or it could be that those folks in Kansas, going back to the good Presbyterian Dr. Naismith, really do know how to play the game?

Rants like this one make plausible why John Frame can entitle his own festschrift, which he edited and for which he wrote three chapters, Speaking the Truth in Love.

R. Scott Clark is stupid. By that I mean that Dr. S (is for stupid)R. Scott Clark is dazed and unable to think clearly and he lacks intelligence and common sense. He is stupid, first of all because he, in embracing R2K, is embracing a theory that is incoherent. He is stupid, second of all, because even though the Escondido Hermeneutic has been disemboweled by Kerux he continues to champion that very theory. He is stupid, third of all, because he seems to lack the intelligence to understand that with the advent of Wittgenstein’s work on the philosophy of language Natural law theory is a Humpty Dumpty that can not be put together again. He is stupid, fourthly, because he refuses to bow to the clear teaching of Scripture touching total depravity. He continues to insist that fallen man can interpret natural law aright even though fallen men suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. He is stupid, sixthly, because he continues to trump a theory where presuppositionalism is the epistemology that reigns in the spiritual realm while at the same time, in a WSC dualistic fashion, he advocates some form of common sense realism for the common realm. He is stupid, seventhly, because he seems to think that one weekend conference at WSC automatically slams shut the discussion on this very issue. As seven is the number of perfection, I have thus shown that R. Scott Clark is perfectly stupid.

Scott Clark may be stupid, but he also edits the Classics in Reformed Theology series for the Reformation Heritage Books. The latest in the series is out – Caspar Olevianus’ An Exposition of the Apostles’ Creed, translated by Lyle Bierma

John Murray on the Priority of the Forensic

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John Murray

The basic question is: How can man be just with God? If man had never sinned the all-important question would have been: How can man be right with God? He would continue to be right with God by fulfilling the will of God perfectly. But the question takes on a radically different complexion with the entrance of sin. Man is wrong with God. And the question is: How can man become right with God? This was Luther’s burning question. He found the answer in Paul’s Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, that we are justified by faith alone, through grace alone . . . .

It is to be acknowledged and appreciated that theologians of the Roman Catholic Church are giving a great deal of renewed attention to this subject, and there is a gratifying recognition that “to justify” is “to declare to be righteous”, that it is a declarative act on God’s part. But the central issue of the Reformation remains. Rome still maintains and declares that justification consists in renovation and sanctification, and the decrees of the Council of Trent have not been retracted or repudiated. . . .

Renovation and sanctification are indispensible elements of the gospel, and justification must never be separated from regeneration and sanctification. But to make justification to consist in renovation and sanctification is to eleiminate from the gospel that which meets our basic need as sinners, and answers the basic question: How can a sinner become just with God? The answer is that which makes the lame man leap as an hart and the tongue of the dumb sing. . . . Why so? It is the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ. This is not God’s attribute of justice, but it is a God-righteousness, a righteousness with divine properties and qualities, contrasted not only with human unrighteousness but with human righteousness. And what his righteousness is, the apostle makes very clear. It is a free gift. . .

When Paul invokes God’s anathema upon any who would preach a gospel other than that he preached, he used a term which means “devoted to destruction”. It is a term weighted with imprecation. . . . To the core of his being he was persuaded that the heresy combated was aimed at the destruction of the gospel. It took the crown from the Redeemer’s head. It is this same passion that must imbue us if we are worthy children of the Reformation. . .
(Collected Writings, vol. 1, 302-304)

For What Do We Pray?

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JETS V ARIZONA CARDINALSReformed Protestants are generally dismissive (or worse) of prosperity gospels. They know, at least intuitively, that suffering is part of the Christian life and that calculating God’s favor on the basis of material well being is not good theology. Max Weber, the sociologist who interpreted capitalism as the republication of the covenant of works, never read the psalmist who wrote,

Be not afraid when one becomes rich,
when the glory of this house increases.
For when he dies he will carry nothing away;
his glory will not go down after him.
Though, while he lives, he counts himself happy,
and though a man gets praise when he does well for himself,
he will go to the generation of his fathers,
who will never more see the light.
Man cannot abide in his pomp,
he is like the beasts that perish. (Ps. 49: 16-20)

And yet, when Reformed Protestants pray, or at least when they make prayer requests, our desires generally run along the lines of Joel Osteen. Which sort of upends Benjamin Warfield’s remark that every Christian on his knees is a good Calvinist. His point that when praying every believer is acknowledging the sovereignty of God. But he didn’t ask what believers were praying for and whether it conformed to God’s revealed will. We pray for surgeries, broken ankles, test results, catastrophe survivors, and the unemployed. None of these concerns are of themselves illegitimate. Jesus does tell his disciples not to worry about their physical needs, not because they are unimportant but because if God provides for the lilies of the field then he’s likely to care even more for his children. And yet, that passage in Matthew 6 concludes with the importance of seeking first the kingdom of God and then all these other things will be added.

Not to be missed is what the Lord’s Prayer says and teaches. Whether Reformed Protestants actually use it to the degree that Lutherans and Anglicans do, our catechisms do go into some depth in explaining the Lord’s Prayer and usually begin the instruction with words to the effect that this prayer is a model or example for how to pray.

If that is the case, then by my count only one of the six petitions has to do with material needs – “give us this day our daily bread.” The others concern God (his glory, church, and will) and man’s sin (forgiveness, and temptation). By my math that works out to roughly 17 percent of our prayers being devoted to physical needs.

And yet, when we listen or read the requests for prayer in most congregations, the percentage tilts almost in the exact opposite direction, with God and sin receiving about 17 percent of our requests. Now, some of the problem here is that requesting prayer for Aunt Bessie’s gallbladder surgery is a lot less embarrassing than asking for prayer for my struggles with lust. Also, not to be missed is that some physical afflictions actually threaten life, and prayers for the living as they approach death is surely appropriate.

Even here, though, I wonder if our prayers are filled more with petitions for healing and prolonged life rather than God’s will. Indeed, most of our prayers for the physical well being of believers, at least publicly, are on the order of asking God for what we want – lives without suffering, pain, and death. We would need to be locked up if we prayed for more suffering, pain, and death, or more hunger, poverty, and unemployment. But again the point is for what do we pray and what does it say about our understanding of the gospel’s consequences for the lives of Christians. When we pray are we endanger of endorsing implicitly a prosperity gospel? Is prayer effective when it brings the results we want? Or is prayer accomplishing its purpose when through it our appetites conform to God’s will?