Category Archives: Covenant Theology

Faith, Kingdom, Children, Church, etc

RePost: God won’t share his people (his glory) with another

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In Isaiah 48 we read:

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.
For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it,
for how should my name be profaned?
My glory I will not give to another.

In the context of a prophecy that God will deliver his people from Babylon and the nations, Someone recently pointed out to me the text of Jeremiah 13.11:

For as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the Lord, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen.

This chapter in Jeremiah is full of severe judgment. But here in the midst of it, God himself tells his people that their sin strips him. His loins are uncovered and his glory has been taken away.

I commented awhile back on how astounding it is that God tells us that we are his inheritance, and shows us in Scripture the saints praying to God to remember his inheritance and protect his people–as if God were some pauper hoping to come into a fortune. As if we corrupt sinners were his fortune. Jeremiah 13.11 is of the same sort. The all-glorious God considers himself naked without us–we who are by nature sinful and ashamed and prone to trade God for fig leaves.

So how do a husband and wife “discern” their union while having sex?

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Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the loaf of bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one loaf, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf

For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink one Spirit. For the body is not one member but many.

Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it.

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this as my memorial.” In the same way the cup also after supper, saying “This cup is the New Covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink, as my memorial (1 Cor 10.16-17; 12.12-14, 27, 11.23-26; NASB with slight modifications in the translation).

In instituting the Lord’s Supper, Jesus said for us to “Do this.”

What is this that Jesus established? This is what we are.

According to the Apostle Paul, the Church is one body–-the body of the Lord Jesus. This solidarity is so strong that he actually uses the name of Christ when referring to the Church: “Even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.” This solidarity is especially strengthened by participation in the Communion meal. What is initiated in baptism is nurtured in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

How does this work?

The answer to such questions is a source of great contention in Christendom, and many a schism has broken out over the issue. The question itself has been broken up into others: What does an individual receive in the Lord’s Supper? What must he do to receive it? What is the minimum necessary requirement for the Lord’s Supper to give something [whatever that something is] to an individual?

All of these questions are, I would contend, excessively individualistic. They force us into choosing between alternatives which are falsely exclusive, prematurely closing off more Biblical lines of thought. In Church history we find two major errors sparring with one another but uniting in keeping all other contenders out of the ring. On the one hand we have the view in which the sacraments are basically a wire through which “grace” runs like an electric current. Grace is an impersonal thing which can be dispensed through a mechanism. On the other hand, the we have the view that the sacraments are basically coded messages which remind a person of something he already knows. Grace is simply the benefit of being properly stimulated to pious thoughts.

Both of these views, incidentally, leave little room for the institutional Church as the entrance to and citadel of the Kingdom formed by Christ’s new covenant. The former view may claim to have a “high view” of the Church, but really there is nothing more to the Church than a class of persons authorized to dispense “grace” to recipients. The idea of the Church as a community and the sacraments as integral to that community is nowhere in view in this theory. The latter view, of course, has no room for the Church other than as an association of like-minded people. Again, the idea of the Church as an institution which confers citizenship on persons who would be her members is entirely lacking. In both cases, the Church is made subservient to the subjective needs of the individual.

Of course, the individual does have needs, but I would say his need is precisely to belong to a community. Specifically, he needs to belong to God’s community in Christ as opposed to being an alien and enemy to that community. What other view could ever be worthy of the name “Covenant Theology”?

Since the latter view–-which claims that the sacraments are mnemonic devices which stimulate the mind to proper thoughts-–is the predominate one among North American Evangelicals, I want to primarily offer some criticisms of it. When I hear people talk about the benefits of the sacraments, especially the Lord’s Supper, and how one should participate in it, I hear much discussion about the need to understand the symbolism involved in it. One benefits from symbols apparently, by understanding the correspondence involved in the symbolism or what it is that the symbol represents.

I submit that this is fundamentally wrong.

In Genesis 2.23-24 we read:

And the man said,

This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”

For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

Now this “one flesh” business has been pretty much universally associated with the symbolism of sexual intercourse. I see no reason to dissent from this. Indeed the Apostle Paul seems to presuppose it when he writes,

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.

