Respondeo

Abram’s Righteous Deception

On September 10, 2024

An excerpt from a Sermon on Genesis 12.

Here, we come to the most controversial part of this text: whether Abram should be praised or blamed for his deception. He plans to evade potential tyranny on the part of the Pharoah through a deceptive stratagem. When we consider God’s blessing of Abram and that the text gives us nothing upon which to suggest that Abram was wrong to prepare this deception, we can confidently say that Abram was righteous in planning this deception of Pharoah.

We want to be careful, however, in emboldening Christians to speak all sorts of lies, and so we ought to carefully define what is a legitimate use of deception on the part of a Christian and what is not. We want to preserve our character as a people of the truth and yet recognize there are appropriate ways to deceive a tyrannical and vicious enemy so that we may advance the church’s mission.

Let us get into the details. “When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai, his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, “This is my wife.” Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”

So, what is Abram doing? Is he demonstrating a lack of trust in God? Is he lacking in a desire to protect his wife? There are several reasons to believe that neither suggestion is true. First, he must have heard through reports from those around him about the oppressive nature of the Egyptians and how they take what they want. He also knows that God has promised that he would be a great nation and that the promise certainly cannot be carried out in his death. So, he wisely strategizes in a difficult situation and trusts that God will protect him as God sees fit.

We might still object that he fails to protect Sarai, but that ignores the brother’s role toward his sister. It seems likely that the brother was the primary protector of his sister and the one through whom marriage with the sister was negotiated. This would certainly be true if the father had not been in the picture. We see this in the story of Rebecca and Isaac, where the servant of Abraham negotiates for Rebecca’s hand in marriage with Laban, the brother of Rebecca. So, calling Sarai his sister gave Abram a couple of advantages. If the Egyptians were tyrannical, as he had heard, Sarai would be taken either way. One way, he would immediately be killed, and the other way, he would live, and perhaps God would intervene. Potentially even tyrannical Egyptians would have followed the usual conventions about brothers and sisters, allowing him time to work out what to do next. If the Egyptians were not tyrannical, he would potentially enter into negotiations with them, and they would not have concluded until he was safely away from them.

With these things in mind, we can observe how this would have been a lesson to successive generations of Abram’s children on how to deal with tyrannical Pharaohs. So, Abram would use this deceptive stratagem twice. Isaac would use it once, and the midwives would use a similar strategy when the Egyptian Pharaoh sought to kill the baby boys of Israel.

Yet, because our hearts are often hard and easily misled, we need to discuss this very carefully. The Christian does not go out and say, “Oh yes, you can lie to your enemies anytime you want. “Christians are called to love the truth and characterize their lives by speaking it, especially to fellow Christians. In telling the truth, we also show love to our enemies. So, it is helpful to establish some principles from scripture for when we are authorized to deceive.

First, it must truly be a tyrannical situation. Abram is going to a place where the king will seize any woman he wants to be his bride. Where to do so, they will even kill the husband of the woman. This is an ugly tyrannical nation, that has lost respect for the natural bonds between men, likewise, with the command to kill the Hebrew children in Exodus 1. These acts represent a deep wickedness. We should be careful when identifying this sort of tyranny; the word gets thrown around a lot today. That doesn’t mean it is not true; it is just that we must be cautious in identifying everything we don’t like as tyranny, and not every act of tyranny is of the same weight either.

Tyranny, in general, can be identified in laws or leaders who do not recognize the rights we have to our bodies and property and ignore the traditions and boundaries that have been established between men or groups of men over time.

Second, as Christians, we keep in mind the church’s mission. Abram understood the importance of his life in God’s plan. He is to be the father of a nation. Christians are focused on the spread of the word and setting up places of worship throughout the world. Recognizing the difference in the mission means we are less focused on the promise of the Seed, for the Seed has been revealed. It is Jesus Christ. Instead, as the church, we are focused on bringing all things under the Lordship of Christ through the means appointed: the word of God and the establishment of the worship of God. That means there is a certain truth we will never deny. In light of this mission, the New Testament reveals that the Christian should never deny his Lord. Peter does so, and he weeps, so we should be careful not to deny our service to Christ. Further, binding by an oath also calls us to speak the truth. So, Jesus Christ declared who he was when bound by an oath by the High Priest. However, Christians have often used deceptive stratagems to spread the scriptures throughout the world, such as hiding Bibles and sneaking through borders. Christians have also met in secret and worshipped in many places, hiding themselves from tyrants using all sorts of measures to undermine the Christian calling to serve God.

Third, we act according to the law of love. We may deceive to protect life. And so we have the example of hiding Jews from the Nazis during WWII and deceiving the Germans about their whereabouts. This applies to acts of war as well. There is room for deception to preserve the men of an army. Remember the actual form of the ninth commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor.” This is not a direct attack against all forms of deception but a warning against using lies to hurt and destroy your neighbor. This is against words spoken in hatred and malice. As Paul says in Romans 13, “owe nothing to one another except to love one another.”

We ought to be careful that we are not motivated by anger, vengeance, pride, or any of the many other fleshly lusts that can lead Christians into ungodly action.

Even in our deception, however, we ought to be careful in directly contradicting the truth. We are creatures of habit and want to build up the habit of speaking the truth. In this sense, Abram uses the truth to deceive. We find this out later, but there is a sense in which Sarai is his sister, his half-sister actually, so even here, he is careful in his plan so he doesn’t have to develop the habit of contradicting what he knows is real. In the words of Jordan Peterson, “tell the truth” or “at least don’t lie.”

We can also make the point of Rod Dreher’s book “Live Not by Lies,” in which men and women in Eastern Europe and Russia avoided any affirmation of the Marxist establishment in the USSR as much as possible. In the same way, Christians rightly reacted with horror to those who offered incense to the emperor, for they participated in and affirmed the lies that kept the Roman Empire in bondage and so went directly against the mission of the church.

Finally, we must trust in the work of the Spirit of God. As Paul says, nobody judges me except for God. We trust that God works in various persons. This is not a “get out of jail free” card, for, of course, you answer to God, and if you are not careful about transgression in little things, you will follow up with transgressions of boundaries that clearly go against the word of God.

Some, including great men like John Calvin, disagree with the interpretation of this passage. Yet, even those who disagree, like Calvin, would allow for deceptive stratagems in the spread of the gospel.

