…will be the day I meet one who devotes as much time and attention to discovering whether or not professing Christians are truly converted and to whether or not the young children of Christians are truly converted as the Bible does.
Think about the hymns we sing in the modern Evangelical church. Aren’t they often about a conscious conversion experience?
But what kind of hymns did God teach Israel to sing?
From Psalm 8:
O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.
And again here is Psalm 71. Notice especially verses 5, 6, and 17:
Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.
For you, O LORD, are my hope,
my trust, O LORD, from my youth.
Upon you I have leaned from before my birth;
you are he who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of you.I have been as a portent to many,
but you are my strong refuge.
My mouth is filled with your praise,
and with your glory all the day.
Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
forsake me not when my strength is spent.
For my enemies speak concerning me;
those who watch for my life consult together
and say, “God has forsaken him;
pursue and seize him,
for there is none to deliver him.”O God, be not far from me;
O my God, make haste to help me!
May my accusers be put to shame and consumed;
with scorn and disgrace may they be covered
who seek my hurt.
But I will hope continually
and will praise you yet more and more.
My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,
of your deeds of salvation all the day,
for their number is past my knowledge.
With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come;
I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone.O God, from my youth you have taught me,
and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and gray hairs,
O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might to another generation,
your power to all those to come.
And Psalm 22:
But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
“He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him;
let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.
On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
Be not far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is none to help.
I have sung many hymns about adult conversion from unbelief yet I’m not aware of one Psalm which speaks of that subject. On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve ever sung a hymn that called for me to put myself in the place of one who was regenerated in the womb. That is a sad state of affairs. These Psalms were sung in Israel’s public worship of God. They were means of discipling Israel and forming their outlook and expectations. Our hymns do the same but in the wrong direction.
The idea that their relationship began from the womb was not some sort of fantastic exception, but the general expectation.
And why shouldn’t all Christians possess the expectation that their children are believers? After all, that is what God has promised us. God promised “to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Gen 17.7). The “lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children” (Psa 103.17).
“And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,” says the LORD, “from this time forth and forevermore.” (Isa 59.21).
God doesn’t say through Isaiah, that His Spirit and word will be put in the mouths of a Christian’s grandchildren, but rather that they “will not depart from” them. Obviously, this passage does not discount the fact that all children are born sinners, but it does seem to promise more than the bare hope of a future conversion experience.
From Acts 15:
[James said] “my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”
Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
Where do these requirements come from? They come from a section of Leviticus 17 and 18 (17.10-18.18) which spells out prohibitions on blood and on incest. All too commonly pagans in the Greco-Roman world both ingested blood for alleged benefits and also married siblings. Both of these things were prohibited in the Law of Moses and Gentiles were included. 17.10 begins:
If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people.
The law against consuming blood goes back to Noah. The law forbidding inceset, however, was given through Moses for the first time as far as we know. (Get that? We owe the basic morality of the developed world not to Noah or general revelation but to Moses!)
But right in the middle of that section, between the prohibitions on blood and the prohibitions on incest we find this passage:
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the LORD your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the LORD your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.”
So Leviticus 18.5 is involved in responding to the question of justification! Consider the other two uses. First from Romans:
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) or “‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
And then from Galatians:
But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.”
So what are the implications of these three uses of Leviticus 18.5?
Adam’s good works were acceptable to God. He could do them and God would receive them. Our own “good” works, our very best works, require the forgiveness of God and the continual intercession of Jesus Christ due to their impurity. Thus, it is appropriate to describe God’s covenant with Adam as a covenant of works and God’s covenant with us as a covenant of grace in that we need and (if we are ultimately to be saved from God’s wrath) receive God’s grace in that he forgives what is lacking in our works.
It is also true that Israel is a new Adam. We see this in Genesis because three people are told to “be fruitful and multiply”: Adam, Noah, and Jacob (35.11). Indeed, God promises Abraham that He will “multiply” him and make him “fruitful” (Gen 17.2, 6). Israel is God’s new humanity. Just as Adam was God’s son (Luke 3.38) so was Israel (Exodus 4.22). Israel is the Son of Man/Adam (Psalm 80.17) who will be temporarily persecuted by beasts before being vindicated and given authority over them like the first Adam (Daniel 7, especially v. 22; c.f. Revelation 20.4).
However, it is entirely unjustified and implausible to say that (1) Adam was supposed to earn or merit future glory from God according to the terms of God’s covenant with him, or (2) individual Israelites were expected by God’s covenant Law to earn or merit salvation and glory from God.
To take (2) first, we are told quite straightforwardly that Zechariah and Elizabeth “were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord” (Luke 1.6).
