Monthly Archives: May 2011

God tests us and hides his justice

I state here that God judges sooner than the Last Day. This fact can be taken to infer some mistaken conclusions.

God judges the wicked and rewards the righteous. All of these rewards are delayed because God is patient and because he tests everyone. A huge part of growing up is learning delayed gratification, and living by faith is part of that. If God responded immediately to all provocations, we would never learn to either believe nor be faithful. Both faith and faithfulness require “space” or, more literally, time. God does not stand there when Satan is tempting Adam and Eve. He has withdrawn his presence to evaluate them later. They would be much less likely to disobey if God was standing there behind the serpent. But their obedience wouldn’t indicate much either about their trust in God nor their character and maturity.

And when Jesus does come and judge us, he does so in a way that is not easily understood. There are a thousand variables. Some of these variables may indeed involve what God has reserved for the Final Judgment, the Last Day. But others simply involve factors that are too complicated or numerous for us to track. In some cases, the wicked who should be judged repent in time to delay it or escape it, and in some cases the offspring of the righteous who should flourish lose patience and depart from the Lord (see Ezekiel 18, for example). Plus God tests the endurance of the righteous for a time.

So you can’t condemn anyone who is poor because he is poor and you can’t commend anyone who is rich because he is rich. The evidence for all this is found in the Book of Proverbs which sees no problem assuring people that God rewards on earth but warning them about judging either the poor or the wealthy.

So there is no straight line you can see. But you can’t infer that God is not judging in history. He is. And that is why you can resist constructing a State to establish the “perfect justice” that you think needs establishing. That will not result in judgment. It will be a judgment. Don’t go there. Trust God instead and remain free and wise.

A switch flipped over in my head

I notice when I was blogging in 2000, my posts, for all their flaws, were much more personal. I’m afraid controversy has changed my stance. Also, the results of controversy: I was a lot more confident about my personal future and my ability to provide for my own back in 2000. (Some of this confidence was somewhat sinfully naive, I think. But much of what happened was truly unforeseeable.) Optimism produces a different tone.

Anyway, this is kind of a throwback autobiographical emotive thingy.

I’ve always been a six-day creationist, “young” earther–at least since college anyway. I’m convinced 1. the Bible teaches these things and 2. that the Bible is true. Until one of those premisses changes, I remain a young earther.

But I have hated having to argue about it in the unbelieving world. It seems so much easier to start with Jesus and the first century and argue for his resurrection and then from there to the reliability of Scripture (I’m not renouncing presuppositionalism, here, by the way).  So intellectually faithful but emotionally weary or wary, I was. I believed and would assert what the Bible says about chronology, but I wanted to talk about other things.

But something has happened. I don’t know how to explain it other than the analogy of a switch flipping in my head.

Suddenly I think the fact that history has barely begun is an exciting truth that deserves to be trumpeted. The whole world seems tired and depressed right now. Even the people trumpeting Keynsean myths about how the future can be opened up don’t seem to believe what they are saying. (It seems far easier to believe that people hate those who disagree with global warming or evolution or quantitative easing or environmentalism than that they are firmly convinced of the ideas they defend. Am I the only one who detects this?) We’re running out and running down. Austerity is ahead.

But like John Paul Jones, Jesus has not yet begun to fight. History has barely begun. Remembering that the earth has just started, and that Jesus came quite near to the beginning of history rather than waiting a million years, just seems like good new worth sharing.

I think a couple of things have converged to make me more excited about this message. For one, the financial crisis is also a Science ™ crisis. Science has been a welfare case especially since WW2 and it has all the resulting features of a bubble and corruption. (More on that in a later post, perhaps). On a personal level, I’ve had to direct my one homeschooled child to do some science reading, which means I’ve been doing some myself.  So this has all become the focus of my attention as has not been true for some time.

Anyway, I think people need to know that the human story has just begun. It is not ending. Whatever judgments we need to go through (and yes we need to repent to avoid eternal wrath) austerity is not the future of the human race. Unimagined prosperity lies ahead for our children–our many many unrestricted, unaborted children with unrationed wealth. Jesus is gracious and he is just starting.

 

Phinehas and Abraham, both Jew and Gentile justified by faith

I think it is time to amplify and restate a point I posted about in December 2009:

Mark Horne » Blog Archive » Gentile Abraham, David, and Phinehas.

After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O LORD God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

In Romans 4, Paul argues from the way Abram responded to a promised reward, and the nature of the promise, in order to prove justification is by faith, not by works, so that believing Gentiles are justified by God along with believing (and only believing) Jews.

