Respondeo

Male and Female

On March 7, 2019

From “Man and Woman in Christ” by Stephen B. Clark, (97, 98).

Reading “Man and Woman in Christ” has been an illuminating experience. He has a wonderful way of explaining Biblical teaching.

“The New Testament pattern of men’s and women’s roles is not primarily a matter of activities but of relationships. Women in the early Christian family would be more likely to cook the food while the men would be more likely to grow it, but their roles in this and other matters are not defined as much by the activities which end up being the province of one or the other as by the way they relate to one another. The husband does the farm work because he is the provider for his wife and children. The wife does the cooking because she serves the immediate needs of the family. For the most part, men and women perform certain activities because these activities express a fundamentally different social role, not because certain activities are intrinsically the man’s or the woman’s. For example, the wife in a hunting society might do the farming as a household task, and yet she and her husband might still fulfill the same fundamental roles in the family as would their counterparts in an agricultural society.”

“The roles of man and woman are interdependent. The man’s role depends on the woman’s role being performed and vice versa. For instance, the husband’s role is not designed so that he can live with no help from a woman. If his wife dies or is absent and there is no daughter or sister to take her place, he must perform many of his wife’s functions. The same applies to the woman if her husband is absent or dies. An analogy between head and heart can be helpful here. The head (or brain) is the center or director of the nervous system. The heart is the center or director of the circulatory system. Both are essential to the health of the body as a whole. They perform corresponding or complementary functions. The heart is subordinate to the head in its functioning, but it is not therefore less essential to the body (the head included). Likewise, the wife in the household is the “heart,” the “inside center” of the family. She directs a set of family activities essential to the functioning of the family. The husband is the “head.” He both directs a set of family functions and is over the wife’s activities, but he cannot “keep the body alive” without her.”

“The roles of husband and wife comprise a partnership, but a partnership of a particular kind. They are complementary partners, not comrades who work together on identical tasks. Each has a separate sphere of responsibility that complements the other’s. This point is especially relevant for contemporary Christian efforts to strengthen the family by strengthening the partnership between husband and wife, but in a way that obliterates the complementarity of husband and wife. These attempts often focus on “companionship.” They aim to get the husband and wife to do as much as possible together. Their goal is not to strengthen each partner in his own role and to strengthen the union of the two. To be sure, modern husbands and wives often fail to spend the time together that they should in order to have a real union. Some of these contemporary Christian attempts are designed to correct this situation so they can actually be in unity. However, many of these efforts to strengthen family life destroy the strength of family roles and thus advocate an approach to family life that differs greatly from New Testament teaching. The New Testament approach attempts to create “one person,” a husband and wife united, but with a division of labor that allows each to extend the ability of the other to function. The husband and wife become engaged in a relationship of reciprocal service and interdependence without competition. They are, in short, complementary in role.”

Head Coverings and Culture

By James

On March 7, 2019

In Uncategorized

From “Man and Woman in Christ” by Stephen B. Clark. Page 172.

I found Clark’s comments on the head-coverings from 1 Corinthians 11 illuminating. He isn’t arguing for head-coverings. Rather, his comments are helpful in discerning what cultural expressions are good to hold onto and which are not. His comments also underline the importance of cultural expression.

“The use of head covering in worship services was a cultural expression, an expression that has meaning to people within the context of their culture. In this case, the meaning of head coverings lies in its ability to express a particular social structure in the roles of men and women. The first five chapters of this book examined how the early Christian community and Israelite society structured these roles. But societies express their social structure in customs which are not intrinsically necessary to the social structure. A woman could wear a sari as a symbol of her position as well as a head covering. On the other hand, every society recognizes that some clear expression fos social structure are important. Most peoples place such a high value on such social symbols (dress, “manners,” rituals of respect, etc.) that they do not distinguish between the cultural expression and the underlying social structure. For example, among many peoples, children would never address their parents or any older person by the parents’ first names. Such informality would be viewed as highly disrespectful and possibly as serious an offense as overt disobedience.