Now here is my question: Do a husband and wife, in order to benefit from sexual intercourse with each other, need to understand-–let alone meditate upon while performing–-the symbolism of the sex act and the reality it represents? To husbands and wives reading this essay: Do you make a point of “discerning the one flesh” while making love to your spouse?

To ask this question is to answer it. Not only is there is no need to go through such cognitive exercises while making love, but an attempt to do so would probably kill the mood and wreck the entire evening.

To look at this from another angle: It is the perverse rationalization of a philanderer to think that, because one does not have sex with the same thoughts and feelings of one flesh union with all the other women whom one fornicates as one does with one’s wife, that one is not “really” committing infidelity. Against this form of sexual Zwinglianism, Paul warns that one becomes one flesh by the very act. Period. What one thinks and feels about the act is irrelevant.

And interestingly, Paul not only had to rebuke Corinthians visiting prostitutes, but those visiting pagan temples:

What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God, and I do not want you to become sharers in demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the up of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Ore do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? We are not stronger than He, are we? (1 Cor 10.19-22)

Some Corinthians thought they could casually eat at pagan festivals in pagan temples before pagan altars without “really” practicing pagan worship. But Paul reveals such thinking as both rationalization and rationalism. The fact is, we are what we eat. Or, to be more precise, we are what we do. Whether having casual sex on occasion for the allegedly purely physical thrill, or occasionally going to a party in order not to alienate a few pagan friends, these practices shape us. They pull us, body and soul, into a different society than that of our Lord Jesus Christ. A husband who satisfies an allegedly purely sensual urge while away from home cannot fail to wound the “spiritual” bond he is supposed to have with his wife. He is being pulled into a way of life alien to that of his family. A mere biological function can and does constitute a spiritual defection from one’s spouse. The ingestions of a few ounces of meat can and does constitute participation with demons. These things make us what we are.

This is what we are.

But the principle works both ways. Making love to one’s wife, having sex with one’s husband: these are ways men and women shape themselves as members of a family. A couple’s relationship is renewed and strengthened simply in the act. To exhort couples to self-consciously uplift themselves to certain mental affirmations about the symbolism would be pathetic and stupid. We all know that this would be an affront to the whole beauty of the marital act. Real symbols work by themselves without our help, or else not at all. To say otherwise is pure superstition–-a form of the the same mythology underlying the recurring belief in psychokineses. We cannot altar reality simply by thinking hard.

But we can explain this in a better way. When a husband and wife make love, they are not engaging in a merely biological function. They are engaging in an act that has been set apart exclusively for the marital relationship. The act is inherently interpreted, which is precisely why no special feat of meditation on symbolism is required. Sex is not a naked biological function requiring some special additional mental or spiritual accomplishment in order to make it clothed and in its right mind. It is the marriage act.

The couple is doing what they are.

The Lord’s Supper similarly, is not simply the ingestion of bread and wine, it is bread and wine given and received as the rite of the Church which manifests and reconstitutes the Church as the body of Christ. It is an inherently social act which reaffirms a social reality. To claim that we must understand the symbolism or meditate upon it during the enactment of the ritual for it to be effective is a fundamental mistake. Like sex, the symbolic action works of itself or not at all. We are changed when we take part in the ceremony.

To despise this social aspect of the Lord’s Supper as a merely “external” matter is a serious error, comparable to the mistake of the philanderer who claims to only “truly” love his wife because his various affairs are “merely physical.” We are physical; we are external creatures. More to the point, the whole meaning of covenant theology is that God Himself, through Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, has become a member with us of a common society. If Christianity has anything at all to do with a personal relationship with God, then we cannot despise the symbolic means by which God establishes and maintains this relationship with each of us without despising God Himself.

“This do as My memorial.”

This is what we are.

If justification by faith alone is not an ongoing justification then it is not justification by faith at all (Part 2)

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CONTINUED

Abraham is not alone in the story of his justification. According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.” By that definition, Cornelius was justified before Peter preached to him.

As I have written:

In Acts 10.1-4 we have the introduction to the story of the gospel being preached to the Gentiles:

At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.” And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.”