Unfortunately, many go further, and deny the saints any Spirit-led wisdom in deceiving tyrants. Those who deny the right of the bride to deceive tyrants leave the bride defenseless against tyrants. Their supposed love of purity and righteousness undermines the love we owe to one another, our neighbor, and the Lord.

I have spent some time explaining this, and I hope in doing so, I have clearly shown my love for the fullness of God’s revelation of his righteousness. I take seriously the examples of scripture where the people of God are blessed in their use of deception, but I also take God’s call to be a people of the truth seriously, being careful never to deny the name of the one who bought us.

Female Police Officers? Understanding the Typology of the Sexes in Scripture

By James

On June 3, 2024

In Hermeneutics, typology, Witness

To the reader: I wrote this letter to the editor when I saw an article profiling a female police officer in the Clarion, a magazine in the Canadian Reformed Churches. I was a pastor in the Canadian Reformed Churches until about a year ago when I was called to ministry in Fort St. John with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.

My letter was not received by the editing board of the Clarion and will not be published in the Clarion. However, I still wanted to publish this, because the problem I am dealing with is far broader than just the Canadian Reformed Churches. It is a problem within Conservative Reformed Christianity. Therefore, the parts that are more confrontational, ought to confront us all. I thought it would be helpful to share this letter then, with a broader audience. I removed some details as they are not necessary for a broader audience to be aware of. I hope this will be helpful for the church. It’s not exactly an article that will make me popular with certain groups, but regardless it is a necessary article.

Letter to Editor

I was disappointed to see the article “______________________” in the ___________ edition of the Clarion. There were in fact many good things to say about it: ________’s witness in her life is wonderful to read about. She obviously takes both her faith and her job seriously and does a lot of good for the community. She is a testament to what a Christian should look like in a world that is full of evil and the hatred of God. It is wonderful to hear of her work in the prevention and response to domestic violence.

My concern is with the profession she has chosen and even more with the Clarion’s choice to highlight and therefore normalize female police officers among reformed folk. The name Clarion suggests a desire to give clear warning against the lies of this present age. Not only does the Clarion fail in truth and clarity here, but it aids and abets the egalitarian spirit of this age.

Scriptural types

I argue that there is enough in the patterns of scripture, and the general teaching about male and female in scripture that should at least make us very cautious about women in the role of policeman or soldier. There is enough in scripture that while we might permit it, we will not openly condone it whether explicitly or implicitly. I am not one to draw strict lines on the question of sex and occupation, but as we go into the arena of the warrior, we ought to be very careful. The depictions of female acts of war are exceptional in scripture.

The opening passages of scripture teach that man is primarily called to the role of guardian. While Adam and Even are together called to take dominion, it is Adam who is called to guardianship of the garden; to care for and to keep the garden. This is God’s description of Adam’s role before Eve is in the picture. Genesis 2:15, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden to work it and to keep it.” The word for keep is also to guard. It is failure to guard against the serpent that results in the fall. Eve assists in that guardianship, but primarily that role belongs to the man. The woman is called to work side by side the man in the work of dominion, but she is not called to guardianship.

Even that work of dominion is differentiated in the sexes. Rich Lusk gives further insight:

“The different roles assigned to the man and the woman in marriage are not arbitrary but are rooted in our creation design. Scriptures show us there are deep differences in men and women, going back to the way the man and woman were created. The man is to be the protector and provider. His wife is his glory and his helper. The man is made from the earth and is oriented to the earth and therefore to dominion over the earth. The woman is made from the man and therefore oriented toward the man and relationships.”

The big takeaway in the issue we are dealing with is that man is called to be a guardian. Police are a type of guardian. Soldiers are a type of guardian. Elders and Pastors are a type of guardian. Women take guardianship roles when men fail in those roles, in exceptional circumstances. I argue, not that a woman may never take the role of guardian, but against the normalization of women as guardians.

Deuteronomy 22:5

Now of course, I hear the response ready-formed: the police officer of today is not necessarily involved in combat roles and presumably a woman can choose such a role among the police. I will answer that in more detail in a moment, but to establish some groundwork for that response, I want to go to Deuteronomy 22:5. God’s teaching here fills out the patterns of the Adam and Eve’s creation. In fact, the exposition of that verse should itself be enough of a response to such a claim.

Deuteronomy 22:5 says, “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.” There are some difficulties in interpreting these passages, but it is amid a transition in the text that moves from laws about murder to laws about sexual immorality. Verses 6 and 7 deal with care for the survival of animals and verse 8 deals with the care of your neighbor. These are positive applications of the sixth commandment, care for nature and care for the life of your neighbor.

This would suggest that verse 5 also has something to do the sixth commandment as well. We may think that this is to do with the seventh commandment, cross dressing, and the attenuating evils of those actions. Certainly, that is there, but there is more going on here.

Examining the translation is revealing. While the translation “woman’s cloak” is good for it refers to a woman’s garment, the translation of “man’s garment is not necessarily a good translation. The Hebrew word refers to a word, matter, or thing. This would be a word, matter, or thing that is associated with man. And clearly in the scriptures matters of war are associated with man. The word for man is also unique, a word that we might translate as “strong man,” again the emphasis on man as warrior. This would suggest that the things of man that a woman ought not to wear, are the gear of a warrior, the apparel of a warrior.

This is parallel to the following verse, which talks about preserving the mother bird or we can think of another verse, “do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” These all present something similar. Do not use the source of life as a source of death. It is improper for a woman to take on the role, the job, the appearance of a warrior, to wear the clothing of one that is associated with death.

So how does this apply to the policeman? Police are the executive arm of the ministry of vengeance. Even if our society wants policemen to be social workers, that is still what they are. If God gives the sword to the civil magistrate to punish evil and protect good (Romans 13), then in our society the police are the sword. In a sense it doesn’t really matter if they do a lot of social work, their order is established as an arm to carry the sword of vengeance. Wearing their gear is associating oneself with that calling. So, they like the military are associated with the work of death. To wear their uniform and their gear is to associate oneself with the sword of vengeance.

A comparison: men are exclusively called to ordained office. They are called to use the keys of the kingdom, as the Catechism puts it, preaching and church discipline, and that is central to their authority. Women can fulfill any number of functions that a Pastor or elder must do. She can provide counsel. She can visit. She can encourage. But she is not to, as Paul says, have spiritual authority over a man. If the policeman is a physical guardian, the pastor, or elder, is a spiritual guardian.

