As I walk through this discussion, I understand that many will not be convinced of my arguments and will still argue that some sort of profession of faith is helpful or necessary.  My hope is that for these, despite my vigorous defense, they will respect my personal fidelity to scripture and be willing to receive paedo-communionists as brothers in the Lord, even as I do toward those who disagree with me on these matters.

The supposed division between communicant and non-communicant members is founded upon one passage in scripture.  There are other passages marshalled up to confirm this division, but the interpretations of those passages depend on the interpretation of this passage.

Therefore, the ritual of Profession of Faith is built on one passage of Scripture, at least in Venema’s case.  Venema is careful not to draw too much out of the other scripture passages.  He understands that these do not work. They often assume a lot, such as the son who asks about the feasts, “What is the meaning of this?” in Exodus and Deuteronomy. Such a reading depends on a lot of assumptions brought into the text.  Venema recognizes that.

But in turn, he needs to make a lot of 1 Corinthians 11, a contested passage if there ever was one, and turns that into a reason to keep children from the Lord’s Table.  He admits repeatedly throughout the book that his observations do not prove credo-communion.  They do so only in light of his understanding of 1 Corinthians 11.

The reason Venema has been so cautious about affirming the greatness and breadth and width of the New Covenant is all based on 1 Corinthians 11. And it boils down to an argument that the passage has a more general application than the paedo-communionists want it to; something that paedo-communionists, need not even deny.

Venema has other things to say about the text that can be taken or left.  I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says about 1 Corinthians 11.  For example, I think the word often translated as remembrance can be translated as memorial, the focus being, first of all, on God remembering us and, secondarily, on our remembrance of God, but that is not essential to my argument.  It does, however, support the argument because the emphasis is less on each member remembering.  But even if the general call to remembrance in the Lord’s Supper is more critical than I take it to be, this can be understood as I have already stated so often: according to the measure of grace given to each baptized member.

Venema’s key argument is that verses 27-32 have a broader and more general application than paedo-communionists allow for. Venema notes that Paul always follows instructions about particular controversies with more general observations that apply what is said to a broader and future audience.  So Venema argues that the call in 1 Corinthians 11 to eat and drink in a worthy manner, examining oneself, and discerning the body are prerequisites to coming to the table.  His implied conclusion is that the practice of Profession of Faith follows from that.

One thing I do appreciate in Venema’s approach is that he has a good view of what Paul means by examining yourself.  He doesn’t fall into the neurotic approach that is all too common, especially in the Dutch Reformed tradition.

Yet, though he shows a better understanding than many of what these more general commands mean, he fails to understand the context of these commands and how they are generalized from the particular situation that Paul is speaking about. And the “how” is the key.  Because I do not disagree with the general argument of his exegesis, it is that, in his general application, he has not only extended the application of the specific situation, he has completely untethered Paul’s exhortations from their original context.

Let me get into some of the details here; The common paedo-communion approach (and this is not merely a paedo-communion approach; many modern and ancient commentators recognize the point of this passage, though they do not adequately work it out in their practical sacramentology)  to this passage emphasizes that the problem here is the divisions in the church.  One can even bring in chapter 10, which compares the church’s shared participation in the body of Christ to Israel’s participation in manna and water in the wilderness or the participation of Israel in the altar that they eat. The force of the Lord’s Supper is that you are one body, and if you deny that by how you celebrate the supper, you cause division.  This is not talking about the state of your heart, but the very physical way you celebrate the supper. Do you have proper table manners? Are you including all the Christians? Do you, as Paul concludes, wait for one another?

Of course, the heart matters; that can be gathered from other places in scripture. Particularly, if you deny the Lord by your actions or by promoting false doctrine, the church has a right to remove you from the table, so that you may not bring your evil leaven into the congregation.  These things are not the first concern here in our passage, though they can be argued from the passage and even should be.  If you deny the Lord in your life, you ought not be counted a body member.

The appeals to examining oneself, the worry over guilt over the body and blood of the Lord, and the question of discerning the body all have to do with recognizing the nature of God’s church, with counting all baptized believers as members of the body of Christ.  The problem in the church is “that when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper that you eat.  For in eating, each one goes ahead with his meal.  One goes hungry, another gets drunk.”  And the final word on this problem is, “So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another – if one is hungry, let him eat at home – so that when you come together, it will not be for judgment.” The problem is their exclusionary practices and the exalting of one person over another.  The general principles of verses 27-32 must be understood in light of these realities.

