And though each spring do add to love new heat,
As princes do in times of action get
New taxes, and remit them not in peace,
No winter shall abate this spring’s increase.
There are two fundamentally opposed means whereby man, requiring sustenance, is impelled to obtain the necessary means for satisfying his desires. These are work and robbery, one’s own labor and the forcible appropriation of the labor of others. Robbery! Forcible appropriation! These words convey to us ideas of crime and the penitentiary, since we are the contemporaries of a developed civilization, specifically based on the inviolability of property. And this tang is not lost when we are convinced that land and sea robbery is the primitive relation of life, just as the warriors’ trade—which also for a long time is only organized mass robbery—constitutes the most respected of occupations. Both because of this, and also on account of the need of having, in the further development of this study, terse, clear, sharply opposing terms for these very important contrasts, I propose in the following discussion to call one’s own labor and the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the labor of others, the “economic means” for the satisfaction of needs, while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the “political means.”
via Online Library of Liberty – (a) political and economic means – The State.
One of the basic positions of Reformed Baptists (and others, inconsistently) is that the NT deals primarily with individuals rather than with corporate groups. The institution of Israel in the OT is not so much transformed as it is dissolved in favor of its myriad atoms.
But where is the evidence for this kind of transition? Neither Jesus, Paul, nor Peter ever warn anyone about mis-applying the OT in some way so as to put too much importance on the visible community. On the contrary, the OT is treated as an authoritative and trustworthy guide for understanding the institutional Church. Thus, 1. Peter 2.4-10:
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen [or elect] and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”and
“A stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense.”They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Don’t be misled by the ESV’s blockquotes. Paul does not stop quoting Scripture with verse 8. In verses 9 and 10 he tells the Church made up mostly of Gentiles that they are the fulfillment of OT Scriptures addressing the nation of Israel. Exodus 19 and Hosea 1 and 2 are both about the election, calling, judgment, and restoration of Israel.
But what about individuals? That’s just the point. Those have always been addressed in Scripture. Claiming that the New Covenant “cares” more about individual realities is a way of insulting the Hebrew Scriptures and the unity of God’s plan of salvation.
“Of course God will forgive me; that’s His job.”
I have found more than one possible source for that quotation. I originally ran into it in a Christian writing that dealt with the utterly destructive lie that there is salvation to be found with God outside of Jesus Christ. But on the web one can find this quotation offered as an inspirational aphorism.
The fact that people believe this lie so widely makes our calling as Christians rather difficult. We have to tell people some really bad news for them to be willing to accept the good news. Even humble people who acknowledge that they are evil and who trust a good creator God to forgive their sin are in fact under God’s wrath and curse. Why? Because they are not Christians. Only those who entrust themselves to Jesus, who belong to him and thus are covered by his atonement, are the recipients of forgiveness. While there are all sorts of real problems found in nonchristian religions and positions, their ultimate problem is that they are not Christianity. God has sent His Son to us and he demands that all people everywhere entrust themselves to him. Outside of Christ there is no grace of forgiveness and final glory.
But while our God-given job is made difficult by this fact, we make it much more difficult when we refuse to deal with people as they are. I remember reading in some primary sources from Medieval Byzantium. They would write about this or that people they were dealing with and there would be an endnote in my Penguin edition telling me that, in fact, the tribal name the author was using was centuries out of date. That nation was long dead and another tribe now lived in the region. But the Byzantines simply couldn’t acknowledge change–at least not the Byzantine ruling class. They kept using labels they got from their ancient books.
Since that point, I have always considered the habit of seeing present people as nothing more than reiterations of a past age to be the reflex of a dying culture. Thus, it really bothers me when we obstruct our evangelistic efforts with the illusion that everyone, in their hearts, is a medieval monk trying to do enough righteous works to win God’s favor. That is not the only possible form of unbelief, and I doubt it is the prominant one. There are plenty of people who trust God is willing to overlook their sins and bless them out of pure mercy.
We are called and commissioned to preach the Gospel to every creature. We are not told to pay special attention to all the people whose mindsets come nearest to that of Luther before his tower experience. When confronted directly with the issue, every Evangelical Christian knows that the problem of a God who forgives everyone and loves everyone salvifically is a huge widespread form of unbelief. Yet all too ofen, the key to the Gospel as opposed to the world is made out to be grace versus earning standing by one’s moral behavior. Why is this?
