iustitia aliena

[From my post here.]

Following the exposition of the decalogue, the Heidelberg Cathechism asks the question that perhaps many (if not all) Christians ask when they realize that though sin’s power has been defeated by Christ, struggling with it (and often failing) remains a reality. The logic in our mind goes something like this: Christ defeated sin so that sin no longer has mastery therefore I should no longer sin. Such reasoning is sound, and true, but fails to take into consideration the aspect of the “already” and the “not yet” of Christian eschatology. The kingdom of heaven has arrived and yet is still coming, we have died and been raised with Christ, but have yet to die and be raised. In a similar way, sin has been defeated but we continue to fight with it. 

Question 114. But can those who are converted to God perfectly keep these commandments?

Answer: No: but even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience; (a) yet so, that with a sincere resolution they begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God. (b)

(a) 1 John 1:8; 1 John 1:9; 1 John 1:10; Rom.7:14;  Rom.7:15;  Eccl.7:20;  1 Cor.13:9; (b) Rom.7:22; Ps.1:2; James 2:10.

The writers of the HC understood that whether Christian or not, anyone under the Law of God is absolutely unable to keep it. Our best works are as filthy rags before a holy God. Only those ignorant of the law’s demands would ever think that they could keep it perfectly. 

Naturally, when we are told that we are unable to do something we wonder why it was ever commanded in the first place. This is the Arminian’s argument, namely, that God would not command what we cannot keep. And it is a valid point. It is not just for God to expect man to do what he is or was not able to do. Yet, those who believe that Adam was a federal head, know that man was originally created with the ability to obey. The HC addresses this very issue in question 9:

Question 9. Does not God then do injustice to man, by requiring from him in his law, that which he cannot perform?

Answer: Not at all; (a) for God made man capable of performing it; but man, by the instigation of the devil, (b) and his own wilful disobedience, (c) deprived himself and all his posterity of those divine gifts.

(a) Eph.4:24; Eccl.7:29; (b) John 8:44; 2 Cor.11:3; Gen.3:4; (c) Gen.3:6; Rom.5:1; Gen.3:13; 1 Tim.2:13; 1 Tim.2:14.

It’s settled then, those under the law cannot keep the law. God is just in his requirements and all men are under condemnation. For many Christians, though, this is insufficient. There are those who would maintain that since Christians are no longer under the law, it’s power being destroyed, they are now able to keep it. Christ was crucified so that “we might no longer be in bondage to sin,” God predestined and saved us for good works, didn’t he? These things are truly and really accomplished, and yet until we die we will struggle with sin. Until we are glorified we walk by faith, not by sight. The HC is clear that none, not even the converted, are able to keep the law perfectly and while it is tempting to assume an overrealized eschatology, we must trust that Christ’s work, apart from our own, in both justification as well as sanctification, is sufficient. Yes, we begin to live to all the commandments of God, but this is a “small beginning” according to the HC, and by no means a perfect keeping of the law.

Getting to the point, why are Christians commanded to keep the law? This question is especially pertinent because, for one, we acknowledge are inability to keep it and second, we are justified by faith in Christ. Question 115 addresses this issue:

Question 115. Why will God then have the ten commandments so strictly preached, since no man in this life can keep them?

Answer: First, that all our lifetime we may learn more and more to know (a) our sinful nature, and thus become the more earnest in seeking the remission of sin, and righteousness in Christ; (b) likewise, that we constantly endeavour and pray to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we may become more and more conformable to the image of God, till we arrive at the perfection proposed to us, in a life to come. (c)

(a) Rom.3:20; 1 John 1:9; Ps.32:5; (b) Matt.5:6; Rom.7:24; Rom.7:25; (c) 1 Cor.9:24; Philip.3:11; Philip.3:12; Philip.3:13; Philip.3:14.

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?

Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, (a) am not my own, (b) but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; (c) who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, (d) and delivered me from all the power of the devil; (e) and so preserves me (f) that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; (g) yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, (h) and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, (i) and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him. (j)     

 

(a) Rom.14:7; Rom.14:8; (b) 1 Cor.6:19; (c) 1 Cor.3:23; Tit.2:14; (d) 1 Pet.1:18; 1 Pet.1:19; 1 John 1:7; 1 John 2:2; 1 John 2:12; (e) Heb.2:14; 1 John 3:8; John 8:34; John 8:35; John 8:36; (f) John 6:39; John 10:28; 2 Thess.3:3; 1 Pet.1:5; (g) Matt.10:29; Matt.10:30; Matt.10:31; Luke 21:18; (i) 2 Cor.1:20; 2 Cor.1:21; 2 Cor.1:22; 2 Cor.5:5; Eph.1:13; Eph.1:14; Rom.8:16; (j) Rom.8:14; 1 John 3:3.

Josh quotes from The Economy of the Covenants by Herman Witsius here.

il

Assuming the Gospel

“We’ve been focusing this whole year so far on a theme that we grant is a little negative, “Christless Christianity,” because we want to sort out the problem that we are addressing and we’ve seen that it is a problem across all of our traditions, all of our denominations, all the way from conservative to liberal, this fog of what we are calling “Christless Christianity” being distracted from Christ and him crucified by all sorts of things, a lot of them even good. And in this program we want to talk about how we assume the Gospel. How otherwise faithful, orthodox, Bible-preaching churches can leave Christ I out of the picture just simply by assuming that everybody knows he is already in it.

To arrive at a condition of Christless Christianity where Christ becomes more of a trademark for t-shirts and entertainment empires more than the object of faith. No explicit heresy is needed, because our default setting is Pelagianism, the heresy of self-salvation. Unless we are constantly taught out of it, not just once, but throughout our Christian pilgrimage we will always fall back on the most comfortable, familiar, and common-sense religion of our fallen heart. We don’t have to deny the Gospel, all we have to do in order to send our churches back to another Dark Ages is to assume the Gospel. Taking it for granted that people need the Gospel in order to “get saved” many seem to think that we can then move on in the Christian life and look to other resources for our spiritual development than the Gospel. It is crucial to realize that the Gospel arises first of all out of a story, from Genesis to Revelation there is one unfolding drama of redemption with Christ at its center. Jesus himself taught the disciples to read the Bible this way and after Pentecost they preached Christ this way.

Out of the story arise doctrines, from God’s actions that are revealed in the story certain attributes or characteristics of God are also revealed. Throbbing verbs generate stable nouns. We discern that God is a Trinity, that human beings are born in sin, and are hopelessly lost and condemned, but that Christ is the God-man who has come to save us from sin’s penalty and power, all the wonderful truths of Christ’s active obedience, atoning death, resurrection, ascension and return, the application of redemption by the Spirit through the Gospel in the new birth, justification, sanctification, glorification, the nature of the church and its ministry, and our future hope, all of these doctrines arise from the drama that unfolds gradually in the history of revelation. Just as the dramatic story produces doctrines, doctrines provoke doxology or praise.

We see this pattern in the New Testament epistles especially in Romans. It is interesting that whenever Paul completes a doctrinal “hike” through God’s gracious election, redemption, calling, justification, and sanctification in Christ the vista from such dizzying peaks leads him to break out in praise. “What shall we say then in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out; for of him and to him and through him are all things, to him be the glory forever, Amen.” Only then does Paul say in Romans 12, “I appeal to you therefore, in view of God’s mercies to present your bodies a living sacrifice.” You see folks, the story generates doctrines, which generate genuine emotion leading to grateful obedience. When we begin to take any of these stages for granted, and its usually the earlier ones that get lost first, we assume the Gospel and loose not only our sense of wonder at God’s amazing grace, but the only hope of genuine experience and transformation. We end up with what Paul called a “form of godliness while denying its power.” Power not only at the beginning of the Christian life, but in the middle, and the end, not only for conversion, but for growth and discipleship is always the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” -Michael Horton

“This commentary of “Assuming the Gospel” is a
broadcast of the White Horse Inn radio program that originally aired on June 8th, 2008. The White Horse Inn exists to equip Christians to “know what you believe and why you believe it.” For more information about the White Horse Inn, please visit www.whitehorseinn.org or call (800) 890-7556.”

 il

Good things to chew on and pray about

The posts titles and links below:

1. Praying for the Persecuted Church here

2. A reflection on faithfulness to the missio dei and the example of Rev. Tony Curto here

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Here.