John Calvin writes of Luke 1.6:
those magnificent commendations, which are bestowed on the servants of God, must be taken with some exception. For we ought to consider in what manner God deals with them. It is according to the covenant which he has made with them, the first clause of which is a free reconciliation and daily pardon, by which he forgives their sins. They are accounted righteous and blameless, because their whole life testifies that they are devoted to righteousness, that the fear of God dwells in them, so long as they give a holy example. But as their pious endeavors fall very far short of perfection, they cannot please God without obtaining pardon. The righteousness which is commended in them depends on the gracious forbearance of God, who does not reckon to them their remaining unrighteousness. In this manner we must explain whatever expressions are applied in Scripture to the righteousness of men, so as not to overturn the forgiveness of sins, on which it rests as a house does on its foundation (emphasis added).
To those who insist that Luke 1.6 refers to the imputed righteousness of Christ, Calvin replies:
Those who explain it to mean that Zacharias and Elisabeth were righteous by faith, simply because they freely obtained the favor of God through the Mediator, torture and misapply the words of Luke. With respect to the subject itself, they state a part of the truth, but not the whole. I do own that the righteousness which is ascribed to them ought to be regarded as obtained, not by the merit of works, but by the grace of Christ; and yet, because the Lord has not imputed to them their sins, he has been pleased to bestow on their holy, though imperfect life, the appellation of righteousness. The folly of the Papists is easily refuted. With the righteousness of faith they contrast this righteousness, which is ascribed to Zacharias, which certainly springs from the former, and, therefore, must be subject, inferior, and, to use a common expression, subordinate to it, so that there is no collision between them. The false coloring, too which they give to a single word is pitiful. Ordinances, they tell us, are called commandments of the law, and, therefore, they justify us. As if we asserted that true righteousness is not laid down in the law, or complained that its instruction is in fault for not justifying us, and not rather that it is weak through our flesh, (Romans 8:3.) In the commandments of God, as we have a hundred times acknowledged, life is contained, (Leviticus 18:5; Matthew 19:17;) but this will be of no avail to men, who by nature were altogether opposed to the law, and, now that they are regenerated by the Spirit of God, are still very far from observing it in a perfect manner.
The Law was made for sinners in an administration of the Covenant of Grace, not for sinless beings in a covenant requiring sinless obedience. Sinners could keep it. It was designed for sinners. Those who walked by faith in God kept the law. Thus the Law makes multitudinous provisions for sin, the Psalms sing about how God forgives, and the Proverbs exhort us to forgive one another (e.g. Proverbs 10.12; 17.9).
Indeed, the Law regards Israel not as sinless or potentially sinless people who could earn anything from God, but as sinners (First Kin. 8.46; Second Chronicles 6.36; Proverbs 20.9; Eccl. 7.20) saved by grace (Deuteronomy 7.7; 10.15). The fact that God warns them about the peril of apostasy no more means that they are supposed to earn/merit salvation than does Jesus’ warning to his disciples (John 15.1) or Paul’s warning to the Romans (11.17ff) or to the Colossians (1.21-23) or to the Corinthians (First letter, 10.1ff).
As to (1), Francis Turretin writes:
To be true merit, then, these five conditions are demanded: (1) that the “work be undue”–for no one merits by paying what he owes (Luke 17.10), he only satisfies; (2) that it be ours-for no one can be said to merit from another; (3) that it be absolutely perfect and free from all taint-for where sin is there merit cannot be; (4) that it be equal and proportioned to the reward and pay; otherwise it would be a gift, not merit. (5) that the reward be due to such a work from justice-whence an “undue work” is commonly defined to be one that “makes a reward due in the order of justice.” (Seventeenth Topic, Fifth Question, IV, p. 712).
Two of these four conditions could not have been met by Adam. His good works were all due to God and the reward God promised was much greater than the work itself. I don’t think the fifth condition is met either, that such a reward would be due from justice. If one wants to appeal to God’s keeping his promises as justice, I will not deny it, but only point out that such language is used in the Covenant of Grace as well (Jeremiah 10.24; First John 1.8, 9).
Likewise, Zacharias Ursinus, says much the same thing:
No creature, performing even the best works, can merit anything at the hand of God, or bind him to give anything as though it were due him, and according to the order of divine justice… We deserve our preservation no more than we did our creation. God was not bound to create us; nor is he bound to preserve those whom he has created. But he did, and does, both of his own free will and good pleasure. God receives no benefit from us, nor can we confer anything upon our Creator. Now where there is no benefit, there is no merit; for merit presupposes some benefit received (Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, p. 486).
Denying merit to Adam in no way detracts from his demerit. A wife being unfaithful to her loving husband is far more evil than an employee failing to fulfill all his contractual obligations. Adam deserved Hell because of his sin.