Obviously, Cornelius is already regenerate and justified as we define those terms in our theological parlance. As Francis Turretin observes:

Although a Gentile by birth, Cornelius was yet a proselyte by religion. Although he could not believe that the Messiah had come and was that Jesus whom Peter preached, yet he could believe with the Jews from the oracles of the prophets that he would come. Thus he is not to be reckoned among the Gentiles, but among the patriarchs who looked for salvation from a Redeemer nor yet manifested. Hence by the advent of Peter, he did not receive a beginning, but an increase of faith.

We find the same thing in the case of Lydia,

And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us (Acts 16.13-15).

Lydia was, according to our theological definitions gleaned from the Bible as a whole, regenerate and justified before she ever met Paul. Paul worshiped with her because they worshiped the same God. God’s opening of her heart I think proves the necessity and reality of God’s effectual call by analogy and a forteriori argument, but the event shows first that even regenerate, justified, persons only pursue holiness and “increase of faith” by the Spirit’s monergistic work.

Just like Abraham was justified by faith before hearing about Christ, so was Cornelius. He needed to hear the good news but he was already a believer. Peter himself, by entering Cornelius’ house, was acknowledging that Cornelius was already right with God.

You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection…. Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

Nevertheless,  Peter describes what happened after he proclaimed the story of Jesus, thus

Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

Given the importance of this counsel to issues in Romans and Galatians, it is quite certain that “cleansed… by faith” is the same as justified by faith.  What Turretin calls not “a beginning, but an increase of faith,” Peter declares to have justified.

So, again, the similarity with Abraham is obvious. Both were justified believers. Both were given a message. Both believed that message. Both are described as justified by that believing in that instance.

TO BE CONTINUED

If justification by faith alone is not an ongoing justification then it is not justification by faith at all (Part 1)

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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.

So we read in Genesis 15 that Abra[ha]m was justified by faith.

Just like he had already been justified by faith before this event.

Thus we read in Hebrews 11:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Not only do we have here a clear statement that Abraham had the faith “counted… to him as righteousness” before the events in Genesis 15, but he and his son and grandson also had the same afterward.

No surprise here. Paul himself describes Abraham’s faith not as a moment of conversion but as the belief that characterized his life:

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.

For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is [exclusively] the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

The “footsteps of the faith” were the footsteps began at least when Abra[ha]m left Ur in response to God’s call (Genesis 12.1-3). Paul deliberately quotes from both Genesis 15 (“so shall your offspring be”) and and an event many years later in Genesis 17 (“I have made you the father of many nations”). Further, the “no distrust made him waver” does not seem to refer to only one event, but an ongoing trust. So too, “he grew strong in faith as he gave glory to God.”

So Abraham (I’m dropping the silly brackets) was justified by faith alone that night recorded in Genesis 15.6 and he was justified by faith alone before and after.

TO BE CONTINUED

“Guest Post” by John Calvin on the Common Election as “Gate” to the Special

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And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Repent therefore and return, that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time. Moses said, “The Lord God shall raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren; to Him you shall give heed in everything He says to you. And it shall be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.” And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and his successors onward, also announced these days. It is you who are the sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, “And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” For you first, God raised up His Servant, and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways (Acts 3.17-26; ESV).

It is you who are the sons [v. 25]. He signifies that the grace of the covenant was appointed principally for them, which covenant God made with their fathers. And so as he goaded them forward to obey the gospel, by terrifying them with the terror of punishment, so he allures them now again to receive the grace which is offered them in Christ; so that we see how that God omits nothing by which he may bring us to himself. And it is the duty of a wise minister so to goad forward the sluggish and slow bellies, that he lead those gently who are apt to be taught; we must also note diligently this course of teaching, where Peter shows that the gospel is assigned and appointed to the Jews. For it is not sufficient to have the mercy of God preached to us generally, unless we also know that the same is offered to us by the certain ordinance of God. For this cause is it that Paul stand so much upon the avowing of the calling of the Gentiles (Romans 15.18; Ephesians 3.3-4) because, if any man should think that the gospel came to him by chance, when as it was scattered here and there, faith should quail [“quaver,” “vacillate”]; yea, there should be a doubtful opinion instead of faith. Therefore, to the end we may steadfastly believe the promise of salvation, this application (that I may so term it) is necessary, that God does not cast forth uncertain voices, that they may hang in the air, but that he directs the same to us by his certain and determinate counsel. Peter tells the Jews, that Christ is promised to them after this sort, to the end they may more willingly embrace him. And how does he prove this? Because they are the children of the prophets and of the covenant. He calls them the children of the prophets, which were of the same nation, and therefore were heirs of the covenant, which belonged to the whole body of the people. For he argues thus: God made his covenant with our fathers; therefore we, who are their posterity, are comprehended in the covenant.

