In medias res – Podcast: Interview with Mark Horne, Part 1.
Well, maybe this will get me inspired to start trying to gather together something publishable. But in the meantime, here is part one of an interview with me on the subject:
And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
I wonder if the older English translations of the passage are better, saying that one must believe that God “is” rather than God “exists.” I think the former may mean that he is here with us or for us. It is a statement of God’s presence rather than a philosophical claim about his existence.
I think it is right and good to affirm that God exists. But the Bible seems to take this for granted rather than to argue the point. The one exception seems to be Hebrews 11.6. Faith, rather than being trust in God’s character and power and promises, becomes a confidence that God exists.
But if faith is a confidence that God exists, then what is that faith based on? This seems problematic. Faith becomes a form of knowledge acquisition that is distinguished from other processes (“reason”). But why even call such a thing “faith,” “trust,” or “belief,” when it is not related to personal trust?
It seems to me that the author of Hebrews could easily be alluding to God’s covenant name (Exodus 3.13, 14). The point God was making to Moses was that “I am” or “I will be” with you. That promises is explicitly made when God gives his name as YHWH. So here the author of Hebrew God must say that those who approach God must believe that he is available to them, with them, for them. The point is not the intellectual question, “Does God exist?” but rather, “Can we trust God?”
Making faith the key to the first question is confusing and requires us to redefine “faith” as a way of knowing. But the second question makes faith simply what it is: trust in the character and ability of the true God.
But the more dreadful a thing it is to deny salvation by Christ alone, the more slow and fearful I am, except it be too manifest, to lay a thing so grievous unto any man’s charge. Let us beware lest, if we make too many ways of denying Christ, we scarce leave any way for ourselves truly and soundly to confess him. Salvation only by Christ is the true foundation whereupon indeed Christianity standeth.
–Richard Hooker, A Learned Discourse of Justification, Works, and how the Foundation of Faith is Overthrown.
Obviously, the Westminster Standards is guilty of causing confusion at best, or else is simply heretical. So lets start to fix it.
1. Baptism is a sacrament of the new testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn confirmation that admission of the party baptized is already a member of into the visible “church,” so called; but also, to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life. Which sacrament is, by Christ’s own appointment, to be continued in his “church,” so called, until the end of the world.
2. The outward element to be used in this sacrament is water, wherewith the party is to be baptized, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, by a minister of the gospel, lawfully called thereunto.
3. Dipping of the person into the water is not necessary; but baptism is rightly administered by pouring, or sprinkling water upon the person.
4. Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one, or both, believing parents, are to be baptized.
5. Although it be a great sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance, yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it, as that there is nor reason to wonder if no person can be regenerated, or saved, without it; or, that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated.
6. The efficacy confirmation of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace symbolized is confirmed promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God’s own will, in his appointed time.
7. The sacrament of baptism is but once to be administered unto any person.
Mark Horne » Blog Archive » Getting into the Galatian Heresy in the Name of the Reformation.
This is off the cuff and may be misguided, but I’ll throw it out there for feedback:
Is our fixation on the problem of “adding something” to Jesus really enough to describe the problem that Paul is dealing with in Galatians and First Corinthians?
(Yes, I’m claiming there is a real fundamental similarity in what Paul is dealing with. In both cases some are exalting themselves and/or separating from others and in both cases Paul invokes the sufficiency of Christ, the reality of the Spirit, and the meaning of baptism. I can write more about this if anyone needs me to do so.)
It seems to me that much of Paul’s hostility is focused on our desire to subtract other Christians from Christ as much or more than it is on adding anything to Christ.
In point of fact, not many admit they are adding to Christ. They accuse others of not fully following Christ.
(I got this idea reading Orlund’s own piece, so I think he’s more than aware of it. I’m just wondering if the “Don’t add to Christ” warning is the best way to describe the issue in order to do justice to Ortlund’s own observations.)
“We do not and cannot accept the principle that incompetence justifies dismissal.”
It is not really the feast of booze; it is the feast of booths. It was a week-long feast when people made booths or tents to live in around the sanctuary. It was Old Testament Bible camp.
But it is easy to get confused not only when you say it out loud but when you read about it:
“You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. And before the LORD your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the LORD your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the LORD your God chooses, to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the LORD your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you.
“Whatever your appetite craves” is worth a bit of contemplation, but this is all beside the point. So I will now get to it. The feast of booths is the last of three feasts. Here they are in Deuteronomy 16:
“Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God, from the flock or the herd, at the place that the Lord will choose, to make his name dwell there. 3 You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. 4 No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the flesh that you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain all night until morning. 5 You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, 6 but at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. 7 And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that the Lord your God will choose. And in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. 8 For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God. You shall do no work on it.
9 “You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. 10 Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you. 11 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there. 12 You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
13 “You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. 14 You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. 15 For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.
What does this have to do with the future of Jesus? We should expect the Feast of Booths to relate to the future of Jesus because Passover and Pentecost are about the past of Jesus. Jesus was crucified during the Week of Unleavend Bread and was dead during Passover. Then he gave the Spirit on Pentecost. Notice the relationship: first no leaven is allowed and then leavened bread is offered to God as a sign of new life (Leviticus 23.16, 17).
So we have moved from Passover in the death and resurrection of Jesus, through Pentecost in which the Spirit is given to the Church.
What are we moving toward?
The Feast of Booths also happens to be the time when seventy bulls are sacrificed leading to the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 29). Seventy bulls stand for seventy nations. The week commemorated God’s plan to gather in the whole world to his feast.
