Month: November 2017

n.b. I recently preached a sermon on Belgic Confession 25. This Article deals with how Christ fulfilled the law. This doctrine is not well understood today and so I thought it was fitting to publish the sermon. I’ve divided it up into blog-sized sections for easier reading:

The basic institution in the Old Testament was the tabernacle or temple. This was the center of Israelite culture and religion. It was even their political center. David ruled from Jerusalem. This was the city where the ark was and later where the temple would be set up. The tabernacle was the place where God could dwell with his people. God set up the system of the law around the tabernacle in order to protect the people from his presence. God is a holy God. Out of his grace and love for mankind, God desired to dwell with his people. But his people needed to be protected from him, his power, and ultimately his holiness. So God gave his people the law so that they would protect themselves from his holiness.

The people of Israel were able to approach God through various washings, through sacrifices, and through keeping themselves clean when approaching the temple, or the tabernacle, of God. God even instituted levels of holiness in Israelite society. There was a division of labor. Everybody in society wasn’t able to keep the law equally rigorously so God gave Israelites a High Priest. He was required to keep the greatest level of Holiness; then Priests, then Levites and finally the rest of the people. The Holiest men were able to come the closest to God for the sake of the rest of the people. These are the ceremonies and symbols of the law, which the Belgic Confession is speaking of. These ceremonies allowed men to approach the God of heaven and earth. The coming of Christ brought an end to all of these.

Why? There is a host of aspects of Christ’s work that we could look at in order to see how he fulfilled every element of the temple, the sacrificial offerings and the various offices that God set up in and around the temple. I want to focus on two aspects. Christ’s fulfillment of the tabernacle itself and his fulfillment of the sacrificial system.

John 1: 14 gives us a hint as to how Christ fulfills the tabernacle system. We are told there that the word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word, God, came down and took on flesh. He was in a human body. Remember what we said the tabernacle was for? It was a place for God to dwell with his people so that, we could approach him. John gives us a further hint through the Greek word he uses for dwell. The word literally means tabernacled. God dwelt among us in the flesh.

But Jesus did more. He fulfilled the sacrificial system. The ancient Israelites and to repeat the commanded sacrifices again and again so that men could draw near to God. Jesus, by his death, offered a sacrifice that covers all sin; all sin. That means that all the laws of uncleanness no longer apply. We don’t need repeated sacrifices, we don’t need repeated washings. We all need one sacrifice: Christ’s, and we only need one washing: his baptism. This is why God tore the veil of seperation on the night of Christ’s death. Any man could approach God through Christ. There was no need for the institutions of the temple. As the Belgic Confession says, they are abolished.

Ultimately, what happens is that the spiritual geography of the Old Testament is changed. We have a New Testament spiritual geography. The tabernacle is no longer a building, but the flesh of Christ. Because Christ has gone to sit at the right hand of his father, our tabernacle is in heaven. There is more. Christ unites us to himself so that we also change. In Christ, we are a temple of the Holy Spirit.

That is why God destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. After Christ died and sat down at the right hand of God, the temple was no longer necessary. When the Jews, who had rejected Christ, continued to use the rituals and ceremonies of the Old Testament the temple became an abomination. According to Hebrews, Christ’s fulfillment of the Mosaic system means that we may freely and confidently draw near to the throne of Christ. Christ’s truly powerful sacrifice covers corrupt flesh with his blood. Those who defended the temple were now defending a false way to God. In a sense, it was a false Christ, claiming to continue the work that Christ had already accomplished. God’s dwelling was now in Christ and those who were, and are today, united to Him.

And yet the substance of these remain for us in Jesus Christ according to the Belgic Confession. The book of Hebrews gives us a way to understand this. We still have a sacrifice. We still have a tabernacle. Because of Christ’s work their nature changed.

But the Belgic Confession doesn’t stop there, the author adds these words, “We still use these testimonies taken from the law and the prophets.” They have two uses for us. They confirm the gospel to us. We can see a little bit of what that means in seeing how Christ fulfilled the tabernacle and the sacrificial system. The second use is that they help us “order our life in all honesty, according to God’s will and to his glory.”

