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This keeps getting weirder.

This is not the sort of story I expect to read from my zdnet feed.

I blogged this back on March 25, 2004:

Reading [Ludwig Wittgenstein’s] Philosophical Grammar again…

As a child I had some morse code toys that I played with. I had the chart for dots and dashes and letters, but I never memorized my equations beyond “SOS.”

For years I assumed that proficient coders, those who still used ham radios, or the men and women of the past, must have memorized the chart so they could decode the signal.

But they didn’t need to decode it unless they never became proficient enough to be of any use on the radio. They understood it. The chart was long gone from their minds.

A football player can know the rules not only without thinking of how they look in the rulebook, but without any articulation at all. He simply acts accordingly.

Only the immature need graphs and algabraic equations. How many phonetical rules can I recite? Yet I read quite well.

And this needs to be brought to bear in discussions of faith, or discerning the body, or receiving by faith, etc.

Otherwise, we are going to speak a great deal of nonsense.

And, by the way, when I hear the SOS signal, I don’t decipher the letters individually. I don’t think of a chart. I simply understand it is a distress call.

We should want to trust Jesus in as direct a way.

Someone told me a story once–it was probably a sermon illustration–about a man in an insane asylum thought he was dead. A young, optimistic caretaker asked this insane person if dead people could bleed.

“No, of course not!”

“Well, in that case, why don’t you prove to me your dead by pricking your finger with this pin.”

“Ok.” said the compliant “corpse.” He pricked his finger, winced, and watched in amazement as a drop of blood welled up from the tiny puncture.

“See?” said the caretaker trying not to sound triumphalistic.

“Wow, I don’t believe it,” said the man who had believed he was dead. “All this time I have been entirely deluded.”

“I’m glad you realize that.”

“Me too. Now I know dead people really do bleed!”

I was thinking about this as I remembered an episode of Veronica Mars an episode or two ago. In this scene Veronica was blown away and temporarily silenced by something Logan said in an argument. Logan didn’t wait for her to get over it. He said while she was still stunned (according to my memory), “And even right now as your thinking, ‘Oh, crap, he has a point,’ you are still sure that you are right.”

Isn’t that exactly what happens when you point out to a Christian that their tradition is in error? Isn’t it what you and I do?

Accommodationism means that there is a better way to talk about God or God’s truth than the way the Bible talks.

Accommodationism means that the smart people learn this better way. If you are content with what the Bible says, then you are one of the stupid people. You are not worthy to call yourself a theologian.

Tracking the informal shifts in Protestant opinion regarding Baptism can be a difficult business. For example, in 1849 Anglican clergyman William Goode published his defense of Evangelicalism against the Anglo-Catholics under the title, The Doctrine of the Church of England as to the Effects of Baptism in the Case of Infants. These lectures were designed to refute the tractarians who asserted that the historic doctrine of the Church of England was the general regeneration of all infants. This “regeneration” was defined in a way problematic to Reformed and Biblical theology. As Rich Lusk points out,

If regeneration is taken in the Protestant scholastic sense, “baptismal regeneration” is absurd, since it would mean that each and every person baptized was eternally elect and eternally saved. Obviously, the earlier Reformed theologians who spoke freely of “baptismal regeneration” did not have this kind of monstrosity in mind.

This ambiguity was, according to Goode, being exploited by the Anglo-Catholics. They were citing historic Anglican formularies and theologians to argue that Reformed theology was not the heritage of Anglicanism. The logic of their position was that no Reformed theologian would make such broad statements about baptismal efficacy especially in the case of infants.

Goode argues that the Anglican heritage is Evangelical and Reformed by showing that undoubted double predestinarians both within and without the Anglican Church used the same language about baptism. Since Goode’s Anglo-Catholic opponents know that these men were true Calvinists, the argument about baptismal language cannot serve as evidence for a rejection of Calvinism within the Anglican Church.