This makes me wonder: If the reformed normalize female warriors in our streets, will the reformed eventually normalize female spiritual warriors in our pulpits?

Exceptions and Normalization

Considering other passages of scripture, such as the story of Jael and the woman who killed Abimelech, I think that God’s concern is the normalization of these attitudes. Some women in scripture are praised for participating in acts of war. God does not want this normalized, however, which is the very thing our society is trying to do today, and it appears that the Clarion is trying to do it as well. While there are exceptions, the normalization of these things is an abomination.

Confirmation in the New Testament

And if we think that this is just a matter of the Old Testament, try to guess at Paul’s cultural assumptions in passages like 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, as well as 1 Timothy and Titus. Particularly, we can look at 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul assumes the good of symbolic distinctions between men and women in the church. While I do not argue that women ought to wear head coverings, the substance of symbolic distinctions in our dress still applies. In that passage, Paul seems to assume the very same prejudices that characterize Deuteronomy.

Yes, we can talk about cultural differences, then versus now; too often that way of reading scripture tends to lead us to be very thin or even cultureless in any mores we have, rather than the thick culture that scripture patterns. We tend to minimize and undermine these patterns, rather than take them seriously. In Western society, to please the cultural elite, Christians then make the exceptions the rule.

Who to Blame

Now I want to be careful here because of the confusion about gender in our society. I am not quick to condemn young women who go into the police profession. They still have responsibility in this, but God is patient with those things done in ignorance. Neither will I suggest that my one voice is enough to break this ignorance. Though I am convicted by scripture in this matter, the church must speak together for this ignorance to be broken. Sadly, we are far away from such a moment, but in the meantime, I must still speak the truth. And yet, however true, I am not quick to condemn for several reasons.

My experience suggests that these passages are not clearly taught among the Reformed, generally speaking. In fact, it took me a while to work through this issue, since I wanted to respect contemporary work on this issue, and I didn’t want to respond in a reactionary manner without a careful grounding in scripture, reason, and tradition.

Further there is a lot of pressure from our broader society for young women to be like men. Due to this reality, in my own office, I would give counsel, and then allow for a degree of Christian freedom in this matter. As a pastor I cannot control people so that they will not make any mistakes. I trust that the Word will do its work.

Finally, the church body has adopted a lot of the egalitarian beliefs of our society. Many are functionally soft complementarians: a doctrine, promoted by the words of Kathy Keller: “a women can do anything an unordained man can do.”

It is hard to blame young woman who do this, because of the lack of careful attention to these issues in reformed churches. And the equal lack of courage to address feminism in the churches.

Clearly then, the leadership of the reformed world bears blame for this as well. And now the Clarion. This article simply assumes the culture of the world around us. We live in a world where the distinctions between man and women are being erased, where any sort of boundary is broken down. Scripture presents something different in both patterns and instruction, where there are not only differences between men and women, but also cultural distinctions, even symbolic distinctions. In this matter, the Clarion assumes the culture of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, while continuing to write many fine articles about Christian life and doctrine. It is a contradiction that cannot last.

Let me end with a clarion call against reformed apathy. I would warn the Clarion and its readers: you cannot culturally imitate the CBC while holding to reformed belief. The culture of the CBC is opposed to the culture of Christ. The Clarion does a disservice to all young Christian women in its implication that there is nothing wrong in pursuing the vocation of police officer.

In Christ,

Rev. James Zekveld

Fort St. John, BC.

Typological readings are essential

By James

On January 19, 2024

In Hermeneutics, typology

We have a lot of nervousness about typological readings in the West and rightly so. Typology has been used in a way that is excessive and fanciful, proving all kinds of things that it was never meant to prove It goes to the point where people use typology to undermine the clear teaching of scripture; a deeply foolish enterprise.

However, we have no choice, but to read the Bible typologically, as the wise like to say, abusus non tollit usum. The abuse does not take away the use. The arguments from the apostles is well attested. The apostles use literary and typological readings in order to make their arguments in the New Testament scriptures.

However, it goes further than that. The typological readings of the apostles underly fundamental doctrines in the New Testament. If we leave behind the typological readings of the Apostles, we become all the more susceptible to readings of the New Testament that undermine these doctrines.

I want to briefly treat two doctrines, Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) and Paul’s teaching about the exclusion of women in preaching.

Although a lot of good work is done defending PSA atonement from the new Testament, the fundamental image that the Apostles are using is the sacrificial system. Jesus is the lamb of God, given for the sake of the world. Trusting in that lamb of God, the people of God offer themselves as living sacrifices to God in Jesus. We cannot understand that apart from the sacrificial typologies in the Old Testament. The worshipper must take hold of the animal and kill the animal, so that the animal is given in his place. Apart from this primary image, we can only rely on abstract concepts and various prepositions, that can always be bent into some other understanding of the atonement.

The other doctrine is the calling of males to the preaching ministry to the exclusion of females. We can appeal to the plain word, but in order to defend against the claims that things have changed, we need to understand typology. A case could be made that the reason the church is capitulating on this right, left, and center, is because of the rejection of typology by an overly rationalistic church. (The objection would be many traditions that rely on typology also have female preachers, but of course these traditions have already rationalistically undermined the plain truth of scripture and have reduced Biblical typology as a smorgasbord to pick and choose from.) Of course, men and woman are different, and a case can be made from that as well, in order to support Biblical teaching, but that in itself cannot fully make the case. We need the typology that Paul appeals to in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2, in order to make our case.

Another reason to start to read the Bible as the apostles did.

The Vision of Ezekiel; a group of corpses and skeletons emerging out of tombs, above them five winged putti holding a banderole

Thoughts on Ezekiel 19-32

By James

On January 16, 2024

In Bible

A collection of Facebook posts:

Ezekiel 19. Ezekiel laments the princes of Israel. They are lion cubs taken to Egypt and Babylon. Their mother Israel is a lioness. But she has been destroyed like a vine that is plucked up and cast to the ground. Do we weep for a broken church? How the strength of our leadership has failed? Or do we find pride in our little conventicle of holiness and despise fallen Jerusalem? Let us hope for resurrection!

Ezekiel 20: 1-44: God gives the history of Israel, telling how he again and again took a disobedient Israel punished her, covenanted with her again and how she left him again and again. God will now bring her into a new wilderness, even as he did at Sinai and renew his covenant with her so that she shall know he is the Lord.