By this the doubting subtlety of the Anabaptists [“rebaptizers”] is refuted, who expound the children of Abraham only allegorically; as if God had had no respect to his stock, when he said, “I will be the God of your seed,” (Genesis 17.7). Certainly Peter does not speak in this place of the shadows of the law; but he affirms that this is of force under the kingdom of Christ: that God adopts the children together with the fathers; and so, consequently, the grace of salvation may be extended to those who are as yet unborn (Romans 9.7). I grant, indeed, that many who are the children of the faithful, according to the flesh, are counted bastards, and not legitimate, because they thrust themselves out of the holy progeny through their unbelief. But this in no way hinders the Lord from calling and admitting the seed of the godly into fellowship of grace. And so, although the common election is not effectual in all, yet may it set open a gate for the special elect.

Text silently modernized

The impossible faith v. faithfulness scenario

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It goes something like this:

God sitting on his judgment seat: “Have you been faithful to the covenant conditions?”

Believer before the throne of God: “No! Never!”

God sitting on his judgment seat: “So why should I not condemn you?”

Believer before the throne of God: “Because Jesus has fulfilled the conditions of the covenant.”

God sitting on his judgment seat: “But what has that to do with you?”

Believer before the throne of God: “I have accepted Christ as he is offered in the Gospel. I have received his imputed righteousness by faith alone.”

God sitting on his judgment seat: “Then I welcome you into everlasting glory!”

But if we assume for the sake of argument that the Westminster Confession of Faith is an accurate summary of the system of teaching found in Scripture, then this scenario is impossible and incoherent. If we try it it works out like this:

God sitting on his judgment seat: “Have you been faithful to the covenant conditions?”

Believer before the throne of God: “No! Never!”

God sitting on his judgment seat: “So why should I not condemn you?”

Believer before the throne of God: “Because Jesus has fulfilled the conditions of the covenant.”

God sitting on his judgment seat: “But what has that to do with you?”

Believer before the throne of God: “I have accepted Christ as he is offered in the Gospel. I have received his imputed righteousness by faith alone.”

God sitting on his judgment seat: “What? You just said you hadn’t been faithful to the covenant conditions.”

Believer before the throne of God: “No, I haven’t. I can’t stand before you except only by faith in Christ.”<

God sitting on his judgment seat: “There you go again. Stop contradicting yourself.”

Believer before the throne of God: “I don’t understand, Lord.”

God sitting on his judgment seat: “Well I didn’t think this was such a hard concept to grasp. I admit it would help if you came from the Presbyterian tradition.”

Believer before the throne of God: “But I am a Presbyterian, God.”

God sitting on his judgment seat: “This gets stranger and stranger. Have you never read in the Westminster Confession?:

Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe.

Or the Larger Catechism?:

Q. 32. How is the grace of God manifested in the second covenant?

A. The grace of God is manifested in the second covenant, in that he freely provideth and offereth to sinners a mediator, and life and salvation by him; and requiring faith as the condition to interest them in him, promiseth and giveth his Holy Spirit to all his elect, to work in them that faith, with all other saving graces; and to enable them unto all holy obedience, as the evidence of the truth of their faith and thankfulness to God, and as the way which he hath appointed them to salvation.

The condition of the covenant is faith. So have you been faithful to the covenant? Are you a believer?

Believer before the throne of God: “But Lord I have sinned many times. How can you call me faithful?

God sitting on his judgment seat: “Did I ever say that living a sinless life was a condition of the covenant of grace? Obviously if that were the condition then you have been very unfaithful. But that would defeat the whole point of the covenant of grace, right? I made a covenant to save sinners not damn them. So I don’t require sinless perfection of people I save by My Son. And sinless perfection, or even a greater quantity of good deeds than bad deeds for that matter, has never been the condition of the covenant of grace. I sent Jesus to live a perfect life and die a sacrificial death that could be imputed to all who believe. Faith is the condition of the covenant of grace as it is the means by which you receive Christ and his righteousness. So again: Have you been faithful to the covenant? Are you a believer?