For example, Goode quotes William Whitaker (a man whose work on Scripture is often cited to prove that the Westminster Divines believed in inerrancy):

What, therefore, do we say? Do we take away all grace from the Sacraments? Far be it from us; although they [the Romanists] misrepresent us as so doing. For we say that they are most efficacious instruments of the Holy Spirit, and are also instrumental causes of grace: and this they also say; but we say it in one sense, they in another.

And again

Of the efficacy of the Sacraments. 1. We teach and believe that the Sacraments are signs to represent Christ with his benefits unto us. 2. We teach further, that the Sacraments are indeed instruments whereby God offereth and giveth the foresaid benefits unto us. Thus far we consent with the Roman Church (Reformed Catholic, pt. 19. Wks 1616. Vol 1. p. 610.)

Thus much of the first chapter is devoted to showing that the Anglican Church under Cranmer was greatly influenced by the Reformers and no other branch of the reformation. The Anglo-catholic argument, on the basis of the language of sacramental instrumentalism in the early Anglican formularies, was that the Anglican Church had outgrown her Calvinism. Goode replies by showing the same language is in the Second Helvetic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and other such confessions. Since Calvinism has always had such a high view, it cannot serve as evidence for the Anglo-catholic position that Calvinism was not Anglican. He writes on page 129, regarding the Second Helvetic Confession:

Now, take these general statements, and you may no doubt reasonably draw from them the doctrine of the universal efficacy of the Sacrament of Baptism. No limitation is implied in the words, intimating that the Sacrament is efficacious only in certain cases. But what is meant by these passages is clear, both from the known doctrine of the author, and from other parts of the Confession.

From this statement Goode goes on to show how the Second Helvetic Confession is clearly particularist.

One trouble with Goode’s analysis is that he seems to be importing his own definition of regeneration onto the language of the sixteenth-century writings. For example, he deals with Zacharias Ursinus’ commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism to show what he believed about infants and baptism as well as his belief that only the elect are ever regenerated. He concludes:

Consequently the meaning of the Catechism, so far as it seems to connect regeneration with baptism, is this, that regeneration takes place in baptism in the case of the elect; but it does not admit that this effect is produced in any others at that time, for it denies that in such it is ever produced. And this was the common view of the period.

While it is revealing that in our present Evangelical milieu Goode’s claim sounds more “catholic” than Evangelical, I don’t think that anything so mechanical is portrayed in the Heidelberg Catechism. For one thing, all the Reformed universally denied that it was right to doubt the salvation of children who died before they could be baptized. That fact alone should alert us to a more nuanced position.

Furthermore, Ursinus insists that the sacraments are not absolutely necessary. I don’t see any way that is compatible with Goode’s view. Plainly, while Ursinus affirms strongly that grace is conferred in baptism, he doesn’t think the children of believers are normally in any danger. Just as plainly, Ursinus believed the children of Christians are Christians.

Ursinus also provides interesting information for those who claim that any such Christian status of uncomprehending infants is ruled out by the Westminster Confession of Faith’s statement that

The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word, by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened (Chapter 14, paragraph 1; emphasis added).

This statement is said to clash with Calvin’s claim that baptism is inextricably involved in the ministry of the Word for baptized believers:

I know it is a common belief that forgiveness, which at our first regeneration we receive by baptism alone, is after baptism procured by means of penitence and the keys (see chap. 19 sec. 17). But those who entertain this fiction err from not considering that the power of the keys, of which they speak, so depends on baptism, that it ought not on any account to be separated from it. The sinner receives forgiveness by the ministry of the Church; in other words, not without the preaching of the gospel. And of what nature is this preaching? That we are washed from our sins by the blood of Christ. And what is the sign and evidence of that washing if it be not baptism? We see, then, that that forgiveness has reference to baptism. This error had its origin in the fictitious sacrament of penance, on which I have already touched. What remains will be said at the proper place. There is no wonder if men who, from the grossness of their minds, are excessively attached to external things, have here also betrayed the defect, not contented with the pure institution of God, they have introduced new helps devised by themselves, as if baptism were not itself a sacrament of penance. But if repentance is recommended during the whole of life, the power of baptism ought to have the same extent. Wherefore, there can be no doubt that all the godly may, during the whole course of their lives, whenever they are vexed by a consciousness of their sins, recall the remembrance of their baptism, that they may thereby assure themselves of that sole and perpetual ablution which we have in the blood of Christ (John Calvin, Institutes, IV, 15, 4).