How does the tabernacle system help us to order our lives? Surely this must refer to the Ten Commandments or maybe some of the civil laws might be helpful for the ordering of the church? Paul’s words to Timothy would suggest differently. He tells us that all scripture is inspired and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, and for training in righteousness.

How does the tabernacle system train us in righteousness? There is a lot to say, but I will mention a couple things. The tabernacle system teaches us about how holy God is and how sinful we are. Most importantly it teaches us that we may only approach God through the means he provides, namely Christ and his Spirit.

Further, it teaches us that we are to approach God with humility and with the desire to seek righteousness in Him. It teaches us that this is something that is lifelong. It teaches us about God’s desire for purity when we approach him. We can also argue from the law that in Christ we are sacrifices before God. That is what Paul suggests in Romans 12: 1. He tells us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God. We do so with the same purity and humility that God called his people to in the Old Testament.

Did God make a Covenant with Adam?

By James

On November 18, 2017

In Covenant, Genesis, Hermeneutics, Uncategorized

In attempting to answer this question, I use the definition of the covenant I wrote of in the past. A covenant is a formalization of a personal relationship. This leads me to answer both “yes” and “no.” It depends on how you approach the Adamic administration. If you look at the creation of Adam in terms of paternity and sonship, the tendency is to say “no.” If you look at the creation of Adam in terms of Creator and creature, the tendency is to say “yes.”

This question would be very easy to answer if the Adamic administration was referred to as a covenant in scripture. It is not. There is the possibility that Hosea 6:7 refers to a covenant with Adam. It may also refer to a more general covenant with mankind, such as the Noahic covenant. It is more responsible to prove that the Adamic administration fits the concept of the word covenant before we argue for one interpretation or the other in Hosea 6:7.

I want to argue first that the Adamic administration is revealed as a father-son relationship. Though this relationship is covenant-like, it is not necessarily a covenant. For this, I use the arguments of Jason Van Vliet in his graduate work.

He draws from a number of places in scripture to prove that the image of God is revealed in Adam’s sonship to God. Luke is most explicit. In the genealogy that Luke gives for Christ at the end of Luke three, Luke refers to Adam as a son of God, just as Seth was the son of Adam.

Where did Luke get this from? It is likely that Luke got this from his understanding of the image of God in Genesis 1. God makes Adam in his image. When the genealogy of Adam is given in Genesis 5, we are told that Seth is made in the image and likeness of Adam. The image of God seems to be about a father-son relationship.

Is a father-son relationship a covenant? I’ve already suggested that it is hard to call it a covenant. I believe that an adoption can be properly termed a covenant. Adoption is a legal process, which allows two individuals to act as Father and son. This is what happens in the covenant made after sin. By Christ, God worked it so that we may have the relationship of son and father that Adam had lost. There is no formalization to the relationship of a natural-born son to his natural father, however. If it is a covenant, it is one that springs from the way things are and does not need a legal creation. We could employ the distinction between nature and culture here. The father-son relationship springs from nature. Covenants are cultural, they build on natural bonds.

Compare it to marriage. In marriage, there is a creation of a new type of relationship, which the two type of individuals did not have before. In the case of a son or daughter, there is not a moment of the son’s existence, where he does not relate as a son to his father. One is natural. One is cultural. The father-son relationship is covenant-like. Marriage is a covenant.

Father-son relationships are covenant-like in that the relationship can be broken. The father or the son may forget their natural duties toward one another and betray one another’s trust. The father is called to rule well and the son to obedience and submission, at least in his growing years. Again, there is growth in that relationship, but there are also duties according to what we might call the created order. Thinking about Adam and God in this sense would suggest that covenant is not the best way to describe their relationship.

However, we must understand that this is an analogy. This is obviously true. God is God. Adam is a man. Adam is in the image of God. The children of Adam may even be referred to as gods, as they are in Psalm 82, but that means that they share the character of God, not the substance of God. This means that there is another legitimate way to think about the covenantal character of the creation of Adam.