At the risk of repeating myself that doesn’t mean that people are wrong to bring in the matter of the man who slept with his mother-in-law in 1 Corinthians 5.  This certainly also brings an abomination into the body of Christ. But that is already dealt with. Paul has said that they are to purge such a one from their midst if they persist in their sin, that is, excommunication, removal from the table of God. Now, the faithful Corinthians must learn table manners, and they must not set tables in which one Christian is made out to be greater than another, for as Paul gets into in chapters 12-14, everyone is part of the body of Christ.

In this sense, drinking the cup in an unworthy manner is due to how the Corinthians act toward their brothers in Christ.  This is also the theme of chapters 8-10 and 12-14. A person is to examine himself.  He is to make sure he honors his “brother for whom Christ died (1 Corinthians 8:11). In that, he is to discern the body. He, through the Spirit, understands who belongs to Christ.”

Of course, this has broader application to the knowledge of Christ in general and personal holiness.  But as the Apostle John says, we can’t separate these.  If you love God, you will love your brother.”  A Pastor, Toby Sumpter, recently preached, if you want to grow closer to your brother and you don’t know how to start by growing closer to God. If we want to make the most of the Lord’s Supper, the whole church should be exhorting and encouraging one another to grow in holiness and in the knowledge of God.

Keeping in mind the context, that these words are given to the whole church of God, this instruction is given so that each one may fulfill it according to the measure of grace given to him or her. These are not prerequisites that we need to measure in one another in order to admit one another to the Lord’s Table.  Rather, these are things each one of us are to grow in before, at, and after the Lord’s Table. The baby is to have faith according to the ability of a baby, the teenager, faith and discernment according to the ability of a teenager, the young man, faith, and discernment according to the ability of a young man, and the old man, faith and discernment according to the ability of an old man.

An example I have mentioned before is that Baptism binds us to righteousness (Romans 6); you are then bound to pray without ceasing.  That is not something that comes naturally; rather, it is taught over time so that the baby fulfills the law to pray without ceasing, according to the measure of grace that is given him over time.  You don’t force the baby to pray before he is able to speak, but you are excited to teach him to pray as soon as possible.  You don’t force a baby to eat communion before he is ready, but you are excited to give communion to your baby as soon as possible, as soon as he is able.

Similarly, you are bound, “not to neglect meeting together.”  Do we say a child doesn’t need to go to church, because he is not able to obey it?  No, mothers and fathers bring their children to church and rightly so.  Children are raised to follow the patterns of the Christian way as they are physically able to, and according to the measure of grace God has given to them, so that they may have every opportunity to grow in faith. Raise your children at the table not in order to receive the table.

In fact, their reception into the covenant of grace is important so that we do not think that somehow we are better or more favored by God than they are because of our accomplishments. In this way, paedo communion more properly reflects the biblical teaching on humility and against lording it over one another.   

The thing is, even if I am wrong and the general application of Paul in 27-32 has more to do with discerning Christ’s work on the cross and some degree of mature examination such that a baby could not do it, I still would not follow Venema’s logic.  Paul’s exhortations are given to the church as a whole, and still each one has to hear and follow according to his or her ability.  These words are still given to a particular situation, one that still affects how these principles are to be applied.

He still has done nothing to prove that these are pre-requisites that must be measured in a youth before they come to the table.  He cannot say how they are to be measured, he has no objective rule from scripture from which to determine a right of passage by which a member may move from a non-communicant status to a communicant status.

And yet, from this, Venema argues for the tradition of the Profession of Faith. And yet, even in this passage, which is the foundation for much of Reformed practice, there is not a whisper of a ritual by which children are added to those who commune at the table.  Perhaps if the problem in Corinth was ignorance at the table, we might have a case, but the situation in Corinth is not mere ignorance. It is ignorance that results in infighting at the table of Christ. The onus is to recognize the body of Christ, to recognize those who belong to Christ and welcome them at the table, and then to teach each one as they are seated at the table of Christ to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.

Perhaps there is a prudential ground for the practice of Profession of Faith? Perhaps it is merely exemplary to encourage children to approach the table closely connected to faith?  Perhaps as Luther or Ursinus might have said, small children don’t need communion, it is when they begin to have the inklings of faith they need communion.  And in order to bear out that reality, they defended a more pragmatic or prudential Profession of Faith.   I don’t think this bears out in practice.  In my experience the strong connection between faith and the table is always found where that is taught in the churches. However, let’s grant that possibility.  Then you still ought to fully embrace churches that practice paedo-communion because it is a difference according to prudence and not according to the clear word of God. And this is what Luther said about the Bohemians, holding nothing against their practice of infant communion other than questioning its helpfulness.