According to Calvin, then, the ministry of the Word is not to be set against Baptism as the true origin of God’s work of Grace. Just as baptism is God’s instrument of Grace, so the Gospel addresses the hearer, if he is baptized, as one who is set apart to God and promised the forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ.

Perhaps it would be good to point out here that this was no idiosyncratic opinion that died with Calvin and was ignored by others. The Council of Trent actively assaulted the Reformed on this very point. The condemning sentence reads:

If anyone says that by the sole remembrance and the faith of the baptism received, all sins committed after baptism are either remitted or made venial, let him be anathema.

Of course, many times in Trent one finds only a charicature of Reformed Doctrine being condemned. But in this case, the Reformed identified this cursing as a cursing of true doctrine. This basic position was still considered orthodox and Reformed as late as the time of Francis Turretin:

Does baptism… take away past and present sins only and leave future sins to repentances? Or does it extend itself to sins committed not only before but also after baptism? The former we deny; the latter we affirm against the Romanists.…II… [T]he Romansists teach… “The virtue of baptism does not reach to future sins, but the sacrament of penitence is necessary for their expiation.” Thus, the Council of Trent expresses it: “If anyone shall say that all the sins which are committed after baptism are either dismissed or made venial by the recollection of faith of the received baptism alone, let him be anathema (session 7, Canon 10, Schroeder, p. 54)….

XII. …However, we maintain that by baptism is sealed to us the remission not only of past and present, but also of future sins; still so that penitence (not a sacramental work and what they invent, but that which is commanded in the gospel) and especially saving faith is not excluded, but is coordinated with baptism as a divinely constituted means of our salvation (Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 3).

Returning to the alleged conflict between the Westminster Confession and Calvin’s Institutes, Ursinus makes statements that sound very much like the statement produced from the Westminster Confession of Faith:

The Holy Ghost ordinarily produces faith … in us by the ecclesiastical ministry, which consists of two parts, the word and the sacraments. The Holy Ghost works faith in our hearts by the preaching of the gospel; and cherishes, confirms, and seals it by the use of the sacraments (Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, p. 340).

One can easily see how this comports with the Westminster Confession’s statements:

The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word, by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened (Chapter 14, paragraph 1; emphasis added).

Ursinus’ words of explanation, then, are quite interesting.

Faith is begun and confirmed by the word; by the sacraments it is only confirmed, as in the supper. The word teaches and confirms without the sacraments, but the sacaments not without the word. Adults are not saved without a knowledge of the word; but men may be regenerated and saved without the use of the sacraments, if this omission be not accompanied with any contempt. The word is preached to unbelievers and wicked men; the church should admit none to the sacraments, but such as will have us to regard as members of his kingdom (p. 356; emphasis added)

Ursinus explicitly says that the infants of Christians are those to be regarded as members of God’s kingdom and are not to be considered “unbelievers and wicked.” The requirement that they be converted by some event in which they suddenly understand the preaching of the Word is foreign to Ursinus’ way of thinking. They are to be nurtured by Word and Sacrament as believers. Adults are the ones who must be brought to conscious faith through the word, infants can be raised in it. Obviously anyone who departs from the faith, whether raised as a Christian from infancy or an Adult convert with a momentous “testimony,” is to be regarded as an unbeliever who has never received saving grace.

Thus, A. A. Hodge, a rather famous Westminsterian, wrote:

When the child is taught and trained under the regimen of his baptism–-taught from the first to recognize himself as a child of God, with all its privileges and duties; trained to think, feel, and act as a child of God, to exercise filial love, to render filial obedience–-the benefit to the child directly is obvious and immeasurable. He has invaluable birthright privileges, and corresponding obligations and responsibilities (A. A. Hodge, “The Sacraments:Baptism,” in Evangelical Theology: Lectures on Doctrine [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1990], 337, emphasis added).

