Monthly Archives: January 2011

Proverbs is the Fifth Commandment

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“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12).

“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Deuteronomy 5:16).

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land'” (Ephesians 6:1-3).

Proverbs is an application of and exhortation to diligent obedience to the Fifth Commandment.

Take the command as two halves

Honor your father and mother

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching… (Proverbs 4.1).

My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching…. (Proverbs 6.20).

A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother… (Proverbs 10.1b).

A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish man despises his mother… (Proverbs 16.20).

He who does violence to his father and chases away his mother is a son who brings shame and reproach… (Proverbs 19.26)

If one curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in utter darkness… (Proverbs 20.20).

Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old… (Proverbs 23.22).

Let your father and mother be glad; let her who bore you rejoice… (Proverbs 23.25).

Whoever robs his father or his mother and says, “That is no transgression,” is a companion to a man who destroys… (Proverbs 28.24).

There is a generation who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers… (Proverbs 30.11).

The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures… (Proverbs 30.17).

A few verses mention ” a father’s instructions” without the mother. But this also happens once for a mother (Proverbs 31).

that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you

My son, do not forget my teaching,
but let your heart keep my commandments,
for length of days and years of life
and peace they will add to you… (Proverbs 3.1).

So you will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man… (Proverbs 3.2b)

Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor… (Proverbs 3.16).

Hear, my son, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many… (Proverbs 4.1)

Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life… (Proverbs 4.13)

For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life… (Proverbs 6.23).

For by me your days will be multiplied, and years will be added to your life… (Proverbs 9.11)

The highway of the upright turns aside from evil; whoever guards his way preserves his life (Proverbs 16.17).

The fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm… (Proverbs 19.23).

The law of God receives a great deal of attention in Proverbs, but that too fits into the Fifth Commandment.

Consider that, after he repeated the Fifth Commandment in Deuteronomy 5, Moses says at the beginning of Deuteronomy 6:

Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long.

Moses closes his sermon the same way (chapter 32):

Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.

While there are probably many applications of the Fifth Commandment, some of which are even for unbelieving parents, the core of the Fifth Commandment is a transmission method for the word of God. Children are to honor their parents because their parents are communicating to them the way of the Lord.

Work hard and be free

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Go to the ant, O sluggard;
consider her ways, and be wise.
Without having any chief,
officer, or ruler,
she prepares her bread in summer
and gathers her food in harvest.

And then:

The hand of the diligent will rule,
while the slothful will be put to forced labor.

So free people work themselves. Otherwise, someone else will work them.

Solomon the riddler

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I’ve decided that anyone who thinks that Job and Ecclesiastes are “correctives” or “qualifiers” to the book of Proverbs really hasn’t paid attention to what Proverbs really says (or doesn’t say).

Consider Proverbs 10.15:

A rich man’s wealth is his strong city;
the poverty of the poor is their ruin.

Seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?

But the proverb is semi-repeated in 18.11:

A rich man’s wealth is his strong city,
and like a high wall in his imagination.

Not quite as positive a statement, is it? But what if this couplet is not meant to stand alone? Then the negativity is even stronger:

The name of the LORD is a strong tower;
the righteous man runs into it and is safe.
A rich man’s wealth is his strong city,
and like a high wall in his imagination.
Before destruction a man’s heart is haughty,
but humility comes before honor.

Jesus’ parable of the rich fool (fool!) virtually writes itself from Proverbs 18.10-12.

So go back to 10.15:

The wise lay up knowledge,
but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near.
A rich man’s wealth is his strong city;
the poverty of the poor is their ruin.
The wage of the righteous leads to life,
the gain of the wicked to sin.

Is the statement in the middle meant to be taken at face value, or are we intended to question it in light of the true wealth that is knowledge (that you save, like money) or the true wage that is life?

And are we intended to go back and rethink 10.15 in light of 18.11?

It is the glory of God to conceal things,
but the glory of kings is to search things out (Proverbs 25.2).

Repost: More Historia than Ordo (in which I dally in unnecessary latinisms)

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Here is Paul telling his readers that he is praying they will be brought to understand God’s omnipotence:

…the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.  And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

So reads Ephesians 1.19bff without the chapter break. Typically, people read “made us alive together with Christ” as personal regeneration. The gift of faith mentioned in the next verse is obviously the way we appropriate this so that it can be said that we were made alive with Christ, but the making alive here refers not to our history, but to Jesus’. Gaffin tries to deny this as Ridderbos articulates it, saying that the “dead” in 2.1 is not identification with Christ’s death, but in our trespasses and sins. True, but the point here is not that we identified with Christ. Rather, he identified with us. Though sinless, he joined us in our curse in the ultimate way by submitting to death.

