Monthly Archives: December 2011

Is your Lord’s Supper pagan enough to be Christian? Is it Jewish enough?

It is not uncommon for one Christian teacher or group to accuse another professing Christian teacher or group of holding ideas about worship and communion that are “really just pagan.” Or perhaps it someone will attack a theory of being “the Old Covenant shadows.”

Whatever the accuracy of such associations, I just want to point out that the association by itself does not prove anyone to be in error. We know this because the Apostle Paul used both pagan worship and OT worship to teach positively on the Lord’s Supper:

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

So there you have it: We participate in the blood and body of Christ just like the OT worshipers who ate from the sacrifices were made participants in the altar sacrifices (perhaps both those and the regular cycle even when they weren’t present?). We participate in Christ just like pagan eaters participate in demons.

So your views of the Lord Supper, in some way, need to be pagan and Jewish enough to bring you into conformity with the teachings of the Apostle Paul.

Was Turretin like Ames or like Bavinck?

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I wrote some time ago on something that stuck me as off about Bavinck’s Prolegoumena:

One of the astounding oddities of the beginning of the English translation of Bavinck’s first volume of Reformed Dogmatics (pp. 34, 35) is that he lists William Ames as a bad guy for defining theology as “the art of living to God.” He also mentions as a danger a man name Calovius who argued that claiming God is the object of theology is as wrong as making “a prince instead of the commonwealth the object of the study of politics.” To me, that sounds quite compelling. But for Bavinck it only leads to Kant: “Thus, step by step, the subjective practical notion of theology began increasingly to find acceptance.”

via William Ames, Post-Modernist? » Mark Horne.

Now I wonder where Turretin fits in. True, Turretin says that God is the “object of philosophy.” But his labeling theology as a “habit” sounds a lot like Ames. Of course, I’m pretty ignorant of the philosophical background: Aristotle’s discussion of how “habits” are behind various sciences, and the full meaning of the Latin habitus. Perhaps I shall do some more reading.

I believe Turretin also insisted Theology was both theoretical and practical.

But I continue to love Ames’ definition of theology as “the art of living to God.” And if we only know God “in relation” then I fail to see how Theology can claim to have God as its object and not God in his regal and redemptive relationships with us.

To put it controversially, I think Theology has to be about Christendom if it is ever to tell us anything true about God.

The work’s not done until the worker has enjoyed it

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I was listening to Leviticus and ran across several passages that spoke of a ceremony involving sprinkling seven times.

Why seven?

The obvious answer is that God created in seven days. The priest is fashioning or revealing a new creation in the ceremony.

But that doesn’t quite makes sense because the creation was completed in six days, right? “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” So why doesn’t six come to be the significant number?

It seems that God resting and enjoying his work of the previous six days is part of the work itself. Until one has enjoyed one’s work the task is not yet done.

Thus Genesis 2 begins: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.” God had already done the work except that the work included his resting in enjoyment of what he had done. The resting counted as the finishing of the work.

This reminds me of Deuteronomy 20:

Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying, ‘Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. And is there any man who has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit. And is there any man who has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her.’

People are supposed to finish their tasks. And the work is not finished until it has been enjoyed.

A fifth kind of legalism?

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It is controversial whether there are four other kinds. I got my number from David Chilton in his Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt-Manipulators.

Here is his count of four “legalisms”:

Let’s begin with a working definition of legalism. Legalism cannot be defined simply as rigorous obedience to the law: after all, Jesus Christ obeyed the law fully, in its most exacting details and He, certainly was no legalist. The true legalist is the person who subscribes to one or more of the following heresies—ideas which are roundly condemned in Scripture:

1) Justification by works. This is the most critical aspect of the legalistic faith. It was abhorred and refuted by the writers of both Old and New Testaments. We must note here that no one–not even in the days of Moses—-was ever justified by his works. The only basis of salvation is the finished work of Jesus Christ, in fully satisfying the demands of God’s law, and suffering its penalties, in the place of all His people. The view that God accepts us as His children because of our works is completely at odds with the teachings of Scripture. One who is a legalist in this sense is certainly not an orthodox Christian.