In conclusion, there is one thing that Venema has not found, and that is a pattern for Profession of Faith.  It is an invisible institution in scripture and yet a highly important part of the life of most Reformed & Presbyterian Churches.  It can’t even be reliably found in one of the most critical passages on the Supper, foundational to the very idea of Profession of Faith. Why the discrepancy?

The post Notes on Venema’s “Children at the Lord’s Supper,” Part 4, 1 Corinthians 11 appeared first on Respondeo.

I pass over some of Venema’s other work as it stands or falls based on other assumptions.  However, it is worth examining some of Venema’s assumptions as he walks through the Old Testament.  He mentions a number of things concerning the Old Testament that he believes paedo-communionists have not adequately thought through in applying the Old Testament to the New.  I found it helpful that he points these out, because in reflection on these, we have a better basis for paedo-communion and how it ought to be practiced than we would otherwise.

I find Venema’s discussion of the Old Testament quite interesting because he recognizes the weakness of a credo communionist argument from the Old Testament.  He continually appeals to New Testament realities. Much of his time is spent seeking to undermine paedo-communionist appeals to the Old Testament, but he doesn’t build much of a case for his beliefs in his chapter on the Old Testament.

Venema seems to believe that a great deal of the paedo communion approach is based on an understanding of the Old Testament, mostly focussing on the Old Testament practice around Passover. Considering the time in which  it was written; this is probably fair. 

However, I am surprised that Venema does not acknowledge that a prominent paedo communionist like Tim Gallant makes his primary argument from the New Testament.

Yet even so, if the Old Testament is paedo communion and the New Testament is credo communion, there must be clear evidence that the New Testament is breaking from the Old Testament.  Meanwhile, if the Old Testament is credo communion and the New Testament is paedo, there must also be some good evidence for the move in that direction as well.

However, Venema gives us some limited arguments for his position from the Old Testament. Venema’s arguments focus on the natural limitations and exceptions that were prevalent among Israel; he also argues from the hierarchies of holiness that existed among Israel, allowing only priests to participate in some meals, along with laws about cleanliness that would have only permitted some to participate in various feasts, and finally, Venema argues from historical records, that demonstrate it was not necessarily common among the Jews to have small children participating in many of their festivals.

Evidence for natural limitations that caused exclusion

Israel’s men are commanded to attend the three main festivals in Deuteronomy, while the women and children do not have to come. This is important to Venema because the children are not commanded to come.

Venema fails to understand how communities work. 

Sometimes, natural limitations prevent the immediate obedience of a command. God does not ignore the ability of individuals when he calls them to obedience.  He does not assume that we are superhuman. The law of God assumes ordinary ability, the measure of grace that is in you.  When Israel is spread throughout all the land, even though all have the right, they do not all have the necessity of coming.  It is those who have the most natural ability to come to the feasts who are commanded to come. Yet all Israel still has the right to those feasts even if it is the men who are commanded to come.

 It’s similar to a tiny suckling baby.  The baby does have the right to the table, but not the ability.

Let me give an analogy.  When you are circumcised, we are told that you are bound to the whole law, everything in it, yet some of the laws do not make sense to even command a two-year-old.  “You shall not commit adultery” means nothing at that time, and yet the two-year-old is bound to the whole law anyway.  He cannot tithe, and he cannot observe the Sabbath, but he is taught to tithe and observe the Sabbath as soon as possible, when he is physically able to do those things because he is bound to the whole law.  I could go on. 

The point is that there is not some special ritual he has to go through to participate in these things, but he is taught all along according to his capacity to obey these things.  He is not barred because he does not entirely understand their significance yet. He does not need training to practice these things; he is taught to practice these things as soon as he can.  He is taught through practice and participation, not in order to participate.

It is the same with Baptism.  Paul says in Romans 6 that in baptism, we are bound to Christ and his righteousness.  Therefore, we are bound to believe and to act according to belief. Therefore, babies are bound to the call “to pray without ceasing.  We don’t force babies to pray before they can speak.  But as soon as they can speak, we teach them how to pray. And we consider their prayers real.  They matter to God.

  It’s similar to the table: we don’t force the baby to eat or drink before he can drink, but as soon as he can eat or drink, we encourage him to come to the table. And yet that means something different to a 2-year-old, a 10-year-old and a 25-year-old.  The 60-year-old potentially understands the significance of this far more than the 30-year-old and yet ultimately, each one is a baby in obedience compared to the fullness of the righteousness in Christ.