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Josh quotes from Horton’s Covenant and Eschatology here.

inwoolee

Here are a few points that Kline makes in his book Kingdom Prologue (340-50):

Classical Dispensationalism:

1. The basic question between covenantal and dispensational hermeneutics is “how to construe the relation of the two levels of the promised kingdom of the Abrahamic Covenant to one another… the relationship of the old covenant with Israel to the new covenant with the church, particularly as that comes into focus in the typological connection which the Scripture posits between them.”
2. Fundamental fallacy of Dispensationalism: “its failure to do justice to the Bible’s identification of the new covenant (or second level) realization of the kingdom promise as standing in continuity with the old covenant (or first level) realization as antitypical fulfillment to typal promise.”
3. “…failing to see that the first level kingdom becomes obsolete and gets replaced by the antitype in the messianic age, continue the obsolete order indefinitely into the new age. They assign it a place parallel to the second level kingdom, perhaps even permanently so, while relegating the second level fulfillment to a parenthetical rather than perfective status. In so doing, Dispensationalism radically misconstrues the typological structure of old and new covenants, reducing typology to mere analogy and obscuring the historical promise-fulfillment relationship of these two covenants.”
4. Difference between covenantal and dispensational hermeneutics are not really about literal vs. figurative interpretation but “contrary analyses of the relationship of two successive covenantal orders in redemptive history, one approach being nontypological and the other typological.”

Progressive Dispensationalism:

1. “…the revisionists would now acknowledge that the eschatological blessings of the salvation-kingdom are secured not by works but by God’s grace in Christ.. in avoiding the error of propounding two ways of salvation they find themselves confronted with a dilemma. For while they want to affirm that it is only in Christ that the Jew can receive the kingdom blessings, they still cling to the notion that there is a separate millennial kingdom for Jewish believers. But the Scriptures disallow this by insisting that if a Jew is in Christ he is no more a Jew, just as a Gentile is no more a Gentile in Christ… In the only place where salvation’s blessings exist- in Christ, the distinction between Jew and Gentile does not exist.
2. “To suggest that certain Jews who are in Christ will have their own peculiar Jewish experience of the kingdom assumes a continuance of the distinction that Christ abolished… Scripture simply will not tolerate this dispensationalist notion of a separate salvation-kingdom for Jewish Christians in a future millennium.”
3. “…all who are in Christ receive all the fullness of the eternal inheritance… on the one hand the inheritance of the Jewish believers is the whole world, not just Palestine, and, on the other, that there is no special reserve, Palestinian or any other, set aside for Jewish believers in preference to Gentile believers since all the world belongs to the Gentile believer too.
4. “…the revised Dispensationalism that purges itself of the teaching of two ways of salvation does so at the cost of abandoning the correct perception of earlier Dispensationalism that a works principle was operating in the Mosaic kingdom… they do not perceive the true solution of identifying the works principle with the former while maintaining the continuity of the one way of salvation at the other, foundational level. All they can do is join certain of their covenantal critics in denying that there was a works principle in the old covenant.”
5. “They recognize in a general way that the typological, first level realization of the promises was provisional and has been replaced by the antitypical realities of the messianic order. Inconsistently, however, they adopt the dispensationalist hermeneutic in their interpretation of the land promise.”
6. “Land and people promises must therefore be kept together within each level, whether in the typological embodiment of the cultural program in the old covenant kingdom or in its new covenant version. A hybrid combination of old covenant land and new covenant people violates the conceptual unity of these two cultural components of the kingdom, while at the same time ignoring the discreteness of the typical and antitypical kingdoms.”