Western society is increasingly losing an appreciative sensitivity to cultural expressions such as these. To be sure, not all cultural expressions are automatically good. In fact, the New Testament views some as expressions of sin. For instance, the New Testament looks unfavorably on such expressions when they express distinctions among Christians based on social class or wealth (see Jas 2:1-7). On the other hand, the early Christians encouraged such expressions when they expressed differences of age and sex. Younger people honored older people and the community paid honor to men because they were men and women because they were women. Something is undoubtedly lost when people lose the capacity to value and understand such cultural expressions. When Pual linked head coverings to the basic order of the Christian community, he was manifesting a concern that many human societies will instinctively share, but one which modern Western society does not find readily comprehensible.”

Paul and Sexual Immorality

By James

On January 5, 2019

In Holiness

Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Paul tells us this in the context of a warning against sexual immorality. As Christians, the Spirit joins us to Christ, body and soul, as the Catechism so often tells us. That means Christ cares for and protects both body and soul. What we do with our body in this life is just as important as what is done for our soul. Though distinct our soul and our body are not truly separate from each other. What we do with our body affects our soul. I want to tease out a number of implications here of Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. I am a bit all over the place, but I hope it is helpful.

Holiness and sexual immorality have a lot to do with each other. It is interesting where murder, and stealing and lying are dealt with in the five books of Moses vs. sexual immorality. It is the book of Leviticus that deal with sexual immorality, especially chapter 18, the book that emphasizes the holiness of God. Sexual activity is tied to uncleanness. Reproduction is tied to uncleanness. Certain sexual practices are abominations. They defile the land of Israel. Now uncleanness is not the same as sin, but certain sins create uncleanness in a different way than others. This is highly suggestive. Our bodies are to reflect the holiness of God.
This is all the more true, when our bodies become home to the Spirit of God. We corrupt our relationship with God when we become one with a prostitute because we cannot be one with both God and a prostitute.
Eating and sexual immorality have a lot to do with one another. It is interesting that the Westminster Catechism connects, drunkenness, idleness, and gluttony with sins against the 7th commandment. Both the desire for sex and food stem from the lower parts of our bodies. This means that the warnings over drug use using “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” are not entirely unjustified. You are connected to Christ and your body is to be used to his glory.
Paul has a really interesting line in 1 Corinthians 6: 18, “Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” Sexual immorality is a sin against God. It is a sin against others, but first and foremost you are sinning against your own body. In committing this sin, you are corrupting your own body. For fallen man this continues to be true. He hurts himself when he participates in sexual immorality. For the Christian this is even worse for he sins against the dwelling place of the Spirit of God. Rather than be one flesh with the prostitute you are to be one spirit with the Lord.
This is not just because God does not want you to have fun. The fact that God wants your body to be holy, is suggestive for the future of your body. God has a specific purpose for your body as well as your soul. God knows your body better than you do and God wants what is best for it. As we’ve already noted sexual immorality is a sin against the body. It corrupts and destroys the body. When you participate in sexual immorality you might not immediately know why and if everybody participates in sexual immorality it is even harder to know how that works. We need to depend on God’s word about our bodies.
One thing to note is the nobility of chastity. Chastity, even if the world does not honor it, is honorable and glorious before God. We can think of Revelation 14 where God pictures faithfulness to him as virginity. When we think about this it becomes clear, for chastity both in and outside of marriage reflects the holiness and the faithfulness of God.
None of this undermines the goodness of marriage and sex. Chastity is both in and outside of marriage. Marriage reflects God’s holiness and faithfulness just as much as singleness does. It is true that a person’s body belongs to their spouse in marriage, but this does not take away from the fact that they may truly be one with the Lord. Ultimately, marriage is not a sin against the body, while fornication and other forms of sexual immorality are. This is because marriage fulfills the exclusive connection with another being that our bodies need.

I think the most important thing to remember here is that we want to reflect the holiness of God in recognizing holy boundaries. The Heidelburg Catechism refers to Marriage as holy marriage and this reflects the truth that it is the true boundary for intimacy. It reflects the exclusivity of marriage. We need to be faithful within out individual holy boundaries whether that is boundary of singleness or marriage.