The question follows: We bind our children to righteousness in baptism, but we dare not give them the spiritual food God has provided, to strengthen them in the faith that produces righteousness? 

 The point is, God knows our human limitations when he binds us to himself. His instruction takes into account those human limitations. That is the point in the exceptions that are given for the feast in the Old Testament.  We don’t need to travel to Jerusalem anymore to participate in temple feasts.  Jesus is in heaven and is available everywhere through his Spirit, the same limitations do not apply.  Yet even then, he is patient and tells us to live in obedience according to the measure of grace given to each individual and to the physical abilities that through his grace he has given to each member of the church.

The problem with the Jews’ historical application

The fact that Jews used these limitations later to refuse the children participation in various feasts is no point in the favor of a Profession of Faith. Yet Venema uses the history we know of the intertestamental Jewish people to demonstrate a line by which he will prove the good of Profession of Faith.

 Do you ever wonder why Jesus had to teach his disciples to receive children in Matthew 18 and 19? It wasn’t because the Jews had decided to stop circumcising children.  They knew they were in the covenant just as the reformed do.  And it’s possible that just like the reformed, they were not taking that seriously. The reformed saw the natural limitations of a child’s expression of faith and decided they could not be at the table.  The Jews saw the exceptions for limitations in the Old Testament and turned that into a rule.  

Divisions of Holiness and Baptism

That brings us to our final point here, the way Venema uses the lines of holiness within Judaism to demonstrate his point. Holiness was hierarchical in Judaism. The priests had to go through endless washing and sacrifices to remain pure before God so that they could represent the people.  God spoke through persons because the work of the Spirit and holy spaces and holy persons were more limited.

The New Covenant brought an end to these distinctions between groups.  The priests’ food is now available to all.  In Hebrews, we are even told that we eat of a sacrifice they (old covenant believers) had no right to eat.  The author is likely referring to the offering on the day of atonement, which was a sacrifice that was not eaten.  Christians have a right to that offering.  Christians have a right to everything in Christ.  The distinctions that divided high priests from priests from Levites and Israelites are gone.  The distinctions that divided men from women and Gentile believers from Israelites are gone.  The Eunuch and the Gentile, through faith and baptism, may find flourishing in Christ.

One significant aspect that Venema misses is baptism itself.  He makes the same mistake that some paedo communionists make in too strongly correlating the Passover and the Lord’s Supper, with the institutions of circumcision and baptism.  Yes, baptism replaces circumcision, but baptism has its own story in the Old Testament.  Baptism is going through the flood and through the Red Sea.  Baptism includes all the washings of the Old Testament. Baptism incorporates all the various anointings and purifications.

Thus, baptism is an anointing, “You have been anointed by the Holy One, and therefore you know all things.”   You are a holy priesthood.  That means even more now, than in the Old Testament, because, we are all priests now.  There is no division between one group of people that is ritually more holy and another group that is less holy. We all have the anointing of prophet, priest, and king, though babies do not yet exercise it in the same way adults do.

Baptism is a purification that does not need to be repeated.  While Israel had to go through all types of washings to prepare herself for various festivals, we only need one washing.  Yes, we must continue to live in repentance, but objectively speaking we have the one washing that proclaims forgiveness for all our sins, and declares that we are part of the New Creation.  Yes, we must respond in faith.  That is something we must continue to do all our lives.

In Old Testament Israel, the need for cleansing was a limiting factor in attending feasts. The Israelite had to go through various washings in order to attend the feast.  When we say that washing happens once ad for all in, that means that the one who is baptized into Christ is always clean, always ready to participate in the feast.  What are we doing when we deny the full reality of that baptism by  refusing those who have not expressed their faith yet to join in the feast.  They are washed! In Christ, all things and all persons are clean!  “As many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ!”

Yet Venema is very cautious in affirming these aspects of the New Covenant.  And that seems to have more to do with his desire to preserve the ritual of profession of faith, rather than a desire to deny these aspects.  He wants to use these Old Testament divisions to bring in some formal divisions into the new covenant, divisions between two groups among the people of God, albeit in a much milder form. With him, we affirm that there remains a division between those who are people of God and those who are not people of God, and with him, we affirm that those who, by their belief and practice, deny God ought not be brought to the table. The church is to purge the evil one from their midst.

Why does he need to add another division?  We will shortly discover why in our last point, but for now, the onus is on him to find this other division in the pages of the New Testament.