I have no experience in the primary sources for Bultmann, so take this with a grain of salt. But my understanding is his entire explanation for the Christianity was to make it an abstract system of “authenticity”–something pretty close to faith and grace in his own mind. The point was to make Christianity worth “following” without any need to believe in a real person who was both God and man and who rose again from the grave. All of that could be overlooked, “dymythologized,” because a principle was all that mattered.
Thus, Bultmann heavily favored some of the most charicatured (and, it turns out, completely inaccurate) stereotypes of first-century Judaism as a religion devoid of any real belief in God’s grace. The Jewish ethic was built entirely upon gaining credit by obeying enough and thus winning by their own efforts a place with God.
In other words, for Bultmann, making out Judaism into a form of earning or meriting standing was essential to his strategy of rationalizing his unbelief. The person and work of Jesus could be dispensed with and a residual philosophy of authenticity (that Jesus allegedly taught or practiced at some level) could be retained as the essence of modern faith.
Of course, modern unbelief isn’t some sort of monolith. Bultmann’s portrayal eventually provoked a reaction, the most prominant of which was E. P. Sanders Paul & Palestinian Judaism. While many may have received the impression that this book was set against a “traditional Lutheran” interpretation of first-century Judaism, it actually barely mentions Luther and devotes a great deal of attention to Bultmann. Since Sanders is no more a believer than Bultmann was, no Evangelical can subscribe to his thought. Still, it is helpful to meditate on Sander’s contention that Paul’s problem with Judaism was that Judaism was not Christianity. While Sanders requires correction and refutation, his point against Bultmann and others like him is quite valuable.
For some great Evangelical responses to Sanders, see Frank Thielman’s From Plight to Solution and the works of N. T. Wright.
Have you ever known any official verdict pronounced by judge and jury that only applied to the person over whom the verdict was announced if he or she received it by faith?
When God condemns the wicked is that verdict received by faith?
The whole idea of receiving a forensic declaration “by faith”–if that is all we know about the situation–destroys the very idea of a forensic justification.
So how can justification be God’s judicial act and yet be received by faith?
Union with Christ is the only thing that keeps these two together.
God doesn’t pronounce an audible sentence every time a person is converted. Rather, he publicly justified Jesus by raising him from the dead. (1 Tim 3.16; Romans 8.1ff; See more here.)
All people who entrust themselves to God through Jesus–who confess that Jesus is Lord and believe God raised him from the dead–belong to Jesus and share in the verdict pronounced over Jesus.
Jesus got the verdict he deserved after suffering a condemnation he did not deserve so that we might receive a vindication we don’t deserve and escape a condemnation we do deserve.
Jesus is the incarnation of God and, by his resurrection, the incarnation of God’s verdict, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
All who are joined to Jesus (which is by faith alone) have his status as pronounced by his resurrection.
See also:
The Running Man by Stephen King
This book was quite violent and gross and the protagonist was a stubborn rebel… who insisted on getting married for life rather than following the societal norm of a few year contract. It is his loyalty to his wife (who made extra income as a prostitute) and his sick baby girl who needed medicine–a need which motivates Ben Richards to volunteer to be a player for the Games Federation which more or less runs the former US.
I have to admit I loved this book. It is every bit as important as Bradbury’s Farenheit 451. At one point I started wondering if King had studied the works of Rene Girard. The America of King’s 2025 is a stratified society where peace is kept through sacrificial scapegoats seen on reality TV. The top show, The Running Man, involves hunting a man to his death. He gets money for every day he stays alive (assuming he sends in his videos) and even more for killing policemen who are trying to kill him.
There are a lot of times when I felt King was really not able to suspend my disbelief… except that I never wanted to stop reading. It is easy to see King’s book as prophetic (the rise of reality television for example) and also an expose (through hyperbole of US society now). I especially liked the subtle invocation of H. G. Wells’ Morelocks.
By the way, just forget about the movie when you read this novel.
I’ve been a parent for some time now, and I’ve noticed that the kind of disobedience I hate the most is the kind I get when I’m not trusted. I realize my children don’t have a complete picture of the world and that they often can’t make sense of what I want them to do in light of what they (think they) know so far. But sometimes their questions or their hesitation involves a distrust that I find insulting–as I’m sure my parents often experienced from me when I was young.
Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, but they had to first commit the sin of reckoning God as untrustworthy. The Serpent told them that God was lying to them and they decided the Serpent was trustworthy.