It is hard to imagine that the church is so different. As I study church history the church turns again and again from the Lord and goes after idols. And one of the greatest idols is that we can reform her and bring her back together by our wisdom. God is Sovereign. He destroyed Israel, he brought her to the wilderness cleansed her, and united her again into one people. We serve the same God today. So to quote verse 39 and 40: As for you, O house of Israel (as for you, oh you Pentecostals, Reformed, Anglicans, Lutherans, Baptists, Roman Catholics, Orthodox) thus says the Lord God: Go serve every one of you his idols, now and hereafter, if you will not listen to me: by my holy name you shall no longer profane with you gifts and your idols. For on my holy mountain, the mountain heights of Israel, declares the Lord God, there all the house of Israel (the church), all of them, shall serve me in the land (In Christ, the world). There I will accept them, and there I will require your contributions and the choicest of your gifts, with all your sacred offerings.

The just will live by faith!

Ezekiel 20: 45-49. Ezekiel prophecies toward the South. He is in exile, so South is Judah. God will start a fire that will devour every green tree and dry tree, (the people who inhabit Judah) and that will not be quenched, scorching those who look on from the north and the south. The land of Judah will fundamentally be turned into a hell.

The idea is quite clear. Yet Ezekiel complains that the people respond to this message, “He is a maker of parables.” He is a story-teller not a serious man. This is the response of the wicked to the warnings of the righteous. They claim that they do not understand and in a real sense they do not for they have shut off their eyes and their minds to the truth.

Ezekiel 21. God reveals a sword against the people of Judah. Both the rightoeus and the wicked will come under its slaughter. “A sword, a sword is sharpened and also polished, sharpened for slaughter, polished to flash like lightning!” For, explains God, “you have despised everything of wood.”

The passage goes on to explain that this sword is given to Nebuchadnezzar who will come against the land of Israel and through this king God says, “a ruin, ruin, ruin I will make it.”

He goes on to declare the judgment on Ammon a neighboring country as well. They will share in the judgement of Judah, but sadly they are misled by false prophecy.

God disciplines Canada through his rod of wood, today. Will we turn to the Lord before he comes against us with a sword? Or must we groan with breaking heart and bitter grief, as righteous and wicked are caught up in the judgment of God?

Ezekiel 22: 1-22 Ezekiel brings another indictment against Judah. He goes through a litany of her sins, especially her bloodshed, but also her sexual perversion and her perversion of justice. So the Lord will take her and melt her as silver in a furnace.

Interestingly, the furnace image is used. It is often used in the scriptures as a picture of refinement. Perhaps there is hope for these bloody, perverted people.

vs. 23-31. We are told that the prophets whitewash her sins. The men that are called to reveal the way of the Lord and call her back enable her in her sins.

Then God says something very interesting: “And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy them, but I found none.”

Yes, Canada is full of blood. Canada, too, deserves to melt in God’s furnace for her hands full of the blood of abortions, the sexual abuse of children through grooming, and the injustices that increase within our socialist system. Yes, the prophets of Canada seek to whitewash their sin, but perhaps there are some who will plead for Canada yet and stand in the breach before God.

For we do have more than Ezekiel had, we have the person of Christ, who stood in the breach before God, whose people were so thankful for his service that they killed him. And yet, through that death, he was all the more effective in standing in that breach. If we come before God in Christ, we can still have hope for the sake of our nation.

Ezekiel 23: God tells another story, this time of two whores, Oholah and Oholibah. Each sister, outdoes the other in her whoring. We are told that they are Jerusalem and Samaria. They are both turned on by their lover. Oholah by Assyria and Oholibah by the Chaldeans. When our loves are disordered, we are often destroyed by the object of our those disordered loves. Rightly ordered love. Love that puts God first does not destroy but glorifies.

I encourage you to read the chapter, it demonstrates the utter self-destruction that comes through sexual perversion.

Ezekiel 24: 1-14. God, through Ezekiel compares Jerusalem to a pot full of corrosion. Ezekiel is to boil a lamb in the pot, but the pot is Jerusalem. It is full of corrosion, full of the blood of evil deed. The pot will be set on the fire without anything in it and it will be burn and destroyed by the fire.

Jerusalem is a vessel of the Lord that is called to present good things, good sacrifices. But her evil deeds make all that she does like an unclean pot. She makes things that should come before God clean, unclean. She is useless to God.

2 Timothy picks up this kind of imagery. Calling upon the church as vessels of God to find cleanness through the blood of Christ, so that they being clean, may bring clean things before the Lord. So, let us too, taking warning from Ezekiel seek to come before God cleansed by the blood of Christ, carrying within us the sweet smelling sacrifice of Spirit-wrought good works before the Lord.

Sometimes the stubborn unbelief of the people of God silences the leaders of God. They cannot even weep for the sake of that stubborn unbelief. They can only watch in horror. God must act. He must punish. Only then can the prophet be heard again.

Ezekiel 24:15-27. Ezekiel is again to be an object lesson for the sake of Judah. His wife is about to die, and he is not to mourn for her, meaning that he will not put on the customary clothes that one might put on in order to mourn the passing of someone who is close to you. Neither is he to lift up his voice in audible groaning and weeping. This was done out of a demonstration of love and duty toward those who were taken away.

Ezekiel will be like the people. They will not have an opportunity to mourn for the temple that is to be destroyed. They will not have an opportunity to mourn for their children who will die by the sword. There sin has shut them off from the natural need to weep for what is lost.

Ezekiel is to refrain from mourning until a refugee comes and announces what has happened. Then he will be allowed to speak again and the people of God will know that the Lord is God.

Ezekiel 25: God is not merely a God of Israel, God is a God of the world. So Ezekiel brings the word of the Lord to the nations around Israel. God speaks against the nations in this passage because of what they have done in relation to his beloved Judah. Ammon exulted himself against God’s sanctuary. Moab and Seir said Judah is just like the other nations, Edom acted revengefully against the house of Judah, and so did the Philistines. Therefore, they participate in the judgement against Jerusalem.

God clearly still loves his people even as he judges them. That can only be for the sake of his promise. That is why he keeps for himself a remnant.

Therefore, though the church seems broken and full of sin, we can know that God still desires to keep the church for the sake of his son. And even as the enemies of God attack a sinful church so God will revenge himself upon the church’s enemies.