When we begin with Creator God rather than Father God, a dramatic distance opens between God and Adam. God is eternal, infallible and unfailingly holy. Adam is none of those things. God grants Adam the image of God. God is intentionally creating a relationship between himself and Adam, which is formalized by sharing his image with Adam. From this perspective there is a covenant between God and Adam.

It is natural, or informal, in the sense that it springs from God’s imprint of his image upon Adam. But it is also formal in the sense that God chose that this should be the nature of his relationship with Adam. It is formal in the sense that God ordained that Adam should be in his image. When men have children they do not choose to have children in their image.

It is ultimately because God is not bound by his own created order, that we can understand his relationship with Adam as a covenant.

How should we speak of the Adamic administration then? Is it a covenant or is it not? It depends. Those theologians who wish to speak in Biblical terms as much as possible will be suspicious of calling it a covenant. I would count myself as one of those. However, it is important to recognize that there is a legitimacy in calling it a covenant as well, according to our philosophical understanding of what is happening in scripture. Such a way of speaking is not anti-scriptural. My preference is that covenant would not be the primary category for speaking of God’s relationship with Adam. Instead, we should think of that administration in terms of a father and a son. That is how God chose to teach us about his creation of Adam.

n.b. I’m not sure if the nature and culture distinction I mentioned works that well. The problem is Marriage is not merely cultural, it has a grounding in nature. If culture builds on and is rooted in nature, however, that is not a huge problem. The problem is with the popular understanding of culture today. We see culture as added to nature, not grounded in nature.

Tim Keller, Religion is not the Opposite of the Gospel.

By James

On November 18, 2017

In education, The Basics

In the 5th chapter of Center Church by Tim Keller, Keller sets up religion and the gospel side by side. Religion is obeying in order to be accepted. The Gospel recognizes that I am accepted so I obey. I have no argument with the content. Tim Keller is giving Biblical teaching.

Tim Keller’s problem is a problem of semantics. He is using the wrong words to teach us. The gospel is the opposite of merit, not of religion. The gospel is the teaching that Christ has provided our righteousness so that we may follow the way of righteousness. Merit is the teaching that you must find the way the way of righteousness and God’s law helps us with that.

Religion is something else. Religion is the practice of worship and good works according to James 1:27. More popularly, religion refers to practices such as prayer and going to church.

Keller’s problematic division shows itself later in the same chapter when he speaks of “reorientation to Christ.” How does that happen? It doesn’t merely happen through thinking about the gospel. It happens by seeking the means of grace. You seek Christ through listening to his word and partaking of his sacrament with the saints. Where that is not an option you seek him through scripture-reading and prayer. You use religion as a way to seek Christ. It is true that you can seek religion through the gospel or through merit, but it is very unhelpful to simply conflate merit and religion.

Unfortunately, Keller’s way of speaking is all too common. It is something that deeply bothers me because I believe such a way of speaking undermines the God’s ordination of the means of grace as a way to seek him.

A Typology of Hyper-Calvinism

By James

On November 3, 2017

In History, Reformed Theology

It is my belief that Hyper-Calvinism is more common than many Calvinists and Reformed folks are willing to admit. However, I should admit that I define Hyper-Calvinism more broadly that most Calvinists. Hyper-Calvinism is anything that distorts the positive claims of the Canons of Dordt. Basically, Hyper-Calvinism distorts the sovereignty of God. I want to identify a number of ways that Reformed people have twisted Calvinism. They twist it into something that would be unrecognizable to those who defended this system. Here is a Typology of Hyper-Calvinism.