Deep Literalism

By James

On December 11, 2018

In Applied Hermeneutics, typology

I was not excited when I opened up the video of Dr. Iain Provan’s recent lecture defending a Protestant hermeneutic of the letter. I expected another speech the privileged grammatical-historical exegesis and only allowed for an anemic use of typology. Nevertheless, I wanted to give it a listen in the hope that I might grow in my understanding of hermeneutics. I was not disappointed.

Dr. Provan’s Challenge

The first hints that Dr. Provan was not defending the literal readings of the academy was when he came to a discussion of typology. He said quite simply, “typology is literal reading.” He explained the classic distinction between typology and allegory. Allegory brought in outside reading and outside philosophy. Allegory lost the original text and left you with a spiritual reading that had little to do with the original meaning of the text. But his definition of typology was quite broad. Typology described all the various inter-connections in the text, including inter-connections between the various books of the two testaments. With this in mind, he noted that Paul’s allegory in Galatians 4 was a fully literal reading of scripture. Dr. Provan’s sensus literalis was fully literary and recognized the unity of scripture.

The end of his speech carried even more promise. He argued that we needed to go beyond the reformers in our literary interaction with scripture.

The latter point was filled out by his dialogue with Alastair Roberts. Alastair asked him whether the Reformers had not become overly suspicious of typological readings because of the allegorical readings that had come before. He also noted the way academia had moved toward an increasingly anemic reading of scripture, that separated the parts from the whole and he wondered how Dr. Provan responded to that. To my delight Dr. Provan, while defending the usefulness of academia, was fully on board with Alastair’s comments. He agreed that the reformers lacked in working out the typologies of scripture. He also agreed that though academia had been helpful in understanding the literal nature of scripture, it had done the church and itself a disservice in its suspicion of typologies.

A False Dichotomy

The speech gave me both correction and encouragement. I had looked at the way the apostles interpreted scripture. I knew that they were doing more in interpreting the Old Testament than merely looking at the grammatical-historical understanding. They were looking deeper. They looked at the literary structure of the Old Testament and in bringing that out they saw that Christ truly was the fulfillment of the Old Testament. I saw the necessity of doing more with typology than the minimalism allowed in academia today.

However, during my time at seminary, I was working within a false framework. Either I held to a pure literal understanding of the scripture or in following the apostles I was also free to develop a sensus plenior of the scriptures. I was allowing allegory into my framework in order to preserve apostolic reading. It was a false dichotomy.

I am grateful that I always sought to ground what I imagined to be a sensus plenior in the literal sense of scripture. This helped me avoid fanciful exegesis. This is where Dr. Provan’s speech became so encouraging. Rather than hanging on the thin reed of spiritual exegesis, I could boldly hold to the fact that typological exegesis is literal exegesis. Dr. Provan even claimed what I have always held: if any reading of scripture is not based in the literal sense of scripture, it should be rejected. There was no need to defend a spiritual exegesis in order to read scripture like the apostles.

Moving Forward

I should have known better. Some of my deepest influences had always claimed the high ground here. James Jordan had always claimed the hermeneutic of Calvin. Peter Leithart had always claimed a “Hermeneutics of the Letter.” However, I was influenced more than I understood by my other hermeneutics textbooks. I should have completely ignored them and worked from the framework that Leithart and Jordan had given me.

As it turns out the problem at my seminary was not that they emphasized the literal sense too much, but that they did not emphasize it enough. They ignored the layers of typology in scripture.

This has not been completely ignored in the history of Protestantism. Although the reformers of the 16th and 17th century were nervous about typologies, theologians of the 18th and 19th centuries developed highly typological readings of scripture. Particularly, in my own tradition, that of the Dutch Reformed Churches. Unfortunately, it is somewhat forgotten in our own day.

All this suggests that theologians have a task before them. We must seek to imitate the Apostles in their reading of scripture so that we too pay attention to the types, the motifs, and the symbolism of scripture. So far we have been poor literalists. We must embrace deep literalism.