So there you go.

A pastor preaches the Gospel in a Pella, Iowa newspaper

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Pella — What is your only comfort in life and death? A. That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him.

Since many of you who read this will be part of the Reformed stream of Protestant Christianity, you probably are pretty familiar with this question and answer. It’s the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism, a teaching tool that Reformed churches have been using for almost 450 years.

Read the rest: Our Only Comfort » Religion » Pella Chronicle.

Repost: The New Perspective on Moses

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[Source, sort of]

Listening to an interview by Mark Dever with Thabiti Anyabwile, I heard Mark use an illustration that I found tremendously helpful. It relates to the question whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God under different names.

He said that we should picture two old classmates from college discussing a common friend from thirty years ago. They begin to wonder if they are talking about the same person. One of them is convinced they are, and the other keeps thinking this is not quite the way he remembers the friend. Finally, they decide to dig out an old yearbook and settle the issue. They open the book, and as soon as they see the picture of their classmate, one says, “No, that’s not who I am talking about.” So it was not the same person after all.

Mark said that Jesus, as he is revealed in the Bible, is the picture in the yearbook. When a Muslim and a Christian, who have been discussing whether they are worshiping the same God, look at God in the yearbook, it settles the matter: “No,” says the Muslim, “that’s not who I am talking about.”

But that is who the Christian is talking about. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” Jesus makes known the invisible God for us to see. In John 14:8, Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” To this Jesus responded, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’” And Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

In other words, Jesus is the yearbook picture that settles the issue of who is worshiping the true God and who is not. If a worshiper of God does not see in Jesus Christ the person of his God, he does not worship God. This is the resounding testimony of Jesus and the apostles as we see in the following texts.

  • Mark 9:37, “Whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” (See also Matthew 10: 40; Luke 9:48; John 13:20.)

  • John 5:23, “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.”

  • 1 John 2:23, “No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.”

  • Luke 12:9, “The one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.”

  • John 15:23, “Whoever hates me hates my Father also.”

  • 2 John 1:9, “Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.”

Now, if we take this question back several thousand years and turn a Muslim-Christian question into a Pharaoh-Moses-follower question, the same thing emerges. Was Pharoah worshiping the same God that the followers of Moses were worshiping? I don’t mean to imply that every Egyptian was the same. For example, the mixed multitude that followed Israel out of Egypt (John 3:1ff.) did not seem to be of the same spirit with most (though even they show no evidence of understanding the place of regeneration in the ordo salutis). In asking this question, I am simply referring to the group of Pharaoh-followers in general as Moses saw them. Did Pharaoh worship the same God as the followers of Moses?

This question is even more striking than the Muslim-Christian question, because Pharaoh and followers of Moses had the same heritage of past salvation in Joseph. Why would the question even come up about whether Pharaoh and the followers of Moses worshiped the same God?

Because Moses brought it up. And the way he brought it up and talked about it, makes it hard to believe some of the things that the New Perspective on Moses (NPM) says about the Egyptian leaders of Moses’ day. E. P. Sanders is the main spokesman for the way Pharaoh is reinterpreted by the New Perspective. Here is the way N. T. Wright summarizes it:

[Sanders’] major point, to which all else is subservient, can be quite simply stated. Egyptianism in Paul’s day was not, as has regularly been supposed, a religion of legalistic works-righteousness.

Wright agrees with this main thesis of the New Perspective: “Sanders . . . dominates the landscape, and, until a major refutation of his central thesis is produced, honesty compels one to do business with him. I do not myself believe such a refutation can or will be offered; serious modifications are required, but I regard his basic point as established” (Ibid, p. 20).

For example, Wright says that the boasting which Moses opposed was not what we usually think it is.

This boasting which Moses opposed is not the boasting of the successful moralist; it is the racial boast of the pagan Egyptian royalty, which claimed that Pharaoh had the right of life and death over all people because of the powerful gods backing him. Moses has no thought of warding off a proto-Pelagianism, of which in any case his contemporaries were not guilty.