The transition here is not the transition of individual biography. Reading Acts it is obvious that many people were not “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience,” living “in the passions of our flesh, carrying ou the desires of the body and the mind…” Cornelius was a devout man whose prayers were acceptable to God. The point here is that both Jew and Gentile races were going to Hell and, before the death and resurrection of Christ, the entire age was characterized in this way. Jesus representatively put the world to death and renewed the world in his person. Those who believe the Gospel message are sealed with the Spirit (1.13, 14) to Christ. We are saved “through faith” (2.8). But that work of the Spirit is not in view for believers in 1.19-2.7. Rather, it is the work of the Spirit in declaring a verdict on Christ by raising him. Christ was given the credit for his faithful life culminating in death on the cross by his resurection and ascension. When we believe the Gospel we receive and are received into Christ so that we share his verdict. Our sins no longer legally matter because Christ’s death to sin counts as ours. There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus (Romans 8.1). Furthermore, Christ’s faithful life and ongoing faithful reign are reckoned as our own. Positively and negatively, Jesus’ righteousness is ours.

Paul is perfectly capable of mixing the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection with the story of a believer’s conversion (Colossians 2.8-15). But in Ephesians 1.19-2.7 it seems to me we have the historia salutis, not the personal ordo.

Peter Leithart, 1996 — “Baptism & the Spirit” in Biblical Horizon’s Newsletter

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BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 85
May, 1996
Copyright 1996 Biblical Horizons

Pneumatology, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, is often formulated along dispensational lines. The Holy Spirit’s work in the Old Testament, we tend to think, was earthly, concerned with political and military leadership, while in the New Testament the Spirit’s work has to do with mediating salvation achieved by Christ. The Spirit’s work in the Old Testament was functional, oficial, and earthly; His work in the New is spiritual, soteriological, and heavenly. I am far from denying that there are discontinuities in the Spirit’s work; clearly, before Christ died and rose again, the Spirit could not have communicated to us the power of His resurrection or given us a share in the New Creation. Indeed the Spirit’s presence and work is so dramatically enhanced by the “glorification” of the Son in His death and resurrection that John can comment that the Spirit “was not yet because Jesus was not yet glorified” (Jn. 7:39). Still, it is a basic error to introduce too sharp an historical discontinuity in the work of the Spirit. A covenantal approach insists, on the contrary, that the pattern of His working in the Old Covenant provides the framework for understanding His working now.

In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit “came” upon individuals to equip them for particular tasks, for ministry within Israel. The Spirit on Moses was distributed to seventy of the elders of Israel so they could share in the burden of leading the people (Num. 11:16-17). Yahweh’s Spirit was on Othniel when he served as a judge (Jud. 3:10), on Gideon to resist the invasion of Midianites, Amalekites, and the sons of the East (Jud. 6:34), and on Jephthah when he fought the Ammonites (Jud. 11:29). At the Spirit’s incitement, Samson burned against and defeated the Philistines (Jud. 13:25; 14:19; 15:14). The Spirit came on Saul when he met a group of prophets and later when he heard about the Ammonite attack on Jabesh-Gilead. In the latter case, he moved in the power of the Spirit to deliver the city (1 Sam. 10:10; 11:6). When David was anointed as king-designate by Samuel, the Spirit came on him mightily (1 Sam. 16:13), and it was in the power of the Spirit that David defeated Goliath, sparking a great Israelite victory, and later rose to the throne of Israel. In these and other cases in the Old Testament, the Spirit’s work is to equip the leaders of God’s people for service to the community of God’s people. Continue reading →

Moscow as Intellectual Capital of North American Christendom

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I guess I already knew this. But the conference with Mark Driscoll really brought it home. Between John Piper and Mark Driscoll, Nathan’s bestselling fiction, Peter Leithart’s scholarship and omni-didactionism in all sorts of Christian venues….

It is truly amazing to see.

Lots of challenges too, no doubt. But it sure stands in stark contrast to the reputation and influence of NAPARC churches–since the most vocal part is doing all it can to try to drive out Peter Leithart.

I remember noticing how insular the Protestant Reformed denomination had become and was becoming. Never realized I was seeing the future of virtually the whole Evangelical Presbyterian world.