For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his reward is not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

The “very great” “reward” that Abraham believes he will receive is a nation that is covenanted with the LORD that will go into Egypt and then come out, as the rest of Genesis 15 explains. But it is more than that. Paul points out that the content of the promise mentioned in Genesis 15, which Abra[ha]m believes, includes what is said in Genesis 17:

And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

So the promise itself, even though it includes a special nation marked out by circumcision, promises that Abraham will be the father of a multitude of nations. “The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.” This promise, is, in fact, an OT reality. Jacob hears it begin to be fulfilled when Joseph tells him that he has been made a father to Pharaoh (Genesis 45.8). The OT is filled with believing Gentiles, contrary to many Evangelical (and quasi-Marcionite) myths about the world before Christ. Paul is not satisfied with the OT benefits, however. He sees the promise as promising that eventually all nations will belong to God in the same special way as Israel so that there is no longer any distinction or special privilege among them.

But I’m getting away from my main point.

Paul makes a huge deal about the language of Genesis 15.6: “And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”

This passage is treated by unbelieving commentators as an occasion to mock Paul’s reasoning, and I don’t see Evangelical commentators really confronting the difficulty (though this is a blog post, not a research paper, so I haven’t read many of them before writing this. If you know of someone who deals with the issue, let me know). The reason is that Abraham is not the only person in the OT to whom something he did “was counted as righteousness.”

Then they yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor,
and ate sacrifices offered to the dead;
they provoked the LORD to anger with their deeds,
and a plague broke out among them.
Then Phinehas stood up and intervened,
and the plague was stayed.
And that was counted to him as righteousness
from generation to generation forever.

Thus, Psalm 106 explains the story of Phinehas in Numbers 25:

And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand. And the LORD said to Moses, “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy. Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and to his descendants after him the covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.’”

So like Abraham, Phinehas’ reward was very great. His act of zeal and loyalty to YHWH was counted to him as righteousness, which means, just like was true for Abraham, his descendents would be a special priestly covenant people.

It is ridiculous to read Romans 4 as if Paul was ignoring Phinehas’ story because it worked against his argument from Genesis 15. If Paul singles out language only used two times in the OT we can be sure that Paul is not incompetent and that he is arguing from both stories! After all, what is Paul’s argument? That Abraham is “the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. As Paul goes on to write:

That is why it is of faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the one of the law [the believing Jew like faithful Phinehas or forgiven David] but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham [the uncircumcized believer], who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations

The whole point is that Abram the believing uncircumcised Gentile was justified just like Phinehas the faithful believing Jew. Thus, if Abraham receives the same (and really a greater) reward as Phinehas, righteousness and covenant standing for himself and his heirs, then the reason for Phinehas’ reward cannot be his Jewish works, but the faith he held in common with the uncircumcised Abram.

Paul does not thoughtlessly overlook Phinehas. He argues from him, albeit silently. Just because we don’t read Numbers or the Psalms that much doesn’t mean Romans is supposed to be understandable without such knowledge. We have no business treating Paul as ignorant as we are or as accommodating such ignorant readers, and then self-righteously deciding his argument is flawed on that false assumption.

“Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your wage shall be very great”?

I don’t like the above translation of Genesis 15.1. It seems misleading.

But it is relevant to the way Romans 4.4 gets translated:

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.

Now this statement occurs in the middle of a great deal of commentary on Genesis 15. It seems, frankly, to come out of nowhere.

I noticed recently however that the Greek word does not have to be translated as “wages.” “Reward” is a common translation of the same Greek word.

In the context of “one who works” it makes sense that translators would think of “wages.”

But what about the context of a discussion of Genesis 15?

Genesis 15.1:

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

This “reward” is precisely the promise that Abram believes and so is justified–the main topic of Romans 4. And the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures in Paul’s day, the Septuagint (or LXX as it is commonly abbreviated) uses the same word that our English translations produce as “wages.”

In my opinion, Genesis 15.1 should count as context to Romans 4.4 and affect how we translate the word.

“Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

Now to the one who works, his reward is not counted as a gift but as his due.

Machen for Memorial Day

Machen writing about a book promoting imperialism:

It is a glorification of imperialism….A very immoral purpose indeed!…Imperialism, to my mind, is satanic, whether it is German or English… I am opposed to all imperial ambitions, wherever they may be cherished and with whatever veneer of benevolent assimilation they may be disguised… The author glorifies war and ridicules efforts at the production of mutual respect and confidence among equal nations….[The book] makes me feel anew the need for Christianity,…what a need for the gospel!

Writing in 1915 about the Allies:

The alliance of Great Britain with Russia and Japan seems to me still an unholy thing – an unscrupulous effort to crush the life out of a progressive commercial rival. Gradually a coalition had to be gotten together against Germany, and the purpose of it was only too plain. An alleged war in the interest of democracy the chief result of which will be to place a splendid people at the mercy of Russia does not appeal to me.