So we see that reflection on Venema’s questions about the exceptions made for festivals, the holiness divisions in the Old Testament, and the history of the application of the Old Testament in Jewish Communities, actually strengthens the case for a fuller welcome to all members to the meal of God, including small children.

Another side note

Venema suggests in certain places that the paedo-communionist approach will produce a laxity of discipline in the church.  I would argue that discipline will be more effective. For here, the discipline of the church, especially in separating you from the table, is questioning your status in Christ; that is what removing you from the table is. Yet in a church that practices Profession of Faith, you always have a group within the church who do not have access to the table and yet are marked as Christians.  This is strange.

 The significance of communicant membership means that the leaders of the church have to take it seriously and use it well.  That means the man or woman who receives discipline has to take it seriously.

 Too often people are disciplined for not being reformed when they should be disciplined for not being Christian. Discipline is not about whether you have access to one sect of Christianity, it is about access to Christ.  It is the opening and closing of the kingdom of heaven.

From a paedo-communion perspective, removal from the table and ex-communication is far more significant than it is for many today.   In a credo-communionist setting there is always a group who has some sort of halfway status, whether it is children and sometimes Christians from other traditions.  The table is no longer Christ’s table but the table of some sect. 

The post Notes on Venema’s “Children and the Lord’s Supper,” Part 3, Children in the Old Testament. appeared first on Respondeo.

• In line with this, he fails to account for other contextual readings, prioritizing his own reading as obvious because he has already assumed his conclusion.
• As a side note, reading this response alongside the book is beneficial as I do not fully reproduce what I am responding to.

The quotes from the church fathers that Venema provides can be made to align with a paedo-communion position just as easily as the credo-communion position. Venema assumes his conclusion.  To be fair, I do the same.  In my estimation, I’m more honest about it.

Venema’s failure to understand the role of faith at the supper continues as he turns to the church fathers. He assumes that the fathers have the same account of faith that he takes for granted.   Venema also fails to understand how the context of these quotes does not necessarily support what he wants to make of them.

The comment on faith should be clarified.  It is common among the reformed to make intellectual assent a part of faith, and it is assumed that babies do not have the rationality to express faith.  That is why the reformed, when speaking of faith in infants, preferred to use phrases like “the principle of faith,” “the root of faith,” or “an inclination to faith.”  They often forget that the fundamental meaning of the word faith is simply trust, which babies, as well as adults, can express.  This faith expresses itself very differently in the infant, whose reason is not yet formed, than in the adult.  We can even say that in the adult, this rational or intellectual element is necessary, for as the scriptures say: let each act according to the measure of grace that is in him. 

The worst effect of this sort of reasoning is that faith becomes ideological.  Faith in Christ becomes equated with any number of propositional truths or system one must hold before the come to the table of Christ.  While this is undoubtedly part of faith, the danger of the practice of Profession of Faith is that this faith becomes boiled down to an ideology.

This reality causes me to wonder whether the current state of denominationalism is not in part due to a natural working out of the doctrine of Profession of Fatih. Each denomination finds a way to quantify the level of ideological purity they need at their table, making the table no longer Christ’s table but that denomination’s table, to the degree that some will recognize that there are many other Christians out there but because of they do not hold to that particular denomination’s or federation’s ideology they are refused the table of the Lord. This makes the table the table of a particular sect of the church rather than the Lord’s table.  

I am not denying the importance of knowledge or propositional truth in the church’s public confession.  I am merely making a note of how the practice of Profession of Faith might have worked out the relative importance of that aspect of the church’s life sociologically. Paedo-communion suggests a different sociology that might even take a form that is more similar (it will never be the same) to how the 3^rd and 4^th century church functioned. I merely suggest.  It may take a form not seen yet, as well.  The latter is the more likely outcome.

Neither do I argue these things because I am anti-intellectual or I don’t love reason.  These are wonderful gifts of God to us. I merely state that the reformed overemphasized the role of reason in such a way so that they could not see that faith could be properly attributed to infants. Here they failed to deal with the biblical evidence already offered above.

I admit to reading through the lines, but Venema’s assumptions about the meanings behind the quotes from various fathers of the church fail to account for the different ways in which they used the term faith. Justin Martyr says only those may come to the table who are living as Christ has called them too.  If Justin Martyr is working with the assumptions I have argued for, this has nothing to do with Venema’s argument. Similar arguments can be made about the other quotes.  Venema seems to assume that a call to faith and a call to examine is the same as making those prerequisites to the table.  Similar things can be said about the more stylized quotes that reflect on the journey of the Christian to the table.