Ezekiel 26: In one of the more fascinating prophecies against the nations, Ezekiel turns to Tyre. Tyre has boasted: “Aha, the gate of the peoples is broken; it has swung open to me. I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste.” This suggests a rivalry between Tyre and Jerusalem. Hiram, king of Tyre was a sponsor of King David and King Solomon back in the day, even sponsoring the temple that was in Jerusalem. Some even suggest Hiram may have converted. Tyre was made great side by side with Jerusalem. Now Tyre celebrates Jerusalem’s downfall. God is full of wrath for her ingratitude toward him.

The close connections between Tyre and Jerusalem and between Tyre and the temple of God explain why God has so much to say about Tyre through Ezekiel. Tyre will be laid waste even as Jerusalem and God also laments over her as he laments over Jerusalem.

Ezekiel 27: God commands Ezekiel to raise a lament for Tyre. Again, the lament seems important because of the closeness between Tyre and Jerusalem. Tyre seems to be a type of what Jerusalem could be, a great merchant city. Or we could say, that Tyre traded in physical goods, while Jerusalem traded in spiritual goods. The Babylon of Revelation 17-19, for example, is also a great merchant, and the most likely reference to this Babylon is, in fact, Jerusalem. In that way, Tyre’s trade is an eschatological picture of Jerusalem. Therefore God weeps over the good that Tyre represented even though she had become evil by viewing Jerusalem as a competitor rather than a partner.

Ezekiel 28: 1-19. If Ezekiel 26 and 27 have had tantalizing connections to Israel, the condemnation of the Prince of Tyre and the lament over the king of Tyre have even more so. The description of the Prince of Tyre, “wiser than Daniel” and the words of lamentation over the King of Tyre “you were in the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering,” have caused many to speculate that God is not just talking about the king of Tyre. Some suggest that God is talking about Satan and that is a possibility with references to wisdom (the serpent was wiser than all the other creatures) and his call as a guardian cherub. It could be a reference to Adam. He too was in the garden and called to be a guardian. It could be a reference to the High Priest, especially the descriptions of the stones that are the King of Tyre’s coverings are the same that are on the High Priest’s Ephod.

I prefer the last. We’ve already mentioned the connection between Hiram of Tyre and Solomon of Jerusalem. Hiram is the sponsor of the temple. The cedar of the temple comes from Lebanon. The King of Tyre and the High Priest of Jerusalem are being conflated as one. God’s judgement on Tyre is like the judgement that will also be on Jerusalem. Tyre in a sense becomes Jerusalem so that the Jerusalem that is in Judea may be rebuilt.

I am guessing and like many others I find this a difficult passage. May God grant his church growth in knowledge so that she may dig into the ancient scriptures and pull out treasures old and new for the sake of his glory.

Ezekiel 25-28 presents fascinating potential typologies of Israel, that might help explain what is going on in Romans 11.

Ezekiel 28:20-26. Now God calls Ezekiel to set his face against Sidon. Sidon too will fall. This is the last of the nations around Israel that will be judged for their envy of Israel. God is not only remaking Israel through the judgment that is coming from Babylon, he is re-making the world.

This is shown in how the judgment against Sidon transitions into a promise for Israel. Through his judgments, God is freeing Israel from those who pricked her in the past.

God adds here that the same Israel he has scattered through the nations, he will gather again.

If I am correct that God is conflating Tyre with Israel and the king of Tyre with the High Priest in the temple earlier in chapters 26 and 27, then the false Israel, the whoring Israel, is now destroyed and completely flattened as Tyre is, while the remnant, the true Israel that is scattered through the nations by the judgment of God will be brought back to the land and restored.

The same happened through Christ. The Jerusalem below became Babylon and was destroyed by God. But all Israel was saved, the true Israel, Jewish, but now with Gentile believers grafted into the vine, became the true Israel.

Ezekiel 29. We turn from Israel to Egypt. Interestingly, the two long prophesies are against Tyre and Egypt. A very short promise to Israel stands inbetween. She is receiving a similar judgment to the nations, but she is the people of God. She is destroyed like Egypt and like Tyre, but she is the people of God.

Egypt is punished because of their false promises to Israel and their pride “Because you said ‘the Nile is mine, and I made it.” Egypt will be given to Nebedchudnezzar as a payment for his inability to take Tyre. Egypt will be saved, but Egypt will be very small. It will never again be able to be the reliance of the house of Israel. Israel will never again be able to go back to her former masters.

Egypt is contrasted with Israel at the end of the passage. Egypt will be small, but there is a horn (power and strength) for the house of Israel.

Ezekiel 30. The Ancient nations produced amazing things despite their all too common rejection of God and the people of Israel. For this reason God does not delight in their destruction. Rather, he commands laments over the nations; First a lament over Tyre and now a lament over Egypt. Her glory and wealth are given to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. The Egyptians, like the Israelites will be scattered throughout the nations.

Ezekiel 31: God compares Pharaoh and Egypt to Assyria. Assyria was a beautiful tree that rivaled the beauty of the trees of the garden of God, but God made it fall and the land mourned over it. The point is, God brought destruction on the great tree of Assyria, will Egypt avoid the coming judgment?

God is almighty and righteous, he raises the poor up and brings the proud down low? What makes you think that you will escape?

Yet, the just will live by faith.

Ezekiel 32: God commands a lament over Egypt. Pharaoh imagines that he is a lion of the land, but he is a serpent of the sea. This fits the imagery of scripture, the nations around Israel are the sea and their leaders are the great beasts of the sea. He will be dragged out of the sea and dealt with. Again, God repeats that Babylon will come against Egypt and destroy it. It is the second part here that is particularly fascinating starting in verse 17. Here Pharaoh is brought to the pit and there he is joined by the other uncircumcised nations. All the world is being brought to the tohu and wabohu that characterized the world at Creation. God is making a new world. And when Pharaoh sees this, he will be comforted.

Political puppet master clipart, vintage

Politics and Power

By James

On December 27, 2023

In Church

The first article in the French Reformed Church Order is “Ministers ought not to Lord it over one another.” It is a warning against fleshly politics in the church of Jesus Christ.