I respond that I may be changed

By James

On December 3, 2018

In eschatology, Witness, Worship

The title of this website is respondeo etsi mutabor, that is, I respond so that I may be changed. This is a basic philosophical outlook on life: we respond to our parents, to our teachers and so we are formed. Most importantly we respond to God in faith, hope, and love. He commands and we obey, directed ourselves toward his righteousness.

What about when we don’t know how to respond? What if all options for action are not options? According to Romans 8, we groan. We groan already because we long for the redemption of our bodies. However, we groan all the more when we lose the way forward. Further, the Spirit groans with us. Reason fails. We are like Hamlet stuck between action and inaction. So we groan before our God, seeking his wisdom.

Perhaps he changes the situation so that we may move forward in good conscience. Perhaps he gives new wisdom. Regardless he changes us. I groan so that I might be changed.

A short defense against one of the critics of “Deep Exegesis”

By James

On November 23, 2018

In Applied Hermeneutics

Recently, an article came to my attention that seeks to challenge one of the arguments in my favorite book on hermeneutics “Deep Exegesis.” The author did a good job of taking Peter Leithart to task on some important hermeneutical points. However, I believe that he ignored Leithart’s context. First, he ignored the immediate context of what he was actually citing. Further, he did not demonstrate awareness of the perspective through which Leithart was writing. Ultimately, the author over-estimated the category mistakes that Leithart had supposedly made. In this way, his points did not actually land.

There are two primary points that Don Collett makes: Leithart does not make a distinction between historical events and cognitive acts. Further, Leithart loses the providence of God by arguing that historical acts become prophetic acts.

Cognitive Acts vs. Historical Acts

Collett’s first point is actually the poorer. In his book, Leithart argued that events change over time. An event happens such as a shooting. That evening the victim of the shooting dies and the event becomes an assassination. Collett argues that Leithart has not drawn a careful distinction between a cognitive event and a historical event. The historical event is what happened. The cognitive event is how it was conceived. The historical event cannot be changed, while the cognitive event can be changed. He argues that logically Leithart would have to hold that a shooting could become a healing if the victim of a shooting were healed.

However, Leithart does make a distinction. It is not Collet’s distinction. My guess is that Leithart would not hold to Collet’s distinction because historical events are inevitably cognitive. Leithart likely conceives of history as an art rather than a bare recitation of facts. Leithart makes a distinction between skeletal events and thick events (Deep Exegesis, 219, note 12).

There is something real about the skeletal event, One man pulled a trigger on a gun, a bullet came out, and entered another man’s body. The skeletal event is fixed. In fact, Leithart later tells us “texts are fixed” (Deep Exegesis, 44). Since his chapter is titled texts are events, we can easily see that Leithart conceives the “skeletal events” as fixed well. Events more regularly conceived of are not fixed. As soon as you call that “skeletal event” a shooting, it has become cognitive. You are interpreting the skeletal event and giving it meaning. The skeletal event itself does not have inherent meaning until it finds its place as an event in a story. Behind Leithart’s thought, there seems to be a distinction between fact and event. Facts are external. Events are inherently cognitive.

I would argue that Collet is better off arguing that his distinction is better than Leithart’s rather than arguing that Leithart is not careful in distinguishing things. There may, for example, be more clarity to Collet’s distinction.

A prophetic Old Testament?

Collett goes on to target Leithart’s understanding of the relation of the Old Testament to the New Testament. He argues that Leithart’s understanding that events are changed per se or ontologically by future events, undermines an understanding of the Old Testament as prophecy. Originally the Old Testament was not prophecy (at least the parts that are not explicitly prophetic) and later, in Christ, the works and words of the Old Testament characters became prophetic.

Here Collett makes a category mistake of his own. He doesn’t distinguish between the time-bound and the timeless. God, of course, ordered the events of the Old Testament so that they prophesied of Christ. God, who knows all things and decrees all things, caused them to be written in Holy Scripture as a witness to Christ.

In time things become. In a certain sense, my two-year-old self was a prophecy of my twenty-nine-year-old self. I also became my 29-year old self. This is because I experience becoming, whereas God has access to all parts of my life. He can see and ordain the order so that the pattern of my life makes logical sense. I can only see (or realistically my parents can only see) what was prophetic in my two-year-old self now that I am 29. Through time God taught his people to see his entire word as prophetic so that when Christ did come, they would see that it had already been foretold.