J. Lim

The Reformation of the Good News
In contrast, Martin Luther and John Calvin believed the Bible contained “two words”: Law and Gospel.(1) “Law” describes anything in Scripture which says, “Do this and live” (Luke 10:28), while “Gospel” describes anything which says, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

“Do this and Live!”
The Law is God’s unbending moral will. This is why the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) 19.1 reminds us that God’s Law requires “personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience” before and after the fall. This was exactly Moses’ doctrine in Deut 27:26 and Paul’s in Gal 3:10: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the Law.”

The Reformers taught that God revealed his Law to Adam in terms of a covenant of works, “the day you eat thereof you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17). The implicit promise to Adam of eternal blessedness was conditioned on his obedience as the representative of all humanity.(2) In his sin, Adam broke the covenant of works and all humanity fell with him.(3) As a result, regarding justification, the Law is bad news for sinners, accusing us that we “have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God, and have never kept any of them, and [are] still prone always to all evil” (Heidelberg Catechism (HC) 60).

“It is Finished!”
The Good News is another thing however. It is the announcement that by his one act of obedience, Christ, the Second Adam, has kept the Law, fulfilled the covenant of works, and made a “new covenant” in his blood for sinners.(4) The promised Savior-King has come with his kingdom and covenant of grace.(5) While the Law says, “do,” the Gospel says, “done!” While the covenant of works says, “work,” the covenant of grace says, “rest!” This is why the Gospel is such “good news,” since it is about our justification earned for us by Christ and offered freely to us.(6) -R. Scott Clark

Read the whole faculty article here.

inwoolee

Posting on the same thread on Infant Baptism. I found this helpful as well from Horton’s A Better Way:

“Let me summarize what I regard as the most compelling arguments for infant bapism:

1. God has brought us into a covenant of grace, and although not all members of this covenant will persevere (i.e., they are not elect and have not been regenerated), they enjoy special privileges of belonging to the covenant people. This was true of Israel, and the New Testament simply applies this to the New Testament church as well (Deut. 4:20; 28:9; Isa.10:22; Hosea 2:23; Rom. 9:24-28; Gal. 6:16; Heb. 4:1-11; 6:4-12; 1 Peter 2:9-10).
2. Even though bringing someone under the protection of God’s covenantal faithfulness does not guarantee that that person possesses true, persevering faith (Heb. 4:1-11), that does not mean it is unimportant as to whether children of believers are given the seal of the covenant.
3. Children were included in the covenant of grace in the Old Testament through the sacrament of circumcision, and in the new covenant (called the “better covenant”), God has not changed in his good intentions toward our children (Acts 2:28). Circumcision has been replaced by baptism (Col. 2:11). Therefore our children must receive God’s sign and seal of covenant ownership.
4. The children of unbelievers are unholy, but the children of believers are set apart unto God. This is a distinction not only of the Old Testament (see the Passover, Exod. 12:42-51; also the distinction between the “house of the wicked” and the “house of the righteous,” especially in the psalms) but is continued in the New, where a believer’s children are regarded as holy (1 Cor. 10:2). How are they marked or distinguished from unbelievers, then? By the sign and seal of the covenant.
5. Household baptisms are common in the New Testament reports of such events. Surely at least some of them included infants. If so, this would have been perfectly consistent with the Jewish understanding of the Abrahamic covenant (above #4).
6. There is an unbroken record in church history support the practice of infant baptism, beginning with the earliest generations. There would surely have been a major controversy if the immediate successors of the apostles departed from apostolic practice on such a vital point. However, no such record exists.
7. If baptism were a testimony of the believer’s faithfulness to the covenant, it would not be capable of being applied to those who have no faithfulness to offer. However, baptism is the work of God, not of human beings. It is not chiefly a sign of the believer’s commitment to call out a people for himself. Because salvation is by grace alone, God acts in salvation prior to any choice or action (Rom. 9:12-16). Infant baptism is an extraordinary divine testimony to his prevenient grace. Consequently, it obligates those who are baptized to remain faithful to the covenant but does not make their faithfulness a prerequisite of their inclusion.
8. The reason there are so many examples in the New Testament of baptism only upon profession of faith is that the first generation is in view. As with Abraham’s circumcision, an adult trust in God’s promise and is justified—and only afterward is baptized. But also like Abraham, we present our household to receive the sign and seal. No orthodox Christian body would accept the practice of baptizing adults without a profession of faith.