We should discuss what the nature of politics is. People use the word politics without thinking of what it really means. Some define politics coercively as attempts to control and lord it over one another. This is what I understand the common phrase to mean “oh that’s just politics.” It is a reference to some person or group bidding for control over another person or group. Of course, we must also recognize that the There should be none of that sort of politic in the Christian view. Politics can also be defined as communal decision-making. This is the more common today, but the definition can ignore the reality of power dynamics that come within politics. People are given “rule” and that is power.

I like the definition that William Killbourn gives in his book, “The Firebrand” on William Lon Mackenzie. He defines politics as the “pursuit and direction of power to desirable ends.” This allows for all the various definitions that people give to the word politics. It reflects the reality of how people use power. Those desirable ends could be noble, the product of an ideology, or personal lusts.

For the Christian, politics are “the pursuit the direction of power to desirable ends through equally desirable means.” The pursuit of the power ought to be pursued through legitimate means. Once received, that power ought to be directed toward good ends through desirable means.

There is no grasping of power for the Christian, for he is called by God to never Lord it over another. That is the nature of the Gentiles or unbelievers according to our Lord Christ. The unbeliever is marked by anxiety, and his anxiety is subverted into a desire to dominate others. For the Christian, however, power is given, never taken. The Christian leader, whether ecclesiastical or civil, whether familial or whether he has power only over his own person, is called to use the power given to him for the good of the kingdom of God.

This does not mean that a Christian may not desire power. Paul says, “It is a good thing to desire to be an elder.” Elders have power in the church of God, the power of excommunication, the power of the Shepherd, as an ambassador for the Shepherd. If he may desire eldership, he may desire civil office as well, and may seek that by legitimate means.

The Christian must seek power legitimately, and he also must use power legitimately. Power itself is not evil, but it can be corrupting. We could compare it to Paul’s talk about money in 2 Timothy. “The love of money is the source of all sorts of evil.” The same can be said of power.

There is a deep desire to dominate one another that goes back to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve grasped for the power “to be like God” to be like God.” From then on man wants to be God not only before God, but before his fellow man. Jesus warns his disciples, “Do not Lord it over one another as the Gentiles do.”

That is why the Scriptures encourage us in humility. It is not without reason that God chose Moses as leader for the people of Israel, “Now Moses was a humble man, more humble than anyone on the face of the earth.” Humility is a pre-requisite to fulfilling one’s office before God well.

That doesn’t mean there is no willingness to exercise power. It is humility that teaches us how to use power rightly. We humble ourselves, first, before God and bind ourselves to his word, and that can make truly humble men appear to fleshly men as full of pride. Paul is very certain in his office and in the authority he has been given. He is more than willing to use it against those who plague the church of God. One of the constant struggles in the New Testament church is against those “who would spy out your freedom” and enslave you to some type of law again. Christians are free. Supposedly, good ends are not an excuse for evil deeds to reach those ends. Paul and the other apostles fight fiercely against those who seek to destroy the freedom of the Christian.

Yet Paul, Jesus, and many other Saints of the Old and New Testaments know that this power is given and they continually humble themselves before God and his Word as the source, the content, and the boundaries of the power they exercise.

Toppling Idols

By James

On December 21, 2023

In Freedom

Regarding M. Cassidy. I am thankful when idols are toppled. I want to be confident that it was done according to the spirit and not the flesh. I am not.

people gathered in front of toronto freestanding signage

Nations are not Eschatological

By James

On November 21, 2023

In Uncategorized

While I first read the idea that in the New Heavens and New Earth we will enjoy a sort of fullness of our nationality with interest, I now find the idea somewhat silly. The idea goes something like this. I find deep meaning in my citizenship in the USA or in Canada, and the scriptures suggest that such a loyalty and affection for my land is a good thing. In the new heavens and the new earth, God will not destroy good things such as our bodies, our relationships, or the things our bodies enjoy such as food, drink, art, music, or study. It would make sense then, that we would enjoy a perfect form of the nations we are part of. We will retain our national identities, perhaps even enjoy a perfect form of the land we currently live in, while at the same time, praise God as citizens in the Empire of Christ.

I argue that such a view fails to understand the fundamental purposes of nations in the economy of God. Nations are good. It is good to be patriotic, to love one’s own nation and one’s own people, but this is a temporary good. We are moving toward a greater good. And to do so we must be transformed. I used to be a citizen of Toronto and that will always be a part of me. Following that I went to Niverville and sought to participate in the civic life there. I am now in Fort St. John and I seek the good of that city because it is my own. I do not completely leave behind my identity, but I am transformed through it to something better. I believe that that is what it means to be a member of Christ’s kingdom.

I don’t lose my identity as a Canadian as I enter the new heavens and new earth. I retain the goodness of that background, but I move beyond that identity to something bigger and fuller, which existing as a Canadian cannot fill.

But I do not merely seek to prove this through probabilities. There is stronger evidence to be found in an analogy to marriage. Marriage is good. God created marriage, but it is something temporary. When I die, I am not longer a married man. Death severs earthly relationships. Paul says so in Romans 7, “For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.” Marriage, even good marriages, have an end date.

And they are not resumed in heaven. When questioned about the possibility of a woman in marriage with more than one husband in heaven, because of the death of her husband here on earth, Jesus says, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.”

Marriage, one of the most unique bonds we experience here on earth is not renewed in heaven. This doesn’t mean your marriage was for nothing within God’s economy. Rather, it was a temporary good; a good to love and rejoice in for a time. Just as childhood and youth are temporary goods, something to rejoice in for a time, until you embrace a wife, at which time you you die to what you were before and you become something else. It is the same with entering heaven, you die marriage, and in that you are transformed from the glory of marriage to something greater than marriage, something we do not experience yet.

I can sum it up this way. Just as marriage will be transformed so that it no longer can properly be called marriage, so nation will be transformed that it is no longer properly referred to as nation.

If one of the greatest bonds we enjoy here on earth is ended in our death, how can we claim that weaker bonds like that of nation remain on us. There is a real sense, in which we already do that. My family is from a Dutch background, though we keep some of the uniquenesses of that Dutch identity, our calling is to embrace and participate in our new reality, Canada. Likewise, though we may question the wisdom of Immigration policy, the fact is that the Lord has willed to bring this about, and we must seek to create new bonds and build new bodies with those who come, and so the nation changes and transforms.