Obviously, this sort of speculation is like trying to guess the economic future of China to the world in the next generation. But I still think it is worth mentioning.

We’ll see.

RePost with edits: Pedagogue is not Greek for “Covenant of Works”

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Galatians 3.24

ESV: “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.”

NASB: “Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.”

The word here for “guardian” or “tutor” is pedagogue

It does not mean “covenant of works.”

It does not refer to a person known for being harsh and making impossible demands so that the student child longs to play hooky.

This is all a man-made tradition (a young one) that is often preached as the Word of God.

The tutor or guardian here is a temporary caretaker until Christ comes.  On one interpretation the Law is actually is in charge of leading people to Christ (NASB).  In that case, he is an evengelist.  The Law is fulfilling the Great Commission.

Either way, the point is simply that the Law is a temporary government or economy or administration or dispensation from Sinai until Christ comes.

If someone thinks he can make Galatians 3.24 fit into a Covenant-of-works scheme, fine.  But it is not a prooftext for anything of the sort. You have to bring the concept to it.

In fact, Paul’s whole argument is not about a transition from required perfect obedience to the mercy received by faith but from immaturity that needs a guardian to the freedom of faith.

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

Once we were God’s children and slaves and waiting heirs but now we have become full sons and fulfilled heirs. The Law was a guardian/manager for children. Jew and Greek were kept separate. Now we are free in Christ. The law is not of faith. Don’t go back to the child-manager. To do so is to reject your Father and his gifts altogether.

Warfield and Infant Baptism

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The last matter to be addressed in this review is Zaspel’s treatment of Warfield’s understanding and defense of infant baptism (515-526).  On this point, Dr. Zaspel is to be commended for striving mightily to get Warfield right, even though he personally disagrees with Warfield’s conclusion.  Zaspel points out that Warfield rejected baptismal regeneration (516), and affirms that the Princetonian saw baptism as a “visible monument of the covenant.”  In baptism, the benefits of the covenant are sealed unto believers and their children (517).

Zaspel, however, finds what he considers to be an inconsistency in Warfield’s various assertions about baptism–in one place Warfield affirms that the children of Christians are presumably saved, while in another place, he affirms that children still still need to be saved, and finally, in another place that many baptized Christian children may actually be lost and not be saved (529). While I would love to take up this matter and reply, this is not the place nor the point. I say this because even after noting the perceived inconsistency he sees in Warfield’s work, Dr. Zaspel charitably strives to give Warfield the benefit of the doubt, noting “because of the covenant promise” children of believers are presumed to be Christians (530).

I do have one brief quibble with Dr. Zaspel’s treatment of Warfield on infant baptism. When setting forth the key points in Warfield’ essay “The Polemics of Infant Baptism,” I find it rather interesting that Dr. Zaspel does not mention what is perhaps Dr. Warfield’s most salient point in his polemic–one which comes at the beginning of that essay, namely contention that all Christians, even Baptists, must baptize on the presumption that a person’s profession of faith is genuine. According to Warfield,

All baptism is inevitably administered on the basis not of knowledge but of presumption. And if we must baptize on presumption, the whole principle is yielded; and it would seem that we must baptize all whom we may fairly presume to be members of Christ’s body. In this state of the case, it is surely impracticable to assert that there can be but one ground on which a fair presumption of inclusion in Christ’s body can be erected, namely, personal profession of faith. Assuredly a human profession is no more solid basis to build upon than a divine promise. So soon, therefore, as it is fairly apprehended that we baptize on presumption and not on knowledge, it is inevitable that we shall baptize all those for whom we may, on any grounds, fairly cherish a good presumption that they belong to God’s people—and this surely includes the infant children of believers, concerning the favor of God to whom there exist many precious promises on which pious parents, Baptists as fully as others, rest in devout faith [B. B. Warfield, “The Polemics of Infant Baptism,” in Studies in Theology, 390].

I would have liked to see this point included in Zaspel’s discussion, but alas, I digress.

via Westminster Seminary California.

Of course, if everyone baptizes on “presumption,”–including adult professing believers–then all pastoral work and church ministry is also on presumption. One might ask what is left that isn’t “presumption.” In which case maybe we can move on and use a more serviceable and perhaps even Biblical word.

Like covenant.