This talk about British democracy arouses my ire as much as anything. Great Britain seems to me the least democratic of all the civilized nations of the world – with a land-system that makes great masses of the people practically serfs, and a miserable social system that is more tyrannical in the really important, emotional side of life than all the political oppression that ever was practiced. And then if there is such a thing as British democracy it has no place for any rival on the face of the earth. The British attitude towards Germany’s just effort at a place in ocean trade seems to me one of the great underlying causes of the war.

Machen on the draft:

Even temporary conscription goes against the grain with me, unless it is resorted to to repel actual invasion, but my fundamental objection is directed against compulsory service in time of peace.

The country seems to be rushing into two things to which I am more strongly opposed than anything else in the world – a permanent alliance with Great Britain, which will inevitably mean a continuance of the present vassalage, and a permanent policy of compulsory military service with all the brutal interference of the state in individual and family life which that entails, and which has caused the misery of Germany and France.

From a letter to his congressman:

Even temporary conscription goes against the grain with me, unless it is resorted to to repel actual invasion, but my fundamental objection is directed against compulsory service in time of peace.

The country seems to be rushing into two things to which I am more strongly opposed than anything else in the world – a permanent alliance with Great Britain, which will inevitably mean a continuance of the present vassalage, and a permanent policy of compulsory military service with all the brutal interference of the state in individual and family life which that entails, and which has caused the misery of Germany and France.

Hating school spirit:

Princeton is a hot-bed of patriotic enthusiasm and military ardor, which makes me feel like a man without a country.

Machen, was totally in favor of fighting to defend freedom when that was actually the case, rather than the Tisroc’s slave wars. For example:

The real indictment against the modern world is that by the modern world human liberty is being destroyed. At that point I know many modern men could only with difficulty repress a smile. The word liberty has today a very archaic sound; it suggests G.A. Henty, flag waving, the boys of ’76, and the like. Twentieth-century intellectuals, it is thought, have long ago outgrown all such childishness as that. So the modern historians are spelling “liberty,” when they are obliged to use the ridiculous word, in quotation marks: no principle, they are telling us, was involved, for example, in the American Revolution; economic causes alone produced that struggle; and Patrick Henry was engaging in cheap melodrama when he said, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

J. Gresham Machen was a conservative Presbyterian who wanted to preserve liberty against the Leviathan State who uses war in order to bring the native populace into further servitude while extending rule in foreign soil. It is a legacy worth remembering, especially for American Christians on this day.

God judges sooner than the Last Day, so statism is wrong

I love this post by Doug Wilson. Love!

I want to offer one minor addition to what he says to combat statism. It is true that God will judge at the Last Day, but it needs to be remembered that he also judges (and saves!) sooner than that (and I’ve learned this from Doug himself, by the way).

God promises to cut off the wicked by the third of fourth generation. We see evil and fear it will spread and destroy society. We have to trust God that he will judge the wicked and cause the righteous to flourish and grow in society.

Sinful actions are not just wrong, but they bring their own destruction. You have to appreciate God’s patience but trust that he will intervene before the sin becomes overwhelming.

I happen to be spending a lot of time in Proverbs. So this happened to be on my mind.

The Future of Jesus 9, Who inherits the Land/Earth?

All of Psalm 37 is amazing, but I’ll narrow my focus on a few verses toward the latter half:

I have been young, and now am old,
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or his children begging for bread.
He is ever lending generously,
and his children become a blessing.

Turn away from evil and do good;
so shall you dwell forever.
For the Lord loves justice;
he will not forsake his saints.
They are preserved forever,
but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
The righteous shall inherit the land
and dwell upon it forever.

This is not some past dispensation. Jesus appealed to this text in the sermon on the Mount:

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

And, just to be clear, Jesus is not changing “righteous” to “meek.” That was already the OT meaning. In fact, that is the meaning established earlier in Psalm 37:

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
For the evildoers shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land.

In just a little while, the wicked will be no more;
though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace.

So two questions:

1. How is it Christian to claim that the meek won’t inherit the earth?

and

2. How is it right or just to portray confidence in Jesus’ promise that the meek will inherit the earth as a form of “triumphalism”?

One tactic has been to claim that the “earth” the meek will inherit is not this earth but a future replacement planet. That rips the word out of Matthew’s context. Matthew show Jesus preaching that the meek will inherit the earth, meekly submitting to death, and then inheriting this earth in the climax of Matthew’s Gospel:

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

It is this earth that the meek get, parceled out by the earth’s new king.

The Future of Jesus