Missional Hyper-Calvinism or Traditional Hyper-Calvinism: This is what most people think of when they think of Hyper-Calvinism. This is the belief that God will save his elect with or without us. The result is that they question the use of mission work. This attitude faced William Carey when he expressed the desire to go as a missionary to India. The story is told that an old Calvinist confronted him. He told him that God would save the elect in India without his help. Ultimately this undermines the call of the divines at Dordt to remember that God uses means (CoD III/IV.17).
Predestinarian Hyper-Calvinism: This form of Hyper-Calvinism posits a strict parallel between God’s predestination of the elect and His predestination of the reprobate. It ignores the Canons’ language of “choosing” the elect and “passing over” the reprobate, (CoD I.7, 15). The language of the Canons teaches us that the decree of election and the decree of reprobation are accomplished in a different way. Predestinarian Hyper-Calvinism denies this. This is a particularly pernicious error because it undermines the character of our God.
Ecclesial Hyper-Calvinism: This form of Hyper-Calvinism holds that God makes a covenant only with the elect and denies or empties God’s covenant with the baptized. (The fact is, there are many explanations of what it means that God makes a covenant with the baptized. I argue that a broad variety of answers still belong to Calvinism proper. It is those who deny that God covenants with babies or empties the covenant of baptism by saying that God only covenants with elect babies that are guilty of this error. see my definition of covenant here.) It tends to diminish the importance of sacraments as marks of the people of God and treats them only as aids to devotion. Further, It tends to deny that children of believers should be treated as Christians. The Reformed Baptist position is a form of this error. The emphasize God’s covenant with the elect to the point that they try to make the number of the baptized and the number of the elect the same. This form of Hyper-Calvinism doesn’t directly contradict the Canons of Dordt, but it does tend to undermine its assurances to those whose children die in infancy (CoD I.17) and its declaration that sacraments are means of grace (CoD III/IV.17).
Hyper-Assurance Hyper-Calvinism: This form of Hyper-Calvinism demands full assurance of election before you can be certain of your election and before you can be certain you are actually a member of Christ’s body. The Canons of Dordt clearly proclaims the gospel of full assurance (CoD V.9). The Spirit gives us this grace. It does not claim that you need that full assurance to be saved. Instead, the Canons encourage us to use the means of grace to deal with this lack of assurance (CoD V.14). In fact, this position directly contradicts the Canons, which claims that the elect vary in their assurance in their lifetimes (CoD V.11).
Hyper-Grace or Antinomian Hyper-Calvinism: This form of Hyper Calvinism puts all the weight on God’s irresistible grace in converting the soul. Man can sit back after salvation and the good works will come. The responsibility of man to live out his salvation in fear and trembling is ignored or even denied. This contradicts the call of the Canons to persevere (CoD V.13,14).
Hyper-Depravity Hyper-Calvinism: This form of Hyper-Calvinism emphasizes the total depravity of man. Man can do no good before God. It tends to undermine or deny that the saved man can please God. Ultimately it denies the power of God in regenerating the will of man and the new life that he gives him. (CoD V.16)
Hyper-Glory or Hyper-Sovereignty Hyper-Calvinism: I use the term Hyper-Glory because this is the result of a false type of piety, which thinks that the glory of God is a zero-sum game. God gets all the glory and nobody else gets any. Rather, when God gets all the glory, he is generous that glory and shares it with his saints. By the term Hyper-Sovereignty, I refer to a sort of fatalism or Stoicism. You might hear, “We should be happy with whatever God does. We need to receive it as God’s will.” There is a sense where we can’t really take joy in life. They forget that God’s own son sweat blood, while he pleaded with God to “Let this cup pass.” He didn’t receive the cross stoically or fatalistically. The working out of God’s plan of salvation is more complicated than we are willing to admit. This is another form of Hyper-Calvinism that does not directly contradict the Canons of Dordt. However, it does contradict the tenor of that piece of work.

Some hold to one of these errors. Many more hold to a combination of these errors.

Many will be quick to point out that many errors in Calvinism share space with the errors of Jacobus Arminius as well. We can think of neonomianism for example. This is the idea that Christ came and justified us through faith and we need to add good works, alongside Christ’s work, in order to reach final justification. This is an error. However, the point of this post is to demonstrate a certain category of errors. Namely, how people misuse the truth of God’s absolute sovereignty, while claiming to defend it.

Reflections on order

Month: November 2017

Christ fulfills the law: Christ changes spiritual geography

Did God make a Covenant with Adam?

Tim Keller, Religion is not the Opposite of the Gospel.

A Typology of Hyper-Calvinism