When the author of Hebrews is describing the heroes of the faith (chapter 11), he describes Sarah’s faith as that she “considered him faithful who had promised” (verse 11). Likewise, he encourages his readers to continue to believe with these words: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (10.23). God is faithful. That is the basic truth that makes faith the only proper response to God. Adam and Eve decided God was untrustworthy in the midst of paradise; the Second Adam entrusted himself to God even on the cross (First Peter 2.23).
Thus, trusting God is inherently a form of loyalty to him and distrusting him is always disloyalty. When Jesus was abandoned by many former followers, he asked the Twelve if they were going to leave as well. “Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God’” (John 6.68, 69). Is this a profession of faith or loyalty? The only possible answer is Yes.
Over the last number of years, since the eruption of the FV controversy, we have of course been involved in the public back and forths that such a controversy involves. Much of it has been the doctrinal interaction, and the rest of it has been (mostly unsuccessful) attempts to clarify what we are in fact saying. But for some, these latter attempts are just like rubbing the spot on the wall — it just won’t clarify. Take, for example, Scott Clark’s most recent foray into fog. His summary of our position is this: “Get in by grace, stay in by cooperation with grace.” Forsooth, and double heh.
via Three Reasons Why There Has Been An FV Controversy.
Doug’s entire post is helpful and true, in my opinion (obvious as well, but we live in an age where that makes it rare to find in print). But I want to point out Doug’s summary misrepresentation which he ascribes to Clark. I think I’ve read similar stuff from several quarters whether or not it was in this latest post by Clark (I trust Doug, but I haven’t verified for myself in this particular instance and, if I thought this was something peculiar to Clark’s recent post, I would be obligated to personally witness it).
“Get in by grace, stay in by cooperation with grace.”
Why is this misleading?
Because it is misleading. It is a way of asking if one has stopped beating his wife.
It is misleading because Calvinists know that cooperation with grace is itself a gift of grace and that cooperation goes back to getting in.
Paul said it best in Ephesians 2.8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Faith itself is a gift from God.
(I realize the gender of “faith” and “that” are different in the Greek, but there is no way to remove faith from what is covered as a gift of God and what is excluded from the result of works.)
But even though faith is a gift of God, it is also the act of an individual believer. When a person hears the Gospel and believes it is he or she who believes. God or Jesus does not believe in his or her place.
So you get in by cooperating with grace, not merely by cooperating by grace, but the grace of God is what gives you the grace to cooperate with the grace of hearing the Gospel.
And you continue to believe and you continue to be justified, not of yourself, but it is a gift of God that he continues to bestow. As the Belgic Confession puts it:
However, we do not mean, properly speaking, that it is faith itself that justifies us—for faith is only the instrument by which we embrace Christ, our righteousness. But Jesus Christ is our righteousness in making available to us all his merits and all the holy works he has done for us and in our place. And faith is the instrument that keeps us in communion with him and with all his benefits. When those benefits are made ours they are more than enough to absolve us of our sins.
So you stay in by grace, not merely by cooperation by grace–because it is God’s grace that makes you continue to believe.
Calvinists have had to deal with those who deny that the gospel offer is genuine when that offer is made indiscriminately. The Gospel is not offered by saying, “If God has chosen you for eternal life, you will believe,” but rather,”Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved,” or more fully, “Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will be saved, you and your house.”
And what is true of preaching the Gospel and encouraging repentance and conversion is also true of preaching the Gospel and encouraging perseverance and growth in grace. You don’t tell professing Christians that they will effortlessly persevere, or that they will persevere if they are elect and there is no use trying if they are not. You tell them that God is faithful and that they must continue to trust him to the end in order to inherit eternal life.
I believe that giving those with political power (i.e. they get to point guns at other people and give orders) responsibility with producing and/or distributing goods in society is a bad idea (both practically and ethically). Rather, the responsibility should be given to society. Society, not the state (defined as the corporation formed by the people with guns), should have the power, right, and responsibility to produce and distribute goods and services.
There are basically two ways to gain wealth–the social means and the anti-social or political means. The political involves confiscation. You take from others. The social involves peaceful and voluntary cooperation. People typically trade goods and services, though other peaceful relationship such as family might not break down to as measurable a quid pro quo. Nevertheless, production and distribution are voluntary and peaceful rather than involuntary and violent.
I was looking at a couple of contracts from years back relating to my writing business. The different paragraphs are typically listed under headings. Often, there is one paragraph in which the heading is “HEADINGS.”
And what does that paragraph say? Why it says that the headings are for convenience only and not to be construed as nullifying any of the content of any of the paragraphs.
Now that would be a good addition to the Westminster Confession. People should be paying more attention to the content and not allow the headings to put them to sleep.