A second thing that Venema does not allow for is that some of these quotes are given to the congregation as a whole and, as such, are given to the whole congregation and received according to age and capacity.  I looked up the quote from Clement in the Stromata, for example, and that is the very thing Clement is doing, arguing that in the Christian life, a man ought to continue to examine himself as he walks on the path of righteousness, and he uses the call to examine one’s self from 1 Corinthians 11 as such an example.  If Venema is right about 1 Corinthians 11, he may be right about Clement.  If Venema is wrong about 1 Corinthians 11, he is likely wrong about Clement.

Another thing that Venema does not make us aware of is the new adult members that are likely coming into the church of Jesus Christ at the time and are also in the mind of the fathers. They certainly would have needed to express an age and capacity-appropriate faith before coming to the Lord’s Supper.

Finally, Venema fails to understand the strong role of typology among the fathers.  For example, the quote from Origen that refers to the status of the children in the Old Testament as one of being under a tutor.  Origen is tying us, the Christians, into that history.  Historically, we were once children, and now, in Christ, we are adults.  If we were to take this type of typology and woodenly apply it to the Christian journey in the New Covenant, would we say that small babies are under the law and then when they profess their faith, they are under grace?

Similar things can be said about the quote from the author of the Syrian Didascalia. Once again, we have a stylized quote that summarizes the journey of the Christian life. I imagine that the author is thinking of Hebrews 5 and 6 in the background and equates participation in the meal as eating solid food. If we actually look at Hebrews 5 and 6, the author of Hebrews is speaking to a group of adults, and these adults are given the milk of the word. That does not mean that they did not participate of the sacrament.  The sacrament pointed them toward the more solid food of good works.  In fact, the author of the Syrian Didascalia here is thinking in the following terms:  You are brought into the New Creation through baptism, and in the New Creation, you are fed by word and sacrament.  Word first, and then sacrament. Here, we have a logical order that does not need to reflect a temporal order.

If we take this seriously regarding temporal order, are we to prevent baptized adults from being at the table for a while?

A second way to look at this quote is even more straightforward.  It is simply a description or list of all the things that are begun in you and continue to happen, whether it is the making new through water or the feeding with the spirit and the word, or admonitions, or the sacrament.  Again, Venema assumes a lot when deriving a logical and temporal order from this quote.

Even in his mild conclusions (Venema will qualify with things like “probably”), Venema is not careful enough.  He doesn’t allow for the idea that the church fathers may speak out of a very different worldview than his own. I don’t say this proves paedo-communion in the very early church.  I only say that Venema is far more free with his explanations of these quotes than he ought to be.  He has already assumed his conclusion while working through these quotes. 

My conclusion is that Paedo communion was likely common in the early church, as much as from other emphases in the fathers about baptism and the body of Christ and the connection between baptism and full participation in Christ, but I recognize that I believe that, in part, because the teaching is so evident in scripture.  

I am also not bothered if I am wrong about one or two of these quotes.  Scholars today emphasize the diversity of liturgical practice across the Roman Empire.  If some groups did not practice paedo-communion, that does not surprise me.  Christ, after all, had to remind the Jews of the central importance of children to his kingdom, it is not a surprise that many Christians throughout history had to be reminded as well.

As for the rest of Venema’s historical reconstruction, he is right to say that the move to credo-communion cannot be reconstructed through the lens of one issue. There are further complications. It is actually his account of a move from credo communion in the first couple of centuries to widespread paedo communion in the fourth century that stretches credulity.  I can find the evidences of the first, there is very little evidence for the second.  The first happened over hundreds of years while the West was torn apart and had to be rebuilt.  A lot was forgotten.  The second happened over a hundred years and we have little evidence of a fight over this liturgical change in churches that took liturgical change very seriously.

An addendum:

I want to talk a little more about this argument that is derived from the Origen quote: that some will say that the immature state of Israel before Christ reflects the state of the child.  They continue: yes, he feeds on Christ, but not in the fuller sense symbolized by the meal. It follows that entrance to the meal reflects the time of maturity in which Christ has come. 

This argument, in particular, really bothers me, for it creates all sorts of problems with the status of Children.  Are children under the law?  If so, why are they baptized into Christ? Do they necessarily have a less meaningful relationship with Christ?  Why? How so?  How can Christ then say, “of such are the kingdom of God!”  The whole community, the whole tree, is renewed in the New Creation of Christ!  Are children somehow barred from the age of the Spirit who cries “Abba, Father!” I do wish that credo-communionists would not use this argument as much for their own sake as for mine.