2) The requirement of obedience to Old Testament ceremonial laws. Before Christ came, God’s people were required to observe certain ceremonies–sacrifices, feasts, and so forth—-which symbolically portrayed the way of restoration to God’s favor. These received their completion in Jesus Christ, and are no longer literally binding upon us. There is a very real sense, of course, in which we still keep these laws: Jesus Christ is our priest, He is our sacrificial atonement, and we cannot approach God apart from Him. Thus, in their real meaning, all these laws are observed by all Christians. But consider what a literal observance of these laws would mean, now that Christ has fulfilled these shadows: if you were to sacrifice a lamb today, you would be saying, in effect, that Christ’s atonement on the cross was insufficient–that you need an additional sacrifice to be accepted with God. That is heresy. Before the coming of Christ, observance of the ceremonial law was obedience after His death and resurrection, it is disobedience. The false teachers opposed by Paul in Galatians held to both of these two aspects of legalism–salvation by works and the requirement of Old Testament ceremonies.

3) A third form of legalism is addressed in Romans 14 and Colossians 2: The requirement of obedience to man-made regulations. The Galatian legalists at least maybe commended for their insistence upon biblical regulations. They were very wrong, but their standards were derived from Scripture. But Paul also had to contend with a host of regulations which originated from mere human prejudice, and which some Christians attempted to impose upon others. “Touch not; taste not; handle not” they demanded when God had said nothiig of the kind. There are many matters of individual conscience, taste, and idiosyncrasy which should remain so. But we are all dictators at heart, and we often like nothing better than to force others to submit to our eccentricities.

4) Another form of legalism… is confusion of sins with civil crimes. There are many things the Bible
condemns as sins, for which there is no civil penalty attached. For example, God certainly regards unjust hatred as a form of murder. Yet while He commanded that the murderer be executed, He made no such stipulation for the sin of unjust hatred. In the same way, God’s word condemns the slave mentality of gluttonous consumption as a sin — yet it mentions no civil penalties (or “tax incentives”) against it.

The most idiosyncratic of Chilton’s suggestions is number four. So maybe my own idiosyncrasy does not count as the fifth, but here it is.

Treating Christians like children in the church

To wit:

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.

There are a lot of good ideas that can be derived from Scripture. To what extent should churches make these good ideas mandatory? What happens when a church becomes a micro-managed community in which decisions are made for everyone as the standard of Christian behavior? Arguably, treating Christian adults like children should count as a reversion to the law, in a sense.

Do I have the courage to list the issues I’m thinking about?

No, I don’t. I’m a coward that way.

But I think we need to realize that Paul expects Christians to grow up and wants us to treat each other like adults rather than like children. Kindergarten has more rules than twelfth grade even though there are plenty of judgment calls that need to be made that can have consequences. Treating seniors like kindergarteners has its own negative consequences.

Paul thinks we should be optimistic about one another, that we will learn best for ourselves:

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

Postscript: Of course, arguably some will see this as number three. Maybe, but I at least think it is helpful to state the principal in other ways since this can be practiced in the same churches which pride themselves on freedom from the regulations that other Christians inflict on one another. So at least this gives us another diagnostic tool.

Guest Post from Abraham Kuyper: Action, not Passivity, in pursuing sanctification

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Zerubbabel was beset with troubles when the angel brought him the word of the Lord through the prophet: “Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4.6).

How often we have heard those words applied to problems of today, as if they were a warning against human effort in Kingdom work! But they were not that. Indeed not–for the Lord encouraged Zerubbabel in the work of his hands. The angel says, “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of the house, and his hands shall also finish it.” The Spirit of the Lord, using the hands of Zerubbabel, would accomplish the work, though physical might and power to match that of the enemy was lacking in the little band of zealous workers.