Wright’s statements are baffling in several ways. One way is that the Pharaoh is accused of boasting in his status as an Egyptian while doing things Egyptians out not do. How Wright can use this paragraph to distinguish moral boasting from racial boasting escapes me (as does the distinction itself).

Then, there is Wright’s affirmation of Sanders’ claim that the religion of Pharaoh was not the “religion of legalistic works-righteousness,” and that the “The Egyptian [of Moses’ day] obeys false gods out of gratitude, as the proper response to their favor.” The only explanation I can find for such amazing statements is that the testimony of Moses is denied or obscured. It is my impression that evangelicals enamored by the NPP have not reckoned seriously enough with the fact that the origination of the NPP seems to have taken place in the halls of such denial or obscuring.

When Moses addressed the Egyptian leaders of his day his resounding conclusion was they do not even know God. And, not knowing God, their lived-out religion (the kind Jesus is concerned with) is not “out of gratitude,” to their gods, nor is it a “proper response to grace.”

Okay, I’ll stop the hokiness. Hopefully, though, this demonstrates the problem: just because Pharaoh and the Egyptians who sided with him were strangers to the true God and died in their sins as unbelievers, doesn’t mean that their unbelief was a form of merit theology. The Bible talks about the true religion v. false religion many times in the Bible without making that the key issue.

Whether or not that is the key issue between Jesus and Paul and the Pharisees is logically a distinct question from whether or not the Pharisees were wonderful people. If Pharaoh believed he had the authority and right to enslave and kill the Hebrews because the sun god graciously chose him, forgave his sins, and justified him before the court of the gods, he is no less a monstrous killer and a hell-bound pagan. It doesn’t matter if Egyptian paganism is a religion of grace or not.

Likewise, if the Pharisees are living in sin and teaching others to do so, and are enslaving people with rules that God hated, then the question as to whether they believe God graciously gave them this moral crusade is not in danger of getting them off the hook. Granted, a liberal like Sanders might think so, but that has nothing to do with what Evangelicals think who find the “New Perspective” compelling. On the contrary, they side with Jesus against the Pharisees and want to be sure that there is no Pharisaism in the Evangelical Church.

I will reiterate a few things that I have reiterated often.

First, Jesus and Paul would preach salvation only by God’s grace even if the Pharisees weren’t teaching the opposite error. I think it is denigrating to salvation by grace to insist that, if the Pharisees weren’t semi-Pelagians, then Paul wouldn’t teach Augustinianism. He would and in fact he did (if you will forgive the anachronistic labeling).

Second, John Piper has written some extremely helpful and solid works. If you haven’t read (and this is off the top of my head, not exhaustive) Desiring God, The Pleasures of God, or Future Grace, then you are missing something important. In fact, The Pleasures of God toppled J. I. Packer’s Knowing God from my personal category of Best Calvinistic Devotional Book Ever (though, if you haven’t read Knowing God you are missing a real great books as well!). My disappointment of Piper’s recent communications is so powerful because of his well-deserved reputation.

Third, I am still willing to consider a more “traditional” interpretation of the Pharisees. The only argument I see anywhere in this latest essay is his interpretation of the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. But I don’t see his understanding of the Pharisee’s theology as arising from the parable itself. If we already knew that the Pharisees held to a theory of meriting salvation on the ground of their own righteous (though graciously brought about through monergism) works (which, ironically, would vindicate the Pharisees as Augustinians), then the passage would be amenable to that interpretation. But it isn’t sufficient as proof by itself. In my view, simply reading Dr. Piper’s summary of what Jesus said about the Pharisees is weighty evidence against his understanding of their soteriology. Are we really to believe that merit legalism was so unimportant to Jesus that, when he pronounced his woes (Matt 23) on them that he forgot to mention this as a reason for their condemnation?

But if there is some future argument that can be brought forward, I’m willing to hear it. What I object to is being told that “It is my impression that evangelicals enamored by the NPP have not reckoned seriously enough with the fact that the origination of the NPP seems to have taken place in the halls of such denial or obscuring.” Piper knows what he is doing to the reputations of men by saying this kind of thing. His “impressions” would be better off left to his private discussions with his friend. In public he should try supporting his opinion about the Pharisees with some actual evidence.