Jesus loves you and your Christian family but he did not die and rise again to have you in his private party. He died and rose again not only for you but also for the whole world. He wants everyone to come to his table and he will eventually ensure that the whole world is present at his feast.
I believe in the sovereignty of God, the Five Points of Calvinism, the Solas of the Reformation, I believe that grace precedes faith in regeneration. Theologically, I am Reformed. Sociologically, I am simply a Christian – or at least I want to be. The tricky thing about our hearts is that they can turn even a good thing into an engine of oppression. It happens when our theological distinctives make us aloof from other Christians. That’s when, functionally, we relocate ourselves outside the gospel and inside Galatianism.
Read the rest: #10: Truly Reformed – Ray Ortlund.
I was reminded of Rich Lusk’s helpful essay, Getting the Galatian Heresy Right.
There are similarities to Lusk’s piece but it also contains some correction to Ortlund’s perspective. I think Ortlund is right to see the flesh Paul attacks in Galatians as related to Reformed sectarianism (“it functions in our hearts as an addition to Jesus”). But I think he would be better off using First Corinthians to make his point. Because Paul didn’t care about the Galatian heart function for circumcision; he just wanted to stop them from practicing it as anything more than an ethnic custom for those who were raised with it. And he probably expected it to die out eventually among such people as well.
What is your view on limited atonement? – Resources – Eternal Perspective Ministries.
I really enjoyed this essay and also Pastor Doug Wilson’s excellent point about postmillennialism in response.
But in all this talk about “logic,” I want to point out that I think logic is being ignored.
In John MacArthur’s Study Bible, commenting on 1 John 2:2 he says, “Most of the world will be eternally condemned to hell to pay for their own sins, so they could not have been paid for by Christ.”
But that means no unbeliever who later is converted was ever under God’s wrath, a direct contradiction of Ephesians 2 and, for instance, the rest of the Bible. Unbelievers are not justified because they are elect and Christ died for them. They are justified because and when they are given faith in Christ–which is only because of God’s mercy and because Christ died for them.
This truth is safeguarded in the Westminster Confession, though I confess I was blind to the document thanks to the sloganeering of neo- (pseudo- sub- ?) calvinists. J. I. Packer had to wake me from my dogmatic slumbers. (There is now an excellent resource on the web that documents the Reformed heritage on this point.)
Also, Randy is acting like there are only two options: Christ died for the elect or Christ died for the whole world. Two points to make here:
First, what about statements that Christ died for the visible church? (Acts 20.28; I’m going to go out on a limb and claim that Paul is not demanding the watching of an invisible church). In that case, Randy needs to rethink his options:
Furthermore, 2 Peter 2:1 speaks of false teachers who bring swift destruction on themselves, and describes them as “denying the sovereign Lord who bought them.” Either Christ died for all men, including those who aren’t elect, or the false teachers who bring destruction on themselves are elect. I just don’t know how else to interpret this passage.
Does “elect” only and everywhere in Scripture denote election to eternal life? There are simply more options than “died for the whole world,” and “died for the elect.” For example, not everyone hears the gospel. Those that do hear it have been given a gift from God and due to the death of Christ. When the non-elect (not chosen for eternal life) reject the Gospel they will be held accountable for rejecting a gift that cost God his Son to give them.
This brings me to my second point: How Christ died for someone or group is not mutually exclusive to other statements using the same language of “for.” First Timothy 4.10 should put this beyond doubt: “For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” This is especially compelling since, in the same letter, Paul wrote:
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior,who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
So Christ died for all but especially for believers. This is not a denial of the doctrine of limited atonement, but a glorious affirmation of it.
And frankly, the problems we have in seeing this are anything but logical. I don’t think they were ever driven by logic. I think the need to defend the truth of Scripture eventually degenerated into a desire to believe we are special because we obsess over “the five points” all the time, make it the key to all reading of Scripture, and an essential element in even professing the Gospel (in some extreme cases). Obviously, this made us develop a new language at variance with the language of the Apostles and Jesus and the prophets.
So the Bible suddenly sprouts up “problem passages” from the perspective of our new mentality, that we claimed as our piety. They were not “problem passages” because false teachers twist them–we will always have to deal with those. Now they had become “problem passages” because we would never permit ourselves to write or speak that way. We know better than God how to allow our congregations to talk and write. And our job as theologians and pastors became to protect our congregations from the Bible and teach them to focus on the “safe” passages.
And we actually imagine that this is faithfulness to Christ on our part.
I wrote this entry on what I believe and have taught regarding baptismal regeneration. It sites an essay I wrote back in seminary.
But then later I realized I’d already addressed the issue in 2007.
And I’d forgotten about it because it had been completely forgotten by everyone else.
There was a time when I thought blogging was a way of having a public conversation. But in some cases it is really more like providing audio-recording to a kid who delights in splicing words together in order to make an obscene phone call in your voice. And when you hear it, you actually start to wonder, “Did I sin with my lips like that? Did I say something so bad and forget?” Because you can’t believe someone would misuse your words so badly that they would construct such a monstrosity. You actually are tempted to accuse yourself of forgotten sin rather than admit just how much the will-to-power has infected your accuser.
And, of course, when you point out the original context. You are told that you are engaging in contradiction and obfuscation. You are guilty of being jelly your accuser is trying to nail to the wall by not cooperating with their frame. That’s the other side of the accusation that you are “whining” that no one understands you.
The winning Federal Vision haiku is right.
You don’t resemble
My caricature of you
Because you’re lying.
But if you listen to the caricature long enough you will start believing it. When you are pleasantly surprised with your own past writing because it sounds so much better, it is time to be concerned.
Consider this an explanation as to why these posts are fewer and farther between.