Collett does not recognize the perspective through which Leithart is working. He is not seeking to resolve the question of whether there is a spiritual sense in Old Testament scriptures in this chapter. Leithart is working to understanding history, times, events, and texts. He is trying to understand how mankind interacts with these things; how meaning works. Ultimately, he is working out a theory of how all events and texts work, not just biblical texts; then he applies it to scripture. Leithart is doing sociology. Collett is applying a debate to Leithart’s work that Leithart was not writing for. Leithart is not seeking to answer Collett’s set of questions.

Of course from God’s perspective, the Old Testament always was a prophecy of Christ. It takes time to become so in history. Through the scriptures that were given, Jews did figure out that there was something more coming. The time of Christ was a time of expectation. They knew a Messiah was coming. But the disciples didn’t know that scripture spoke of Christ specifically until the saw the specific works of Christ. They understood that the Old Testament was prophetic. It didn’t become prophecy of Christ until Christ had done on the cross; even though it was already prophetic of that specific moment because of God’s decree.

God’s knowledge is full and whatever he says, he knows the full meaning long before that is realized. Our knowledge is partial. Leithart is focussing on our conception of meaning in time. He doesn’t imagine that he has access to God’s conception of events, except as far as God has revealed it in his word.

Ultimately, I don’t know if represented Collett or Leithart perfectly in this little blog piece. I have tried to be fair. However, as I have mulled over Collett’s piece, I do believe he misses the mark. He is working with a different framework than Leithart. Once he recognizes that, he will strengthen his interactions with Leithart’s work. As I mentioned at the beginning, I find Leithart’s account very compelling and so far I find very little to complain about it.

The Deeper Structures of Infant Baptism

By James

On October 26, 2018

In Uncategorized

About a month ago, I was able to participate in a forum on Baptism with a local Reformed Baptist pastor. You can find the unedited video of the forum here. I want to open with some kindness. I view Reformed Baptists as brothers and am willing to work shoulder to shoulder with them where possible. That does not take away from the seriousness of their error in refraining from giving their children baptism.

Pastor Jared Hiebert argued that we should only baptize believers. I argued that we should baptize their children as well. We both spoke for a 1/2 hour. Half an hour is not a long time to fill out a full defense of infant baptism, much less to point out the problems with believer’s baptism. Reflecting on the forum resulted in a number of other thoughts on the subject. Particularly, I noticed some deeper structures of thought that went unnoticed and some red herrings that were not addressed.