I am sure that other views were meant to be encompassed by the Westminster Assembly, but there is certainly no reason or method by which Ursinus’ position can be ruled out of court. Consider the Larger Catechism as it applies to someone who was baptized as an infant:

The needful but much neglected duty of improving our baptism, is to be performed by us all our life long, especially in the time of temptation, and when we are present at the administration of it to others; by serious and thankful consideration of the nature of it, and of the ends for which Christ instituted it, the privileges and benefits conferred and sealed thereby, and our solemn vow made therein; by being humbled for our sinful defilement, our falling short of, and walking contrary to, the grace of baptism, and our engagements; by growing up to assurance of pardon of sin, and of all other blessings sealed to us in that sacrament; by drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, into whom we are baptized, for the mortifying of sin, and quickening of grace; and by endeavoring to live by faith, to have our conversation in holiness and righteousness, as those that have therein given up their names to Christ; and to walk in brotherly love, as being baptized by the same Spirit into one body

Notice, pardon is a possession that has already been sealed to you in baptism. You are supposed to grow into assurance of it.

Strangely, this Reformed heritage is often marginalized by an appeal to an understanding of the Reformation doctrine of sola fide. This is odd since the Reformers understood sola fide as well as we do.

Perhaps a brief illustration might help: Imagine a child is looking at a wrapped gift sitting under a Christmas tree. It is from an uncle to whom the child is hostile. He looks at the gift suspiciously, and then announces he will not open it. It either holds nothing or else holds something worthless. It certainly couldn’t contain anything that would compensate for being in the uncle’s debt.

So what should a parent say to convince the child to open the present? Consider these two options:

“Oh, if only you will believe, you will receive wonderful grace!””You’ve misjudged your uncle. He loves you. He is quite capable of giving you more than you can ask or think!”

The second option does not even mention words like “trust” or “faith” or “believe” and yet both options call for faith and the first one does so quite lamely.

If you want someone to trust God, then you should extol God’s trustworthiness, not the alleged power of faith. “God is faithful,” Paul wrote the Corinthians (First 1.9). And that is the only message that can elicit faith. “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised” (Hebrews 11.11).

Thus, it is absolutely true that baptism will have no saving benefit apart from faith. But degrading baptism as a sure (albeit conditional) promise from God can only encourage suspicion rather than trust in God’s Gospel as it applies to the recipient. Here’s a better way:

I know it is a common belief that forgiveness, which at our first regeneration we receive by baptism alone, is after baptism procured by means of penitence and the keys. But those who entertain this fiction err from not considering that the power of the keys, of which they speak, so depends on baptism, that it ought not on any account to be separated from it. The sinner receives forgiveness by the ministry of the Church; in other words, not without the preaching of the gospel. And of what nature is this preaching? That we are washed from our sins by the blood of Christ. And what is the sign and evidence of that washing if it be not baptism? We see, then, that that forgiveness has reference to baptism… But if repentance is recommended during the whole of life, the power of baptism ought to have the same extent. Wherefore, there can be no doubt that all the godly may, during the whole course of their lives, whenever they are vexed by a consciousness of their sins, recall the remembrance of their baptism, that they may thereby assure themselves of that sole and perpetual ablution which we have in the blood of Christ (John Calvin, Institutes, IV, 15, 4).

With the recent spike in readers, I doubt most of you are identifiably Presbyterian. Perhaps not even identifiably Christian. I actually want to put up content that will appeal to my broader readership, though there will probably still be a great many references to my own ghetto [Reformed Evangelical pastorate] in this blog.

What I’m about to say, however, is mainly meant to appeal to anyone with any sense of literature and any interest in how the Bible “works” in that regard.

When I originally wrote my commentary on Mark for Canon Press, I relied heavily on the work of Austen Farrar. My view of Scripture is not identical to Farrar’s, but in terms of his actual reading of the text (as opposed to his theory about it), I found him often to be a model for how to treat the Bible.