The Westminster Confession, written after Ursinus but shortly before Turretin, adds to their testimony. It affirms we can never merit anything from God, not only because of our sinfulness in comparison to God’s holiness, but also because of our finitude in comparison to God’s transcendance:
We cannot by our best works merit pardon of sin, or eternal life at the hand of God, by reason of the great disproportion that is between them and the glory to come; and the infinite distance that is between us and God, whom, by them, we can neither profit, nor satisfy for the debt of our former sins, but when we have done all we can, we have done but our duty, and are unprofitable servants: and because, as they are good, they proceed from his Spirit; and as they are wrought by us, they are defiled, and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection, that they cannot endure the severity of God’s judgment (16.5; emphasis added).
Nor does denying merit to Adam deny it also to Christ, who is not a mere Creature but God himself and who voluntarily did an undue work that he had every right to refuse. Jesus’ merits are not jeopardized in any way.
However, it needs to be pointed out that Jesus’ consciousness was centered on trusting his Father, not earning merits. Otherwise, all the exhortations to endure suffering and follow the example of Jesus would not be exhortations to have faith, but exhortations to earn God’s favor. This is unthinkable. Jesus trusted God to save him and so should we.
Consider Hebrews 11.1-12.3. The author of Hebrews gives his readers a long list of examples of Old Testament people who exercised faith and thus inherited salvation. The culmination of this list of “heroes of the faith” is Jesus himself. Yes, Jesus is unique as the author of Hebrews goes to great lengths to explain. But the uniqueness of Christ’s work in our place and as our representative does not contradict the fact that he is the ultimate example of one who trusted God and thus inherited glory and deliverance from death. The author of Hebrews feels no tension between these two truths.
Likewise, if the intended readers of Hebrews wish to benefit from what Christ did in his life and death and deliverance from death, they must not “shrink back” (10.38, 39), but rather they must, for the joy set before them, endure the “cross,” despising the shame, trusting that they will be seated at the right hand of the throne of God (12.2). They must “consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart” (12.3). They must “through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6.12).
None of this can have anything to do with “works righteousness” or “merit.” Adam was not supposed to earn salvation and Jesus only needed to do so to make restitution for Adam’s sin. The author of Hebrews is not exhorting his readers to merit salvation by following Christ’s example. Rather he is telling them that a true trust in Christ will entail that we follow Christ because we are confident that he will bring us into our inheritance.
By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith (Hebrews 11.7).
Who would dare claim that the righteousness Noah received was his wages for building the ark?
Adam did not need his sins forgiven as Noah did, but the glory promised him was no less an unearned gift. Adam was disinherited (until and unless God saved him through Jesus Christ) not because he failed to earn anything but because he was an unbeliever. He believed the serpent rather than God and thought his future hope lay in the path of disobedience (Genesis 3).
From Ephesians 4 and the beginning of 5:
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
One of the few things I’ve said from the pulpit that was obviously remembered (the person brought it up to other people months later) was the fact that Paul does not want us speaking all the truth we know to other people. On the contrary, telling the truth can be as much a violation of another person as a falsehood. Paul deliberately introduces the topic by making an analogy with a thief.
Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Stop taking and start working and saving so that you can begin giving. Has Paul lost his train of thought? Is he violently changing the subject? Not at all. Having established the principle in one place he now uses it in another:
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
So the alternative to “corrupting talk” is only what is good to build up a hearer at that time.
What bothers me about this, and the reason I bring it up now, is that I had to learn if from Ephesians. Because this teaching is repeated over and over again in Proverbs. Not only that, but reading Proverbs forces you to consider the economics as an analogy for speech ethics. Consider how the second book in Proverbs (which begins in chapter 10) so quickly morphs from issues of working v. robbing to speech:
The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a glad father,
but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.
Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit,
but righteousness delivers from death.
The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry,
but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.
A slack hand causes poverty,
but the hand of the diligent makes rich.
He who gathers in summer is a prudent son,
but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.
Blessings are on the head of the righteous,
but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
The memory of the righteous is a blessing,
but the name of the wicked will rot.
The wise of heart will receive commandments,
but a babbling fool will come to ruin.
Whoever walks in integrity walks securely,
but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.
Whoever winks the eye causes trouble,
but a babbling fool will come to ruin.
The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life,
but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
Hatred stirs up strife,
but love covers all offenses.
On the lips of him who has understanding, wisdom is found,
but a rod is for the back of him who lacks sense.
The wise lay up knowledge,
but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near.
A rich man’s wealth is his strong city;
the poverty of the poor is their ruin.
The wage of the righteous leads to life,
the gain of the wicked to sin.
Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life,
but he who rejects reproof leads others astray.
The one who conceals hatred has lying lips,
and whoever utters slander is a fool.
When words are many, transgression is not lacking,
but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.
The tongue of the righteous is choice silver;
the heart of the wicked is of little worth.
The lips of the righteous feed many,
but fools die for lack of sense.