More Great Gospel Preaching and Reformed Orthodoxy from the First Jackson PCA Pulpit: on the Decalogue = “Grace Before Law”

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If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to Exodus 20. Today we are beginning an exposition of what has been called in the English language for the last 500 years, the Ten Commandments. In the Hebrew Bible this section is known as the Ten Words or the Ten Pronouncements, but as begin to study them together it’s important for us to remember that we live in a day and time that doesn’t like law. We are very suspicious of law. We have an anti-authority spirit about us. We live in a day and time where the law is regarded as something impersonal, abstract, distant, tyrannical, restrictive and threatening and we need to realize how the mindset of the age impacts us in our thinking about biblical law. That’s one reason why we chose to study chapter 19 prior to our study of God’s law as it’s set forth in chapter 20, because chapter 19, and frankly the two verses we’re going to look at today, are devoted to setting the table, to giving the context, to explaining the situation and circumstance and relationship in which God’s law is being given and propounded. That context is a context of grace; it is a gospel context; it’s a context of redemption; it is a context of covenant relationship and realizing things will help you lose those suspicions about law and authority and rule and rights and wrongs which pervade the mindset and the psyche of those in our generation.

There’s nothing more relevant or more timely or more practical for us to recover now than a biblical understanding of the biblical description of infleshed love and righteousness. You could really define the law that way. The law is infleshed love and righteousness. It shows you what righteousness looks like in a specific circumstance. It shows you what love looks like in a specific circumstance. That’s what the law is. It is a reflection of the character of God and an authoritative expression of what it means to love and to be righteous.

And the subject of God’s law is vital. If you have carefully and prayerfully pondered the subject, the way that God’s law relates to the Christian you have done well, because a proper understanding of God’s law is essential for a healthy Christian life and experience. And we’ve been trying to give a background in order that we might understand the role of the law as we study it in Exodus 20. The law of God is founded in grace and is the expression of love both to God and man. The law of God is founded in grace. That’s a lesson that we learned very clearly in Exodus 19 and it is the expression of love. We learn that from the way Jesus Himself summarizes the law in the New Testament.

What does it mean to love? To keep his commandments he would say and yet we live in a day and time where there is a great deal of suspicion of that even in the church. If you are found in your prayer closet mumbling the words ‘how I love your law, O Lord,’ your wife may report you to the ecclesiastical authorities as a closet legalist. I mean, that’s not how evangelicals talk. Aren’t you a legalist if you talk about loving the law? And yet the Old Testament saint’s highest expression of his devotion to, and loyalty to, and love of God was, ‘how I love Your law, O Lord’ and you say, ‘yes, but that was the Old Testament.’ Well, think about that for a minute. On the night before His crucifixion, in the upper room to the only core of disciples He had left on planet earth, Jesus said to them, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” The expression of love that He wanted to see from His disciples to Him was obedience to His commandments. In fact, if you sneak a peek at the last verse that Brister Ware read in Mark 3:35 today, you will see Jesus define His disciples as those who do the will of His Father. That’s a New Testament description of a disciple, of a believer, of a follower of the one true God, not just an Old Testament description but a New Testament description and therefore the subject of the law, the subject of obedience and how they relate to God’s call of grace and the gift of faith is vital for us to understand. So let’s look to God’s word in Exodus 20:1,2 and hear it attentively:

“Then God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Amen….

The whole sermon is great. Please read it. True “sonship” is spelled out in a way that reminds me of my reading in Proverbs. And it is totally confessional:

3. Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant [of works], the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe.

5. This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gospel: under the law, it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all foresignifying Christ to come; which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation; and is called the old testament.

6. Under the gospel, when Christ, the substance, was exhibited, the ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper: which, though fewer in number, and administered with more simplicity, and less outward glory, yet, in them, it is held forth in more fullness, evidence and spiritual efficacy, to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles; and is called the new testament. There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations.

Q. 100. What special things are we to consider in the Ten Commandments?
A. We are to consider, in the Ten Commandments, the preface, the substance of the commandments themselves, and several reasons annexed to some of them, the more to enforce them.