There are Christians who maintain that the godly life is a life of quiet submission, of patient waiting–waiting upon the Lord till He perform His own work…

God works by one of two methods–through man or without man, mediately or immediately.

When He chooses to work immediately, he commands man to stand aside, to be still and wait, to keep hands off.

But the era of such miraculous intervention is past… He is working mediately through us. And it is ours to be up and doing; ours to work the work of the Lord; ours to labor in the Name of the Lord, amid troubles that beset us on every hand.

—The Practice of Godliness

The myth of hedonism and philandering

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No one you know is driven by an inordinate desire for sexual gratification, if gratification refers simply to the pleasure of the act.

Back in college I was a sociology minor (and I was a communication major, so it was all a waste). I read about feral children. If I remember correctly some feral children, once grown, may be driven by a desire for sexual pleasure. They had no interest in sexual partners, probably not even in their imagination.

For normal people, there is always something else going on. They want the conquest (an apt word for it for many). They want the illusory affirmation of their own greatness or loveliness or something.

In other words, it is always about mistreating other people (and/or being mistreated in some cases). Any physical pleasure is just a bonus.

Some probably certainties from Joel Miller

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If your Christianity doesn’t leave a mark, then you’re doing it wrong.

If you don’t discipline yourself, others will.

If you don’t learn from history, you’re like most people.

To affirm one thing is to negate many others.

To speak at all is to speak falsely.

To do at all is to do wrongly.

Doubting someone’s sincerity doesn’t make them insincere.

Ill will toward others hurts mainly you.

Life is more than money, and anyone who says differently probably wants your money.

There’s nothing like the scarcity of fame to make people grasping and ungrateful.

Nobody is damned until they are.

Sloppy writing is a solid indicator of sloppy thinking.

Events cannot be undone, but most of them can be redeemed.

There’s no such thing as an exact comparison, especially among people and events. So don’t fool yourself.

Data can make you both confident and foolish.

via Things I’m pretty certain are true | Joel J. Miller.

The only thing I’ve grown to question is the one about being ignorant of history (it doesn’t say this is a bad thing, but I’m assuming it is an assumption behind the statement!). The last one about data making you confident and foolish seems to me to apply readily to the quest to gain knowledge of history, as well as the warning against exact comparisons.

A word about discussions about sanctification

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Continuing to pursue sanctification is a lot more important than figuring out the proper motivation for it.

It is can be good to try to make helpful suggestions from time to time, in the pulpit and in writing, about what might help people better and more consistently pursue sanctification without growing weary. But it is important to do so without making people feeling guilty about their motivations. What if you undercut their sanctification because you kick out a support that has been useful to them? Why make them feel guilty about their motives in sanctification when, frankly, the Bible indicates that the lack of sanctification is what we should devote more time and energy feeling guilty about.

And, I don’t understand why I’ve never noticed Presbyterians mention that the Westminster Confession explicitly affirms a variety of motivations are to be used, according to the diversity of motivations presented in Scripture. The Westminster Confession of Faith describes saving faith as both justifying and sanctifying. In chapter 14, “Of Saving Faith,” the document describes the “grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls” in this way:

By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God himself speaking therein; and acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come. But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.

So while this faith relies on Christ alone for both justification and sanctification, no one sees this as inconsistent with “trembling at the threatenings,” when such trembling is appropriate.

And, while it is possible to help someone you know with his motivations, which may be frustrating him in his progress, and it is good to present suggestions that you think are being neglected, we should also remember how much God hates it when we judge other people. What is it to you if someone is being sanctified because he fears God’s chastisement or wants to avoid the shame (yes, shame) of falling short of the ideals presented for Christians in Scripture?

If you think grace-driven, gospel-centered Pharisaism is an impossibility, you are walking next to a ditch without a safety rail. Looking down on others for not “doing it right” is always a dangerous trip, though it feels empowering.