This is perhaps where the belief that nations are eschatological is at its most unhelpful. Nations are not permanent. Nations die. Who speaks of the Aztec nation anymore? What about the Vandal Nation? What about the Huns? The Assyrian Nation, the Babylonian nation? Israel, the one nation we know a lot about, died twice. She first died in the 7th century B.C. where. It was God who raised her up again: A shoot shall spring from Jesse.

She died again in the first century, but she was raised, renewed in the ressurection of Jesus Christ, and she was transformed into the church. It is only the power of God that raises up his people every time they are close to death. Other nations died.

The idea that nations are somehow permanent leads us to strange places where people try to preserve some idealized version of their nation, that for one, never existed, for another, cannot exist; certainly not anymore. So, for example the first nations here in Canada, often live according to the past, remembering what they once were, seeking to revive a culture that no longer exists and likely cannot exist. Now with the rise of things like Kinism and Nationalism, white people are enabled to do that too. It’s not going to do us any better than it does the first nations.

This also breeds peculiar beliefs such as those who seek to restore the solemn league and covenant, as if that did not die when Charles the Second came to the throne, perhaps even before that. And if not then, it definitely died when the Stuart line ended with the beginning of the reign of William and Mary.

This also tends to breed peculiar beliefs about the nation of Israel as if it is still alive today, as if that nation has some special place. Sure, they have resurrected a nation called Israel, but apart from Christ their is no continuity with that past.

Christ points us toward a future of eternal life. Let us enjoy the goods of the present without seeking to make them eternal. Nations are good. I enjoy being a Canadian. I like the Canadian flag. I have one on my house. I enjoy the cultural products of Canada, ice hockey, maple syrup, and poutine. I like it that Canadians are polite. I desire the good of Canada. I want them to recognize Christ. Let us love our nations and seek their good, without seeking to crystalize our experience into a perfect moment. Nations are no more eternal than marriage is eternal. We ought to delight in the blessings of our nation, even as we delight in the blessings of our marriages. But only God’s kingdom is eternal.

Man was made to mature and to grow, let us not go back to childhood by seeking to eternalize a given nation. Let us instead seek to grow into the kingdom of God, ever-increasing in our willingness to grow in our bond with every tongue, tribe and nation, and so find our future in the family of God, rather than human families.

The Problem with Federal Theology.

By James

On November 21, 2023

In Covenant, Genesis, Reformed Theology

Covenant is used in a particular way in scripture. It is used of God’s work of establishing a relationship with fallen man. The one possible reference to a Covenant with Adam is difficult to prove. And considering the use of covenant in scripture, it is difficult to say that Adam was in covenant with God, except by analogy to other covenants. So we argue that this is an implied covenant.

How is covenant used? I would begin with an analogy. Marriage is a covenant. While a mere relationship is not a covenant. So covenant involves a formalized relationship, that is, a relationship that did not exist, but through promises set out with obligations given, something new is formed that was not their before. That is not the relationship with God and Adam, where Adam’s relationship with God is established simply in being made by God and functions more as an analogy between father and son, rather than husband and wife. Later covenants are made in order to establish a relationship with God’s people (Abraham) or are made to restore God’s relationship with his people (God restores covenant with his people after the exile).

So why we can’t we simply extend the word covenant by analogy to other relationships? The problem is that the scriptures already use covenant in a certain way. We either then empty covenant of its content and context until it just means “relationship,” especially when it comes to the next step, an inter-Trinitarian covenant. In this case, succession of covenant is flattened. Or, the scriptural definition of covenant begins to leak into other administrations. The Adamic administration becomes a covenant of works by which Adam must merit eternal life. Or, a covenant between the persons of the Trinity, where the language moves more and more toward a social trinity, even a tri-theism.

The Spirit and the Magisterium

By James

On November 9, 2023

In Church, History, Traditionalistic exegesis

These are my half-formed thoughts as I seek to understand the Spirit’s authority in the church.

When Paul’s ministry and authority is questioned, he does not rely on the voice of the church or the Magisterium. Instead he appeals to the Spirit, ” The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.”

Paul does appeal to tradition and to the voice of the church and to his apostolic authority, but passage above demonstrates that one of his main appeals is to a shared Spirit that testifies to his message. This is a spirit he shares with Apollos so that both are counted as servants of Christ and are not to be pitted against one another.

Similarly in 1st Thessalonians, Paul attributes the willingness of the Thessalonians to hear him to a shared Spirit. “Because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.” Later he adds, “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of god, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.”

As protestants we do hold to a Magisterium, a tradition that speaks authoritatively into our lives. Many protestants deny this and act as if tradition has no authority, but this comes from fools who have no thought. If we believe in One God and one Spirit, who speaks the truth, then when this Spirit speaks through men who also have the Spirit, we also ought to listen, especially, when many who also share the Spirit respect and love these men and repeat their words through the Spirit themselves. Perhaps it is has more fuzzy lines than the Eastern Orthodox or the Roman Catholic Magisterium, though it has a clear center, that being the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed. I am not convinced that it has more fuzzy lines, however, because of the number of interpretations and just the amount of doctrine that counts as tradition in those two churches.

Yet alongside this we hold to the work of the Spirit. Christ has promised to be with us by his Spirit. Christ has promised that Christ will guide us in all truth. A Magisterium without the Spirit and Word as a norming norm will eventually quench the Spirit’s work of unity. Any church that simply appeals to the authority of the church without also appealing to a shared Spirit that illuminates that word in each one of us and is the ultimate judge of each heart is obscuring that important work and is itself undermining the Magisterium of the church. They too become fools without thought.

Further, if we fail to receive those who share in the Spirit, becoming judges that go beyond what is clear in the word of God, we also undermine the work of the Spirit.

“And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”

two people reading bible while sitting on a sofa

CREC and the Reformed Baptist

By James

On November 4, 2023

In Church, Covenant

The Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches holds the unique distinctive of allowing for paedobaptist and credobaptist churches within the denomination. A church may hold to the Three Forms of Unity or the Westminister Standards, among other reformed standards, or it may hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith. This means that the elders of that particular church may refrain from any requests to baptize a baby, whereas their fellow elders or ministers in another church would happily baptize that same baby.

The Logic of our Communion

How on earth does that work? Can it work? Some have told me that it can’t work, but there is a certain logic to how we, as members of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, work together in this way. The reasoning is in understanding what reformed Catholicity should be like and then applying that understanding to a mutual agreement to receive each other in the Lord. Throughout, we seek to respect the conscience as much as possible.