One of the things Farrar did was see that there are double cycles in Mark’s Gospel, beginning with the healing miracles. Let me show you how this works.

In Mark chapter 1.16-20, Jesus calls four disciples by name at their work by the sea. (Since their work is fishing, one doesn’t really think much about the fact that they are by the sea, but stay tuned). After calling the four, Mark records four healing stories. There are times when Mark mentions a bunch of healings, but his stories about the healing of particular individuals stands out. (Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark never tells of the exorcism of a pair of demoniacs or twelve lepers).

After these four healings are completed, we find Jesus back by the sea again calling someone while in the middle of their word. Levi is called from his money table and before we have yet another calling by the sea.

Thus:

Jesus calls 4 named disciples
– casts out unclean spirit,
+ raises up Simon’s mother-in-law from sick bed
– cleanses unclean leper
+ raises up paralytic from bed to walk.

Jesus calls 1 named disciple
+ stretches out withered hand.

You will notice I put some marks in my diagram to relate these healings to one another. In Mark’s gospel there are no “evil spirits” but only “unclean spirits.” Exorcisms are related conceptually by this terminology to cleansings. Leprosy, incidentally, was probably not the modern disease we know by that name. In Leviticus, “leprosy” is something that afflict not only people, but houses or clothing.

A couple of things about this:

First off, our next calling takes place again by the sea, but this time also on a mountain (Mark 3.7-19). Jesus calls twelve but Levi is named Matthew. This gives us eight rather than seven new names. And it just so happens there are eight more healing stories in the rest of the Gospel. Calling leads to restoration in the way Mark tells his story.

Secondly, if we look at the rest of the miracles we might see who the healing of the man with the withered hand (Mark 3.1-6) fits with what comes before.

Since the first miracle is an exercism, lets see what happens if we list all the miracles beginning a new line with each exorcism:

Thus:

• casts out unclean spirit, raises up Simon’s mother-in-law from sick bed, cleanses unclean leper, raises up paralytic from bed to walk, stretches out withered hand.
• casts out legion from grave-dweller, cleanses woman with issue of blood, raises up Jairus’ daughter
• casts out unclean spirit from daughter, heals deaf-mute, heals blind man
• casts our unclean spirit from son, heals blind man

So far so good, but I left out some details. For one thing, in the last exorcism the unclean spirit in the son specifically makes him deaf and dumb. We have a movement here from

exorcism, healing of a deaf-mute, healing of a blind man

to

exorcism of a deaf-mute, healing of a blind man

Now, can anyone possibly believe that Mark didn’t notice the pattern here? We narrow down from three miracles to two miracles because the first two of the first cycle are both reproduced in the first healing of the second cycle.

Now put this together with our first five miracles:

> exorcism, restoration, cleansing, restoration to walk — restoration of hand
> exorcism, cleansing, restoration to life from death — ?
> exorcism, restoration of deaf-mute — restoration of blind man
> exorcism of deaf-mute — restoration of blind man

You will need to read my book to get more details worked out, but my point here is that Mark is quite intent on portraying the restoration of the whole man. He complements unparalyzed feet with outstretched hand. He later complements with the restored voice and hearing with restored seeing.

If we see these as four cycles with complements added on, then the reason we are missing that complement in the second cycle isn’t too hard to understand. Hands complement feet and eyes complement ears and mouth for a functioning head, but there is no need to complete a resurrection.

But after the raising of Jairus’ daughter, Mark’s accounts of physical restorations change focus. He moves from body to head. He is apparently to move toward a climax in these accounts and this is how he deals with the raising of Jairus’ daughter. Once you have told of a resurrection, how can you “heighten” your story to climax in the resurrection of Jesus (which would be the fourteenth healing miracle)? Mark’s answer is to stop talking about people who were bed-ridden or missing a functional limb and tell about the head.

As I said, I deal with this much more thoroughly in my book. My actual reason for reviewing all this, however, is so that in another post I can actually improve on my book to some extent. I have come farther along since I wrote it.

But that will be for another time.