That is not to say that there are not lessons for us in training up our children, but these have to do with practical child-rearing, not what era an individual belongs in.

The post Notes on Venema’s, “Children at the Lord’s Supper:” Part 2, Faith and the Church Fathers. appeared first on Respondeo.

I’ve received several recommendations to read Venema’s “Children at the Lord’s Table.” I have read articles and summaries of Venema’s argument, but it is not until now that I have sat down and read the book in its entirety.

 It is often counted as one of the best defenses of Profession of Faith, the practice of having a child give an account of his faith before coming to the Lord’s Table. Having read it, I tend to agree with that estimation, not so much because he makes a strong case, but because he is more intellectually honest than most critics of paedo communion.

 With some qualifications, I respect his attempt to present the Paedo-communionist position with a desire for truth and fairness in his dealings. Overall, he is careful to avoid resting on obscure passages of scripture, such as the theoretical question of the child as he sees the Passover; “What do these things mean to you.” Instead, he builds a compelling case for the importance of faith for worthy participation in the supper.  Upon that basis, together with a collection of evidence from Scripture, Church History, and the Confessions, he argues that “Because the Lord’s Supper is a sacrament that nourishes faith, it requires a kind of faith that is able to remember, proclaim, and discern the body of Christ.”

However, the statement quoted above is not logically coherent on its own.  It has an assumed premise that is missing.  We can see this through simplifying the statement, “Because the Lord’s Supper is a sacrament that nourishes faith, it requires a certain kind of faith.  One must then find some scriptural teaching that the sacrament can only nourish a certain kind of faith.

He fundamentally fails to adequately provide a scriptural basis for a ritual in which the young confessor must express his faith before admittance to the table.  And if he does so on that point, it fails to establish that this faith must be qualified by remembrance, proclamation, and discernment as a requirement for admittance to the Lord’s Supper. Indeed, every Christian is called to remembrance, proclamation, and discernment in his or her faith, but there is nowhere in scripture where we are given a measurement of such faith as a requirement for admittance to the supper. Therefore, it is better to understand this call as something that is applied according to age and capacity rather than a prerequisite.

I’ve divided my critique into four: (1) Venema fails to understand the role of faith in the paedo-comunionist mindset. (2) Venema has a similar failure of imagination in his reading of the church fathers. (3) Venema fails to understand the nature of the transition from Old to New Testament. (4) Venema’s entire case is built on the contested passage of 1 Corinthians 11.  There are other disagreements, but these four points, particularly points one and four, reveal the flawed assumptions that underly the case for Profession of faith.

1. Venema fails to adequately understand the role of faith in the case for paedo-communion.  He especially fails to understand how the reformed paedo-communionist conceives of faith.

Venema states that for the paedo-communionist, there is “only one basis for admission to the Table of the Lord, namely, membership in the covenant community.”  What he fails to understand here, is that for the paedo-communionist, membership in the covenant community, means to be counted as one who has faith, a believer. For one cannot be saved apart from faith.  And this is very much a part of the reformed tradition.  Here is a link to an article summarizing the reformed tradition on how the root or principle of faith is found in all believers, and therefore, we can say that children are counted as believers.

In the “Synopsis of Purer Theology” (a gathering of the best Dutch Theologians after the Synod of Dordt, in Leiden, to go deeper into the theological questions that were discussed at the Synod), it was even said, that repentance and faith were necessary before baptism. So here infant baptists embraced a form of believers’ baptism. It followed that children were to be counted as having repentance and faith, even before they were baptized. Similarly, while the Divines who put together the Westminster Confession of Faith, would not have used the same language (they would not have seen repentance and faith as necessary before infant baptism), they still would have counted children as believers, using, again, the language of the root of faith or the principle of faith.

And this can only be confirmed by the scriptures.  The Psalms, written not just to describe David’s experience, but the experience the covenant believer, speak of such an infant faith. David says in Psalm 22, “Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.”  While David is still nursing, God teaches him to trust in him. Even more dramatic are the words of Psalm 71, “For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust O Lord, from my youth.  Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; you are he who took me from my mother’s womb.  My praise is continually of you.” Here, we have faith in the very womb of the Psalmist’s mother, as the Psalmist already leans upon God there.

As I’ve already stated, this is not merely put in the mouth of David.  The Spirit puts these into David’s mouth so that they may be the confession of Israel.  Israel is taught to consider themselves believers from birth. We, the people of God, throughout all the world’s history are taught to count ourselves as believers even before we receive the covenant sign, whether it is circumcision or baptism.