Q. 101. What is the preface to the Ten Commandments?
A. The preface to the Ten Commandments is contained in these words, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Wherein God manifesteth his sovereignty, as being JEHOVAH, the eternal, immutable, and almighty God; having his being in and of himself, and giving being to all his words and works: and that he is a God in covenant, as with Israel of old, so with all his people; who, as he brought them out of their bondage in Egypt, so he delivereth us from our spiritual thraldom; and that therefore we are bound to take him for our God alone, and to keep all his commandments.

Q. 102. What is the sum of the four commandments which contain our duty to God?
A. The sum of the four commandments containing our duty to God, is, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength, and with all our mind.

Q. 103. Which is the first commandment?
A. The first commandment is, Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Q. 104. What are the duties required in the first commandment?
A. The duties required in the first commandment are, the knowing and acknowledging of God to be the only true God, and our God; and to worship and glorify him accordingly, by thinking, meditating, remembering, highly esteeming, honoring, adoring, choosing, loving, desiring, fearing of him; believing him; trusting, hoping, delighting, rejoicing in him; being zealous for him; calling upon him, giving all praise and thanks, and yielding all obedience and submission to him with the whole man; being careful in all things to please him, and sorrowful when in anything he is offended; and walking humbly with him.

Grace and faith: the Preface and the First Commandment.

As one wise pastor once said defending the Reformed Faith from its detractors:

It seems pretty clear to me that the first word of the decalogue (not commandments) has to do with trusting Yahweh alone. The language of “having” or “possessing” no other god is marriage language. Israel, the bride, is to cling to Yahweh, her Husband and Lord, in faithfulness. What is this but salvation by faith? How is that wrong?

Just ask the preacher at First Presbyterian in Jackson, Mississippi. It is not wrong. It is the Biblical message.

For more on this, see my: “Obedient faith is not threat to Protestant Doctrine; it IS Protestant doctrine.”

Keeping Faith

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Christian life and ministry as an athletic contest, race, and exercise of trust.There’s a third thing I want you to see here.  Look at verse 7.  Here’s Paul’s assessment of his service.  A lot of people would have looked at Paul and said, ‘You know, Paul, you’re a brilliant man.  You’re an educated man.  You’re a tremendous orator, you’re a great writer. You had so much potential.  You have wasted your life.  You have just thrown your life down the tubes, because look at you:  you started these churches, and…let’s see…let’s look at the church in Corinth.  (Yeah, that’s a great success!)  And let’s look at all the squabbling going on in the Christian churches, and let’s look at all the pagan opposition and persecution against your teaching.  Why, you’ve just wasted your life!’

And the Apostle Paul says, ‘Oh, no!  I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course.  I have kept the faith.’  That’s his three-fold assessment of his service, and we see his picturing again the Christian life and ministry as an athletic contest, a race, an exercise of trust.  He’s been engaged in this good fight, this good contest, this good match against Satan and against the powers and principalities; against the world, and the flesh, and the devil; and against Jewish and pagan opposition and violence; against religious error and persecution; and he has been faithful to keep fighting that fight.  Paul sees that as a life that was worth it.

And then he says that he’s been running the race. It’s the picture of a long-distance run, and in that race he has had one holy passion.  He has had his eye on crossing the line, and the prize of the glory of God through the salvation of sinners.

And he says, “I have kept the faith.” In the ancient games, you remember, those who participated in the games had to vow, they had to pledge that they would play by the rules. There was an oath of loyalty, and it’s as if Paul is saying, ‘I’ve fought the fight, I ran the race, and I was faithful to my pledge of loyalty.  I kept the faith.  I defended and proclaimed the true gospel. I continued to live in trust of the promises of God. [I added this emphasis -MH]

Now, why does Paul say that to Timothy?  Because he knows that the world is going to say to Timothy that Timothy’s labors are in vain. And the Apostle Paul wants to say back to Timothy, ‘Living life like I have lived it is not a wasted life.  This is what you ought to aspire to.  You ought to aspire to fighting the good fight, and finish the course, and keeping the faith.  That’s what you ought to aspire to.

Another great sermon (except that I think Paul was a pretty lousy orator, at least compared to other public leaders)