So we already come to the New Testament expecting God to work with families across generations. New Testament believers, after all, belong to the covenant of grace that God made with Abraham: “For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith” (Rom. 4:13 NKJV). Paul elaborated: “And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty year later (than the covenant with Abraham), cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect…And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:17, 29 NKJV).

Many people reject infant baptism because they do not believe that it is clearly commanded in the New Testament. However, this is to ignore the first half of the movie! It is to miss the point that we are children of Abraham in the same covenant of grace. It would seem, therefore, that one should believe in applying the sign and seal of the covenant to our children unless there is an obvious New Testament passage forbidding it. The only thing that has changed from Old Testament promise to New Testament fulfillment is the external sign and its extension, on the basis of prophetic fulfillment (Joel 2:28; Gal. 3:28), to females.

When we do arrive at the New Testament, we not only discover that there are no passages announcing that the children are excluded from the covenant, but we find the contrary. Adult converts are to “be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,” thereby receiving “the gift of the Holy Spirit.” But the very next sentence reads “For the promise is to you and to your children” (Acts 2:38-39 NKJV). After “the Lord opened [Lydia's] heart to heed the things spoken by Paul,” “she and her household were baptized” (Acts 16:14-15 NKJV). Later in the same chapter, the Philippian jailer embraces the gospel. “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” he asks Paul and Silas. They answer, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” …And immediately he and all his family were baptized” (vv. 30-31, 33 NKJV). Here is the pattern of Abraham and Isaac: The first generation of believers embraces the covenant of adulthood, after trusting the promise, while the following generations are presented for the initiation rite in their infancy.

Given the continuity of the covenant of grace in both testaments, we are not surprised to learn that when the head of the household became a believer, the children were given the mark of divine ownership. Notice how far Paul takes this in his counsel to a Christian wife of an unbelieving spouse: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the wife is sanctified by the husband’ otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy” (1 Cor. 7:14 NKJV). When recognized in the light of the earlier scenes (viz., the avenging angel’s “passing over” the homes of the Israelites in Egypt wherever the blood appeared on the doorpost), this fits perfectly. Paul is saying that the presence of even one believing parent is “blood on the doorpost.” If believers are incorporated into Christ and his visible body along with their children, then they ought to receive God’s sign and seal.” 106-108, Michael Horton

inwoolee

Paedo or Credo here are a few things one must consider before throwing out Reformed paedobaptism as an incomplete, Roman Catholic aspect of Reformed theology:

1. 1500 years of Church history.
2. All the Magisterial Reformers were paedobaptists.
3. Household baptisms. It’s not as weak an argument as most people think. Check out Lee Iron’s Oikos formula.
4. Baptism as the new circumcision, the new sign of the covenant.
5. The condition to repent and believe before being baptized is given to those who are not within the new covenant. Quoting passages of the apostles’ requiring faith and repentance before baptism in the book of Acts does not go against paedobaptism. The issue is not whether people outside the covenant must repent and believe before they enter the covenant, but whether children of believers are within the external covenant.
6. Certainly infants being circumcised did not understand what was happening to them.
7. Not all Israel is Israel, thus circumcision was never meant to guarantee regeneration, but was a symbol of membership in the external covenant.
8. Not all people who make a profession of faith are truly regenerate.
9. The idea of the remnant in OT Israel shows that God made a distinction between true Israel and physical Israel, yet all who were under the covenant were circumcised.
10. Peter says that the promise is not for the men alone, but for their children.
11. The children of believers are holy.
12. Jesus loves the little children.

These are just some things that have been in my head. Gotta get back to studying.

J.Lim