Whether it practically works in our world is a different matter. It remains to be seen whether a credobaptist church can have a long and multi-generational partnership with the CREC, for our communion remains overwhelmingly paedobaptist and paedocommunion. Yet, we are attractive to many from the Baptist world because of our faithfulness in the culture wars. Perhaps we are also attractive because we have many shared cultural values with the Baptist world, for many of our best ministers and leaders are from that world.

However, there is a certain sense to it. We desire to be as small-c catholic as possible, recognizing all our brothers and sisters in Christ who share the same Lord. We are willing to do what we can to accommodate those, even in leadership, who might differ from us. Within our communion, we allow a breadth of doctrine within the bounds of the various historic reformed confessions we recognize. A given church must hold to one of several reformed confessions to become a member of our communion, and its leadership must hold to that confession (generally membership in local churches has a much lower bar, for we wish to recognize all those who confess Christ). Technically, this is quite broad, even if it doesn’t always appear so. For example, our communion is associated with postmillennialism. Still, there is no formal expression of a millenarian position in the CREC.

Fundamentally, we seek to practice reformed catholicity. We believe that our reformed catholicity ought to extend to our Reformed Baptist brothers and sisters. Therefore, among the reformed confessions that a church may hold, we also have the 1689 London Baptist Confession. The culture of our communion allows anything from a Reformed Baptist on the one end to a Lutheran-inflected reformed thinking on the other end.

This broadness doesn’t take away from our calling to a depth in our knowledge and love of scripture. Only through deep study of scripture can we move toward sharing in the mind of Christ. That is why we expect our ministers to at least adhere to the fundamental reformed doctrines in our various historical confessions. This adherence gives us boundaries as we dig into the scriptures and seek to grow more and more united in the mind of Christ.

Reformed Catholicity

What do I mean by reformed catholicity? It is two things: guarding the deposit of sound words that the church has always held to and recognizing all who serve Christ as Lord.

I first mean a desire to uphold the central teachings, always taught by the church of Christ as Messiah and Son of God and his historical resurrection for the redemption of our sins. The doctrine of the Trinity defends the first, and the doctrine of the inspiration of the scriptures protects the second. All church doctrine defends either the reality of these truths or refutes false doctrines that obscure or distract from the effect of these realities for the average Christian. We all (in any denomination, federation, or communion) practice a form of theological triage in prioritizing certain doctrines as first, second, and third importance.

Reformed Catholicity is also about recognizing all those who serve Christ as Lord. “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.” I must offer the ministry of reconciliation to all men. That means I must receive into the church all those whom God defines as church. God defines the (social) boundaries church through his gift of baptism. Therefore, I will receive as brothers all who have been baptized into the name of the Trinity so far as they do not deny him in confession or life. I must recognize the church as God constitutes it, not as I would constitute it.

Reformed Catholicity in the local church.

How does this apply in a local CREC? I can only speak to the Presbyterian-minded CRECs. While it is not a rule in the CREC, the vast majority of churches allow families to join that do not hold to infant baptism. They are not required to baptize their children. Within Presbyterian-minded churches we allow for this because we understand the cultural significance of changing from one mindset to another. It is not a matter of showing someone a verse. We desire to respect the conscience of these families. Interestingly, it can create interesting scenarios in which some of the children in the church take communion, and some do not, but this is how we bear with one another.

In my understanding, it is within the authority of the minister and the elders to call a member to account who fails to recognize the status of their children and present them for baptism, but I believe it is better not to use this authority in this case lest we break something. If you exercise this authority, it is unlikely that the family will remain in which case the status of their children will not be recognized anyway, or you may push them into making a decision they regret, and they will resent you for it, causing division in the church. It is not always right to exercise a given power. So, we seek to follow the example of the gentleness and humility of Christ. In a different scenario, we could use this authority if a Baptist-minded member were to keep his grown son from baptism when that son desires to be baptized and also presents the evidences of a faithful Christian life. This, of course, is an extreme scenario. It also represents a scenario in which the Baptist goes against his own beliefs. However, in most cases, Baptist-minded members who participate in our churches tend to present their children for baptism at a younger age.

Baptist churches within the CREC are expected to have a similar approach albeit from a Baptist perspective.

Reformed Catholicity Across our Communion

So how does that work out in the relationship with the Presbyterian-minded and the Reformed Baptist-minded in the CREC? Presbyterians would argue that the Baptist denies that reformed catholicity, while the Baptist would see the Presbyterian as improperly washed. They both have to give something. For this it’s helpful to go through the fundamental commitments that Council 2023 adopted for the preamble to the CREC constitution.

It means that we receive each other’s ordination. God has given the church the keys of the kingdom. The pastor is entrusted with these keys for the sake of the church. These keys open up the kingdom of heaven and close it through the preaching of the word and through discipline. The ordained pastor recognizes and receives the one who belongs to the kingdom of heaven and refuses the one who does not belong to the kingdom of heaven, as evidenced by that person’s life. At its most basic, a communion, if it to be meaningful, however much they might disagree on various issues, must receive and recognize that their colleagues legitimately exercise the keys of the kingdom of heaven. They do their basic job well.

That means within the CREC, we must receive one another’s baptismal status. The Presbyterian must receive that the son in a Baptist family is not baptized and bear with the fact that he receives this family even though they hold back their children from this gift of God. He can rest knowing that he is not the one who refuses them. The Baptist must receive the Presbyterian son as baptized, even though he is not appropriately baptized. Joe Rigney, in his studies on the London Baptist Confession of Faith has discovered that there has always been a group of Baptists that received infant baptism as “valid but improper.” It is not merely a new teaching among Baptists today. So, there has historically been room within the Baptist understanding to receive an infant baptism.

Accepting the ordination of the ministers in the CREC means that we also receive the communicant status that the elders of a given church confer. If one minister opens the door, the other church cannot close the door unless the man or woman is living in rebellion against God and his church. Again, this is derived from recognizing the ordination of the other ministers and elders in the church of Christ.

While there are difficulties in working this all out in a practical way, I believe this is a good step forward in recognizing that the boundaries of the church and the church’s ministry are God’s to decide, not ours. I don’t know if this system can work. I can still spot tensions within it. However, we are trying to be objective about the church’s current situation while remaining principled in our approach to our ancient and catholic faith.