To be a covenant member is to be a believer.  The question of faith as a pre-requisite to the table is moot. Faith, in turn, leads to faith.  The call to faith comes out through the word of God every Sunday, both to children and adults.

Naturally, a common concern comes up: the question of presumption.  The answer is simple.  Presumption is always wrong. 1 Corinthians 10 marvels at how Israel received all the blessings of the covenant and yet they died in the wilderness.  Hebrews 4 tells us how the people did not enter the rest of God, because they did not mix the promises with faith. Nobody in the church of Christ may presume on their faith.

God brings us into his kingdom and we are called to a continual response of faith.  The Heidelberg Catechism says that we baptize infants because they no less than adults have the promises of the gospel.  The same goes for communion; we feed the children from the table of the Lord because they, no less than adults, need the assurance of their faith.  It is not as if you come to the table and suddenly you just get the promises, no longer the warnings of the covenant.  You always need both.

Therefore, presumption is wrong for young children. They are to be taught to increasingly take ownership of their faith.  Presumption is wrong for young fathers and mothers; they must be taught to continue to draw near to God.  And presumption is wrong for old men.  They are not to forget God as the sun begins to set on life.

Again, not all who are in the covenant are of the covenant.  Some of those circumcised did not believe.  Some of those baptized do not believe.  When the call to faith is not heard and the heart of rebellion begins to act out, that is where church discipline comes in. And a lack of faith will eventually lead to rebellion.  That is the warning of the scriptures.

The desire to guard against presumption, whether by creating the ritual of profession of faith in response to baptism or putting baptism at a later age, does not deal with presumption. Presumption just becomes a problem at different times of life, and unfortunately, there is often an encouragement to doubt the reality of one’s faith, for those who do not measure well according to whatever local standard is decided on.

An argument can also be made that the practice encourages presumption. You have arrived to real faith once you come to the table and once you have true faith you are saved.  Faith becomes, not just the tool that God uses so that we may receive salvation, but it becomes, practically speaking, the ground of salvation.  Once one has professed, one has reached a higher level of spirituality and is therefore safe.  This of course, goes against the theology of the reformed church, and I have observed the leaders of the church seek to fight against this type of attitude. Rightly so!  I wonder if the problem is in the practice itself.

Or, if one can come to the table early or tests better than his or her peers, spiritual pride becomes a reality. I can only speak anecdotally, but I have seen the table become something by which some measure themselves better than others, especially for those who, through natural intelligence and early maturity, are able to come to the table earlier than their peers. Men use this as an argument against paedo communion, but really it is an argument for it, because it is the practice of Profession of Faith, that creates the opportunity for such spiritual pride.

While Venema fails to account for these realities in his own tradition, neither does he adequately account for how a paedo-communionist might account for the importance of faith.  Yet I do think there are extenuating circumstances as to why Venema misses this.  Early advocates of Paedo-communion failed to adequately explain the role of faith in their understanding, preferring to rely on more objective arguments. I then, have some sympathy for his lack of understanding here, for the paedo-communionist argument has developed overtime.

I don’t know if Venema had access to Rich Lusk’s book “Paedo-faith.”  That book accounts for a lot of the discrepancies of Venema’s account. It fills in the holes where Venema suggests that some advocates of Paedo-communion fail to account for faith.

 Even at the end of the book, where Venema, suggests that Lusk attributes more to baptism that is proper to allow for paedo-communion, he misses these realities.  He quotes some relatively strong statements about baptism (admittedly, I might not use the same language), which emphasize the objective realities of the covenant which we are a part of.  In his book “Paedo-Faith,” Lusk clearly highlights the importance of mixing faith with the glories we receive in baptism.

I’ll end this section by noting that there is a statement on paedo-communion in the CREC (It is in its first reading in Knox Presbytery and not in its final form, but in general, describes the position of those who hold to paedo-communion in the CREC).  I have reproduced it below.

“As elders who hold the keys, we do not exclude baptized children from the Lord’s Table because God has incorporated them into His covenant and congregation through baptism. The covenant promises are theirs in Christ. We believe that in the sacraments God calls us to respond by faith in Christ according to our age and capacity. We affirm that faith is a necessary condition for worthy participation at the Table and that God gives such faith even to small children. Jesus said: ‘Let the little children come to me.’”

The post Notes on Venema’s, “Children At the Lord’s Supper:” Part 1, Faith and Paedo-communion. appeared first on Respondeo.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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1

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!

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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!

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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