Means v. Merit

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What kind of moron would take a map that was given to him and claim that, by following the directions, he had earned or merited the honor of arriving at the destination?

Thus Turretin:

THIRD QUESTION: THE NECESSITY OF GOOD WORKS
Are good works necessary to salvation? We affirm.

II. There are three principal opinions about the necessity of good works…; The third is that of those who (holding the middle ground between these two extremes) neither simply deny, nor simply assert; yet they recognize a certain necessity for them against the Libertines, but uniformly reject the necessity of merit against the Romanists. This is the opinion of the orthodox.

III. Hence it is evident that the question here does not concern the necessity of merit, causality, and efficiency—whether good works are necessary to effect salvation or to acquire it by right. (For this belongs to another controversy, of which hereafter). Rather the question concerns the necessity of means, of presence and of connection or order—Are they required as the means and way for possessing salvation? This we hold.

IV. Although the proposition concerning the necessity of good works to salvation (which was thrust forward in a former century by the Romanists under the show of a reconciliation in the Intermistic formula, but really that imperceptibly the purity of the doctrine concerning justification might be corrupted) was rejected by various Lutheran theologians as less suitable and dangerous; nay, even by some of our theologians; still we think with others that it can be retained without danger if properly explained. We also hold that it should be pressed against the license of the Epicureans so that although works may be said to contribute nothing to the acquisition of our salvation, still they should be considered necessary to the obtainment of it, so that no one can be saved without them–that thus our religion may be freed from those most foul calumnies everywhere cast mot unjustly upon it by the Romanists (as if it were the mistress of impiety and the cushion of carnal licentiousness and security)…

VII. And as to the covenant, everyone knows that it consists of two parts: on the one hand the promise on the part of God; on the other the stipulation of obedience on the part of man… [emphasis added].

Likewise we find in Benedict Pictet the same point:

As to the necessity of good works, it is clearly established from the express commands of God–from the necessity of our worshipping and serving God–from the nature of the covenant of grace, in which God promises every kind of blessing, but at the same time requires obedience–from the favors received at his hands, which are so many motives to good works–from the future glory which is promised, and to which good works stand related, as the means to the end, as the road to the goal, as seed-time to the harvest, as first-fruits to the whole gathering, and as the contest to the victory…

This sounds quite like what we find in the Westminster Confession on good works, as well as in Scripture.

Chapter 16:

These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith: and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God, whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto, that, having their fruit unto holiness, they may have the end, eternal life.

The Confession is translating the contemporary English translation of Romans 6.22. Here it is in context:

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So the way is not a method of meriting, but a means of coming into possession.

Thoughts about the literary structure of the Hexeteuch

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The Penteteuch refers to the first five books of the Bible, commonly called the books of Moses. (I suspect that Genesis is a compilation of ten books written earlier than Moses but which come to us through Moses). The Hexeteuch refers to the first six. It is rather easy to see the Penteteuch as the first “Old Testament” and then Joshua as the first “New Testament.”

Of course, it can be divided more finely: One could see Genesis as the first OT and then Exodus through Joshua as the fulfillment record–the NT.

Or one could take all the books of Genesis except the last one (Genesis 1.1-37.1) as the first OT and then the story of Joseph in Egypt as the fulfillment. For it was the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15.

I have already noted how Genesis seems to end in a way that goes back to the problem set up at the beginning:

The first time wisdom is mentioned in the Bible, it is used to describe what tempted Eve about the tree–that it was desirable to make her wise.

This seems to be the equivalent of gaining the knowledge of good and evil, having one’s eyes opened… and being like God.

At the end of Genesis 3 God seems to agree with these equivalences:

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil…”

Adam and Eve are naked in the beginning of Genesis. Genesis ends with a man who, after repeatedly losing his robe of authority through injustice, gains authority over the whole world… precisely because he is wise.

This proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. And Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is the Spirit of God?” Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you.” And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain about his neck.