Grace perfects nature: I find it interesting that the Baptist position does not take into account the way grace interacts with nature. They might agree with the phrase “Grace perfects nature,” but that does not work out in their vision of the church. Now, this may not be immediately apparent in our context. We need to begin by thinking about what the grace of Christ’s salvation is. Salvation is restoring the community God had with man in the Garden. Salvation results in a new creation. This truth is evident by the number of NT references to “new creation” and “holy people.” God is restoring creation in Jesus Christ. All types of people, including children, are part of that new creation. The practice of infant baptism confirms that. Young babies also need to be brought into the new kingdom of Christ. The Baptist position, on the other hand, makes the new creation a new creation of the mature. Only the mature can have the formal relationship with God which is marked by baptism. The church becomes a body of those who have freely chosen the kingdom of Christ, an explicitly voluntary kingdom, rather than a kingdom that includes the types of people God’s original plan in the garden would have freely welcomed as members of God’s people Thus the grace of God undermines and changes nature, rather than confirming and perfecting it.
You flatten the covenant! You break up the covenant! A common refrain in the debates over baptism is “you flatten the covenant” from the Baptist side and “you break up the covenant” from the reformed side. I really don’t find these accusations that useful. Rather we need to determine the precise way in which Christ changed things. This is not immediately evident and takes study. Many paedo-baptists emphasize the radical changes Christ brought about without taking a single thing away from the force of the arguments for paedo-baptism. In the same way, many Baptists may emphasize certain continuities, without contradicting their teaching of credo-baptism. This is why the debate must stay at the level of “What changes?” rather than arguing about who properly understands covenant succession.
That doesn’t take away from the fact that the continuity of the covenants is the key to this debate. The Baptist understanding does break up the picture scripture gives of the covenant. That is not primarily because he is breaking up the covenant, but because the Baptist neither understands the teaching of scripture on covenant nor baptism. They assume that God radically changes the way he deals with families and groups of people without showing how the cross caused that radical change. The cross brought God closer to people according to the book of Hebrews. Why did it remove God from a relationship with small children, who cannot fully understand? The Reformed Baptist, in particular, tends to equate covenant and election. It is only when he understands the nature of baptism and its relation to the covenant that he will be able to see that he improperly breaks up the covenant. On the other hand, I believe that the Classical Reformed position can fully account for what Christ did on the cross.
Baptism replaces circumcision: Another contentious part of the baptism debate is the question of the relationship between circumcision and baptism. I appreciate the words of the Belgic Confession “baptism replaces circumcision.” In the debate, I said that I could see that baptism fulfills circumcision, but I would not defend that position any longer. Christ fulfills circumcision. Through his death and resurrection, Christ radically breaks from the dispensation of the law (If you don’t think so read the book of Hebrews). Following the resurrection, everything is truly new. But that doesn’t all of a sudden change how covenants work or, for that matter, covenant signs. Covenant is now connected to Christ rather than the law. The signs of the covenant function in the same way. Baptism functions like circumcision did in the OT. It is a seal of righteousness and it marks one as a member of God’s kingdom. The kingdom is different and the way in which they seal righteousness are different, but their function is very similar. That being said circumcision binds one to the law; baptism binds one to Christ.
You rely on inferences: One common phrase I heard that evening was the argument that we baptize children based on inferences to children. I’m not sure how this is much of an argument. After all, the Baptist refrains from baptizing children based on inferences from scripture. Instead of accusing one another of relying on inferences, we need to work out our covenantal and baptismal theology as best we can from scripture. The question is not one of inference, but which inference is justified.
Catholicity and Ecumenicity: The classical reformed position is much more conducive to small-c catholicity. We accept all baptisms done in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We recognize such people as formal members of God’s Kingdom unless they deny it by their actions or confession. The consistent Reformed Baptist, however, must reject all baptisms that are not done upon a viable profession of faith. Therefore, at a doctrinal level, they bring division into the church of Christ. They deny the formal membership of over half of Christendom in the kingdom of Christ. In this way, they imitate Roman Catholics who consider anybody who has not subjected himself to the Pope of Rome separated brethren, saved through the hierarchy of Rome, even if they do not fully enjoy the benefits of membership in Rome. If they deny such a charge or in contradiction to their own teaching invite those baptized as infants as full members into their church, one wonders why they baptize at all.
That being said, I truly do consider Baptists as brothers in Christ. They demonstrate a desire to submit to and serve our Lord Jesus Christ. I only hope that with an open Bible before us we can truly continue to grow in the knowledge and the love of Christ.

The Gift of Healing

By James

On September 27, 2018

In Applied Hermeneutics, Church, Gifts of the Spirit

Sometimes when we talk about the extraordinary gifts that God gives the New Testament church it is helpful to separate them. What I mean by extraordinary gifts are those spiritual gifts that are not a regular part of the lives of the people of God. This is opposed to something like the fruit of the spirit, which should be evident in the church of all times and places as well as each individual in the church. Rather than grouping all the extraordinary gifts into one group, we should deal with the biblical role of each gift separately.

The gift of tongues, for example, has a different purpose than the gift of healing. The gift of tongues teaches the new church about the nature of the kingdom of God. It is one of the unique acts that is commemorated in water baptism, which include the baptism of Christ and the death and resurrection of Christ.

The gift of tongues teaches that the coming Kingdom of God is made up of every tribe, language, and nation. It is also entirely unique to the NT church. Tongues demonstrated that God now dwelt in a new people formed out of both Jews and Gentiles instead of in the temple.