I speculated why a son who sleeps in harvest is said to cause “shame” rather than poverty or hunger.
Now that I’m attempting to memorize Proverbs 10, I think my answer is probably not the message of Proverbs.
Here is the verse in context:
The proverbs of Solomon.
A wise son makes a glad father,
but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.
Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit,
but righteousness delivers from death.
The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry,
but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.
A slack hand causes poverty,
but the hand of the diligent makes rich.
He who gathers in summer is a prudent son,
but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.
Blessings are on the head of the righteous,
but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
The memory of the righteous is a blessing,
but the name of the wicked will rot.
These proverbs start with the basic contrast between wisdom and foolishness in terms of parents. Then it correlates two pairs of options: righteousness and wickedness and diligence and slothfulness.
These are related because if one is not willing to work to provide and to save, then one will have to rob and defraud.
Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit,
but righteousness delivers from death.
The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry,
but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.
With these four lines Solomon reminds us of Chapter 1 where he addressed the temptation to join a gang of robbers. The contrast between the righteous and the wicked is introduces in terms of provision and production. One can work or one can plunder.
So the son causes shame because he is likely to enter a life of crime.
Be not envious of evil men,
nor desire to be with them,
for their hearts devise violence,
and their lips talk of trouble.
Notice the misguided policies of the Fed and FDIC though. By preventing all bank runs for decades, the Fed instilled an artificial and undeserved confidence in banks.
It would be far better to disclose banks in trouble, let them go under one at a time quickly, rather than have a gigantic systemic mess at one time.
Secrecy, in conjunction with fractional reserve lending is an exceptionally toxic brew. Overnight trust can change on a dime, system-wide, and it did.
Moreover, by keeping poor banks alive (and my poster-boy for this is Chicago-based Corus Bank for making massive amounts of construction loans to build Florida condos), more money pours into failed institutions further increasing toxic loans.
I’ve been trying to avoid political posts but I think this point by Mish deserves some thought.
According to Solomon, “If you are wise, you are wise for yourself; if you scoff, you alone will bear it.” Public policy for the last century seems to be aimed at disproving Solomon on this point. The state claims it can protect us from bad economic choices and promote growth.
In the first place, as Mish points out in the case of banking, these interventions seem to have the effect of delaying small crises until they form one massive financial tsunami. The boom-bust mini-cycles are smoothed over until we have a massive crash.
But secondly, the real social safety net is destroyed in favor of a state safety net that cannot fail to cause extreme depression-level problems. The real social safety net was people learning to look after themselves. People new banks were not that reliable so they spread out their risk. They kept cash and used other means to diversify their savings. An occasional bank failure would reinforce this wisdom and cause people to adopt behaviors that would ameliorate the effects of these failures.
Something similar could be said for a continual boom-bust cycle (even thought that cycle itself is due to the State’s fiat currency). If people know that there will be economic downturns every three years then they will use the “fat years” to save for the “lean years.” By producing decades of artificial growth, the state has discouraged this basic rational and wise behavior.
Humans are treated by their governments like animals kept in a zoo. They are bred in captivity and never develop the survival habits they would need to live on their own. The difference is that while humans can provide for animals, they cannot turn the globe into a zoo for humans with any chance of actually continuing to provide for their wards.
Sooner or later, whether we like it or not, we are going to be turned loose. Learn wisdom now.
He who gathers in summer is a prudent son,
but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.
via Passage: Proverbs 10 (ESV Bible Online).
Why shame? Why not hunger?
Perhaps because the family must look for help to get the job done. Or worse, maybe they will need to ask others to help them out with shortages because the field was not completely harvested.
The Bible tells people to help the poor but it never gives you the idea that the poor are going to be happy about it. And if they can think of themselves as ultimately responsible for needing to ask for help, it will be that much worse.
“Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
via Quote by C.S. Lewis from Weight of Glory.
I love Lewis. I think he is worth more than several Reformed theologians that wisdom forbids me to name. At his worst he proves Nietzsche’s dictum that the mistakes of great men are more important than the truths of others. I need to read all of his works and re-read what I have read. I thank God for his voice in modern times.
But this quotation shows that the form of Lewis’ discipleship in public worship had pointed him in the direction of madness.
Because if you don’t notice your neighbor with your senses there chewing and slurping next to you then you are
DOING IT FREAKING WRONG!!!
OK?
I also love all the Christians in all the communions whose way of doing the Lord’s Supper I have just attacked in public.
Some things just will not be denied. Had to write this and post it.
Grape juice is an abomination too. So is excluding young children (as is my point here since they are also neighbors). I’m not claiming to be without sin here. God have mercy on us all.
But your neighbors in Church are part of the Blessed Sacrament. Without them, you end up eating and drinking judgment on yourself.