Happy Birthday, Heidelberg Catechism: Here is John Nevin’s introduction to the author’s commentary

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Among the reformers of the second generation, the race of distinguished men, who, though themselves the children of the reformation, were yet in a certain sense joined with the proper original Apostles of that great work, in carrying it out to its final settlement and conclusion, no one can be named who is more worthy of honorable recollection, than the learned and amiable author of the far-famed Heidelberg Catechism. In some respects, indeed, the authorship of this symbol must be referred, we know, to different hands. But in its main plan, and reigning spirit, it is the genial product, plainly, of a single mind, and to the end of time, accordingly, it will be known and revered as a monument, sacred to the memory of Zacharias Ursinus.

In one view we may say of the Catechism, that it forms the best history, and clearest picture of the man himself; for the materials of his biography, outwardly considered, are comparatively scanty, and of no very striking interest. He had neither taste nor talent for the field of outward adventure and exploit. His whole nature shrank rather from the arena of public life. In its noise and tumult, he took, comparatively speaking, but little part. The world in which he moved and acted mainly, was that of the spirit; and here, his proper home, was the sphere of religion. To understand his history and character, we need not so much to be familiar with the events of his life outwardly taken, as to know the principles and facts which go to make up its constitution in an inward view; and of this, we can have no more true or honorable representation, perhaps, than the likeness that is still preserved of him in his own Catechism. Here, most emphatically may it be said, that ‘• he being dead, yet speaketh.”

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Machen’s Warrior Children were subsidized

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Lots of people know about what “Calvin did” to Servetus. Servetus ended up burned at the stake.

What not as many people know is that the man who identified Servetus in Geneva had to spend the night in jail with him.

You see, in the city of Geneva you couldn’t make an accusation, not even against a stranger no one else knew, without taking risk on yourself. It was only just. You were risking another man’s life, limb, and/or liberty. You didn’t get to do that without cost. If you were wrong you would have to pay.

The Bible is even more severe about this. As one PCA minister blogged recently:

I was thinking about the troublers of the church; the fine-toothed comb guys who hunt heresy in the Presbyteries. They want to get certain guys OUT.

And I do not dispute the principle: there are times when some church leaders need to be put OUT.

Which brings me to Deuteronomy 19:

If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, [17] then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. [18] The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, [19] then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

This leads me to think that if a man brings a charge against another with the goal of putting the accused OUT, then the accuser should be told, “Are you sure you want to bring this charge? Because if this Presbytery examines this man and finds him innocent of the charges, then YOU will be put OUT as you wished him to be. Do you wish to proceed?”

I bet things would quiet down if we did things the Bible way.

The PCA hasn’t become the False Accusation Capital of the Christian church because of “Machen’s legacy”–with all due respect to John Frame. It has developed into such a horror because it is, especially in the last decade, designed that way. It allows people to attack without cost.

No cost? Yes I know every accuser is congratulated for their “courage” against some dire persecution they face for “standing for the truth.” You would think they were like Luther facing actual harm to hear the rhetoric–or at least Machen’s followers risking the loss of their pensions.

If only.

There is zero cost to making an accusation against another pastor that is proven false in court.

This is the key issue. John Frame even brings it up in his essay when he writes of Norman Shepherd:

A number of bodies (Westminster’s faculty, its board, Philadelphia Presbytery of the OPC) studied Shepherd’s position and did not officially pronounce him unorthodox. But the controversy would not quit, and in 1982 Shepherd was asked to resign his position for the good of the seminary community. In my view, that decision was an injustice.

Right. You can download Richard Gaffin’s letter to circularizers who would not abide by one of Shepherd’s exonerations (posted at The Norman Shepherd Project). When one doesn’t get one’s way one just screams more. Eventually, people will act because they can’t shut you up. Shepherd was found not guilty repeatedly but the accusers kept writing and campaigning. Now we hear about how “courageous” they were. It cost them nothing. It was easy. It was risk free.

Even our Book of Church Order has a (rather anemic) appeal to the justice of Deuteronomy 19.16-19:

31-9. Every voluntary prosecutor shall be previously warned, that if he fail to show probable cause of the charges, he may himself be censured as a slanderer of the brethren.

But somehow, no one ever needs to actually man up and accuse. No one ever pressed charges against Steve Wilkins in Louisiana Presbytery. The entire process was circumvented so that there was no risk and everyone went along with it.

It is costless to be an accuser. It is a free ride to endanger someone else’s calling and job and to take a huge chunk of their life away in fear and defense. There is no down side.

And you always get more of what you subsidize.