In contrast, the gift of healing is not entirely unique to the NT church. Jesus exercised the gift of healing. Old Testament prophets exercised that gift. It is interesting to note that reports of the gift of healing are far more common in the history of the church than the gift of tongues. The authenticity of those healings is another matter. The gift of healing demonstrated the authenticity of a prophet. The physical restoration was a sign of spiritual restoration.

What does this mean? I believe that it means that we should not necessarily expect the gift of tongues to continue to happen throughout history. This bears itself out in history. The gift of tongues, in the sense of a sudden ability to speak in another contemporary, human language, has rarely, if ever, been reported in the history of the church.

Compare that to the gift of healing. Healings, whether real and spurious, have often been reported in the history of the church.

I want to make a couple of notes on the gift of healing in the NT and its continued use in the world today.

1. The gift of healing is only done in the power of God. It is meant to draw attention to what God is doing. Everyone who participates in a healing ministry will tell you this, but that doesn’t mean that it is not a highly important point. God does the healing. As soon as a man starts to believe that he has a special power in himself or fails to recognize God’s work in the healing, he becomes a charlatan. The gift of healing is not given for the gain of an individual man.

2. The work of healing is sacramental or has a similarity to sacraments: By this, I mean that the work of the healing is not found in the words of the person or in the form a person uses in order to heal someone. Rather the words and the touch are only powerful if accompanied by the Spirit. This is naturally derived from our first point. If healing is an act of God, we are only means for that act.

We can think of the time that God used Elijah to raise a child from the dead. Elijah spreads himself out over the child and God uses that to raise the child (1 Kings 17:17-24). Elijah’s actions are not in themselves healing. It is rather that the Holy Spirit uses Elijah’s actions for healing. Further, the gift of healing always points to Christ.

3. The gift of healing is occasional, not regular. This is somewhat technical language. We might also use the language of ordinary and extraordinary. A regular or ordinary gift is something like teaching, preaching or charity. These three are the true work of the church as she seeks to spread the kingdom of God. Ordinary gifts are essential to the kingdom of God. The gift of healing is occasional. God used it in the history of Israel as a sign to confirm true prophecy. Now that we have the final word there is less need for such a confirmation. Extraordinary gifts are not essential to the kingdom of God.

4. The gift of healing is not proof of one’s salvation. Neither is receiving healing a proof of salvation. Jesus makes the former quite clear in Matthew 7. Speaking of the day of judgment, he says, “many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do mighty works in your name.” Jesus doesn’t question that they did mighty works. Jesus questions their faithfulness to his name and to his word. In the end, the one who does mighty works before God is no different than the one who lives a quiet life. Each must trust in Jesus for his salvation.

5. Receiving healing is no proof of salvation. Healing is closely connected to the faith of the healed in the gospels, but in some stories, the connection is not so clear. In Luke 17: 11-18, Jesus heals ten lepers. One comes back, thanking him and praising God for the gift of healing. The passage is not about receiving salvation in the sense of eternal life, but the implication is clear; even when you receive healing, there is no guarantee that the one who received healing is moved by a desire for God. God may use the faith of a person in order to heal someone. God may use the faith of the healer in order to heal someone, but ultimately it is God who gives healing; sometimes that healing is affirmed by faith, sometimes not.

We can look at Jesus’ warning in Matthew 12:43-45 where he speaks of rescuing an individual from a demon. The individual, instead of filling himself with Christ instead of a demon, goes on his way empty. The demon comes back and brings seven others. Jesus’ warning is to Israel, but it applies to individuals. Jesus is talking about exorcism, which is a different thing again from healing. However, what applies to the exorcised man applies to the man who is healed. The exorcised man must look continually look to God for grace. The healed man must look to God for the continued health of both body and soul.

6. Another thing to notice (and this is particular to healing) is that healing is never forced on anyone. It is requested. We see this in the miracles of Jesus, though at times Jesus does offer first.