So in Genesis 3 the world is cursed with scarcity and Adam and Eve are blocked from God’s food, while at the end of Genesis food is provided. Just to make sure you understand the final blessing has not come yet, the very last passage tells us of Joseph dead body being put into a coffin to stay in Egypt until release is provided.

Exodus begins with a new king and ends with the enthronement of the true God in the midst of Israel. But, we can also see how the end of Exodus goes back to the beginning of Genesis. Genesis begins with a sanctuary and sanctuary food that is lost and ends with a sanctuary being re-established for God to walk with Man.

Genesis begins with God’s property being stolen and ends with a way of redeem back what belongs to God:

“When a man dedicates his house as a holy gift to the Lord, the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall stand. And if the donor wishes to redeem his house, he shall add a fifth to the valuation price, and it shall be his.

“If a man dedicates to the Lord part of the land that is his possession, then the valuation shall be in proportion to its seed. A homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. If he dedicates his field from the year of jubilee, the valuation shall stand, but if he dedicates his field after the jubilee, then the priest shall calculate the price according to the years that remain until the year of jubilee, and a deduction shall be made from the valuation. And if he who dedicates the field wishes to redeem it, then he shall add a fifth to its valuation price, and it shall remain his. But if he does not wish to redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed anymore. But the field, when it is released in the jubilee, shall be a holy gift to the Lord, like a field that has been devoted. The priest shall be in possession of it. If he dedicates to the Lord a field that he has bought, which is not a part of his possession, then the priest shall calculate the amount of the valuation for it up to the year of jubilee, and the man shall give the valuation on that day as a holy gift to the Lord. In the year of jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, to whom the land belongs as a possession. Every valuation shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs shall make a shekel.

“But a firstborn of animals, which as a firstborn belongs to the Lord, no man may dedicate; whether ox or sheep, it is the Lord’s. And if it is an unclean animal, then he shall buy it back at the valuation, and add a fifth to it; or, if it is not redeemed, it shall be sold at the valuation.

“But no devoted thing that a man devotes to the Lord, of anything that he has, whether man or beast, or of his inherited field, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy to the Lord. No one devoted, who is to be devoted for destruction from mankind, shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death.

“Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord’s; it is holy to the Lord. If a man wishes to redeem some of his tithe, he shall add a fifth to it. And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman’s staff, shall be holy to the Lord. One shall not differentiate between good or bad, neither shall he make a substitute for it; and if he does substitute for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.”

Genesis begins with Adam and Eve being disinherited and ends with arrangements to assure inheritance in the Land:

The heads of the fathers’ houses of the clan of the people of Gilead the son of Machir, son of Manasseh, from the clans of the people of Joseph, came near and spoke before Moses and before the chiefs, the heads of the fathers’ houses of the people of Israel. They said, “The Lord commanded my lord to give the land for inheritance by lot to the people of Israel, and my lord was commanded by the Lord to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother to his daughters. But if they are married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the people of Israel, then their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our fathers and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. So it will be taken away from the lot of our inheritance. And when the jubilee of the people of Israel comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry, and their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers.”

And Moses commanded the people of Israel according to the word of the Lord, saying, “The tribe of the people of Joseph is right. This is what the Lord commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad: ‘Let them marry whom they think best, only they shall marry within the clan of the tribe of their father. The inheritance of the people of Israel shall not be transferred from one tribe to another, for every one of the people of Israel shall hold on to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. And every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the people of Israel shall be wife to one of the clan of the tribe of her father, so that every one of the people of Israel may possess the inheritance of his fathers. So no inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another, for each of the tribes of the people of Israel shall hold on to its own inheritance.’”

The daughters of Zelophehad did as the Lord commanded Moses, for Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to sons of their father’s brothers. They were married into the clans of the people of Manasseh the son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of their father’s clan.

These are the commandments and the rules that the Lord commanded through Moses to the people of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.