7. God can lead someone to look for healing or he may lead someone through a valley of suffering. God works through the suffering of Job to show his power. Paul will often appeal to God’s work in weakness as he reflects on his ministries in his letter. This is a very important point, for it through faithful suffering that we most reflect Jesus. According to Paul, he “fills our Christ’s sufferings” (Colossians 1:24) by his sufferings. The same applies to us. Healing shows Christ’s power. Our weakness and suffering do so even more.

Why Moses and Elijah?

By James

On July 16, 2018

In Uncategorized

Jesus meets with Moses and Elijah on the Mt. of Transfiguration. Why those two? It may have to do with the circumstances of their deaths. If you listen to enough reformed sermons this comes out. God buries Moses. God marks Elijah’s death by coming in a spiritual chariot to take him home. I think there is more going on. Moses and Elijah are unique in that God used their prophetic ministries to bring Israel through a death and ressurection.

Moses initiates God’s covenant on Mt. Sinai. He gives Israel God’s law. Scripture tells us that Israel was baptized into Moses (1 Corinthians 10). This baptism is a death and resurrection that brings Israel into a new world; the promised land. He initiates a new world; a new stage in the history of God’s people.

Elijah also comes to a mountain in the wilderness (1 Kings 19). God gives him the authority to initiate a new world. Elijah begins a new prophetic community with Elisha. He initiates a new stage of the northern kingdom with the anointing of Jehu. Finally, God anoints Hazael as king of Syria through Elijah (the anointing is actually accomplished by Elijah’s successor Elisha). Through Elijah, God brings judgement upon the world but preserves 7,000 faithful Israelites to come into the new world, which is formed through the judgement of Israel. He rules this new world through empires rather than kings.

One major initiator is missing: Samuel. Samuel brought in the Davidic Kingdom. He’s missing because the fulfilment of that Davidic kingdom is here; Christ. This Christ combines both David and Samuel as king and prophet, who will not only bring a new world into being through his death and resurrection but will also rule it as a true heir of David.

Jordan Peterson Teaches Pastors How to Preach

By James

On April 27, 2018

In Uncategorized

One of the ways we function in reality is through appropriating archetypes. This is the claim of men like C.G. Jung and Jordan Peterson. According to them, we need to read literature seeking moral improvement through understanding and possibly imitating the archetypes that are presented. Jordan Peterson sees Jesus as the archetypical perfect man. I should mention that I definitely don’t agree with everything he says here. The Logos seems to be something that human consciousness has somehow materialized in the story of scripture. I fully disagree with Jordan Peterson’s origin story, but psychologically he is right on.

This is something the church forgets. Preaching should centre around the application of our true archetype, the true logos Jesus Christ to our lives. This is why the church calendar is so important. We live the life of Jesus every year. The Christian year begins with advent: a waiting for Christ’s birth. We remember his death and resurrection. We remember the promise of ascension and the promise of our own resurrection. For exactly the same reason, the New Testament focusses on Unity with Christ. We share in his body and Blood. Paul tells us that everything we do is “In Christ.” The church forgets that the person of Christ is before all things and by him, all things hold together.

Instead, the church often reduces preaching to either doctrine or morals. Preaching should have those two elements. We have to know what Christ did and who he was. That is how we receive certainty and comfort. We have to know what to do. But if we desire transformation, we need to be called to live out the wellspring of the logos, take up our cross, and imitate Christ.

Of course, the Bible tells us about many more characters than Christ. The New Testament teaches us that we are to read these stories in light of Jesus Christ. The church loses her past when she fails to read the Old Testament in light of Christ when she fails to see the types that are fulfilled in Christ. She fails to understand how Christ becomes the archetype whom, we can apply to ourselves. Even more, how Christ is the illumination that shows how the Father and Spirit give us more archetypes.

Jesus is the fulfilment of almost every archetype of the Old Testament. He is the archetypical priest, prophet, king, son, and groom. Christ, the archetypical son, shows the way to the archetypical father, God. He sends out the spirit, who preserves, defends, clothes, and indwells the archetypical mother and bride, which is the church.

The fact of the matter is that we cannot live in the abstract. The abstract must take form in a story, in the concrete history of Christ and his bride, the church. Only then can we begin to understand how we are to embody the teaching of God.