An instance of government-produced Hell

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My students often become curious about my personal life. The question most frequently asked is, “Do you have kids?”

“Two,” I say.

The next question is always heartbreaking.

“Do they live with you?”

Every fall, new education theories arrive, born like orchids in the hothouses of big-time university education departments. Urban teachers are always first in line for each new bloom. We’ve been retrofitted as teachers a dozen times over. This year’s innovation is the Data Wall, a strategy in which teachers must test endlessly in order to produce data about students’ progress. The Obama administration has spent lavishly to ensure that professional consultants monitor its implementation.

Every year, the national statistics summon a fresh chorus of outrage at the failure of urban public schools. Next year, I fear, will be little different.

Read the whole horrible thing: “Nobody Gets Married Any More, Mister” by Gerry Garibaldi – City Journal.

An important book for calvinists to read

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Still it is insisted, that exhortations are vain, warnings superfluous, and rebukes absurd, if the sinner possesses not the power to obey. When similar objections were urged against Augustine, he was obliged to write his book, De Correptione et Gratia, where he has fully disposed of them. The substance of his answer to his opponents is this: “O, man! learn from the precept what you ought to do; learn from correction, that it is your own fault you have not the power; and learn in prayer, whence it is that you may receive the power.” Very similar is the argument of his book, De Spiritu et Litera, in which he shows that God does not measure the precepts of his law by human strength, but, after ordering what is right, freely bestows on his elect the power of fulfilling it. The subject, indeed, does not require a long discussion. For we are not singular in our doctrine, but have Christ and all his apostles with us. Let our opponents, then, consider how they are to come off victorious in a contest which they wage with such antagonists. Christ declares, “without me ye can do nothing,” (John 15: 5) Does he the less censure and chastise those who, without him, did wickedly? Does he the less exhort every man to be intent on good works? How severely does Paul inveigh against the Corinthians for want of charity, (1Co 3: 3) and yet at the same time, he prays that charity may be given them by the Lord. In the Epistle to the Romans, he declares that “it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,” (Rom 9: 16) Still he ceases not to warn, exhort, and rebuke them. Why then do they not expostulate with God for making sport with men, by demanding of them things which he alone can give, and chastising them for faults committed through want of his grace? Why do they not admonish Paul to spare those who have it not in their power to will or to run, unless the mercy of God, which has forsaken them, precede? As if the doctrine were not founded on the strongest reason – reason which no serious inquirer can fail to perceive. The extent to which doctrine, and exhortation, and rebuke, are in themselves able to change the mind, is indicated by Paul when he says, “Neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase,” (1Co 3: 7) in like manner, we see that Moses delivers the precepts of the Law under a heavy sanction, and that the prophets strongly urge and threaten transgressors though they at the same time confess, that men are wise only when an understanding heart is given them; that it is the proper work of God to circumcise the heart, and to change it from stone into flesh; to write his law on their inward parts; in short, to renew souls so as to give efficacy to doctrine

Institutes, Book 2, Chapter 5

Translating it from the Latin, Augustine’s book is entitled either On Admonition and Grace or On Rebuke and Grace. It is widely available on the web.

Calvin is right to think of it so highly.

Conditional promises (a repost from April 2002)

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When people hear that God’s covenant with us in Christ is conditional they sometimes act like you’re trying to scare them. Yes, some aspects can be frightening. For example:

Then a man of God came to Eli and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Did I not indeed reveal Myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in bondage to Pharaoh’s house? Did I not choose them from all the tribes of Israel to be My priests, to go up to My altar, to burn incense, to carry an ephod before Me; and did I not give to the house of your father all the fire offerings of the sons of Israel? Why do you kick at My sacrifice and at My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling, and honor your sons above Me, by making yourselves fat with the choicest of every offering of My people Israel?’ Therefore the LORD God of Israel declares, ‘I did indeed say that your house and the house of your father should walk before Me forever’; but now the LORD declares, ‘Far be it from Me–for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me will be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days are coming when I will break your strength and the strength of your father’s house so that there will not be an old man in your house. You will see the distress of My dwelling, in spite of all the good that I do for Israel; and an old man will not be in your house forever. Yet I will not cut off every man of yours from My altar so that your eyes will fail from weeping and your soul grieve, and all the increase of your house will die in the prime of life. This will be the sign to you which will come concerning your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas: on the same day both of them will die. But I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who will do according to what is in My heart and in My soul; and I will build him an enduring house, and he will walk before My anointed always. Everyone who is left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver or a loaf of bread and say, “Please assign me to one of the priest’s offices so that I may eat a piece of bread”‘” (First Samuel 2.27-36).

So here God made a promises and now recants it. Eli doesn’t get to keep the privileges God promised him because he has violated the terms of God’s covenant. As I said: frightening. But there is another aspect that needs to be considered:

Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.” So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk. Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. He issued a proclamation and it said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it (Jonah 3).

God’s declaration through Jonah was that, in forty days, they would all be corpses. He doesn’t say that the destruction will come if they continue in sin or unless they repent, but nevertheless, the judgment is conditional. They repent and God spares them.

Would anyone have it any other way?

The condition, ultimately, comes down to faith. Eli showed an unbelieving attitude by his behavior (though I trust not entirely so). The king and people of Ninevah believed God by believing Jonah’s message.

Cornelius Van Til on Self Realization & the Kingdom of God

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The Kingdom of God as Man’s Summum Bonum

We need all this background in order to understand what is meant by saying that the kingdom of God is man’s summum bonum. By this term kingdom of God we mean the realized program of God for man. We would think of man as (a) adopting for himself this program of God as his own ideal and as (b) setting and keeping his powers in motion in order to reach that goal that has been set for him and that he has set for himself. We propose then briefly to look at this program which God has set for man and which man should have set for himself.

The most important aspect of this program is surely that man should realize himself as God’s vicegerent in history. Man was created God’s vicegerent and he must realize himself as God’s vicegerent. There is no contradiction between these two statements. Man was created a character and yet had to make himself ever more of a character. So we may say that man was created a king in order that he might become more of a king than he was. We may see what this means first in the individual, and secondly, for society.

The Individual

For the individual man the ethical ideal is that of self-realization. Let us first see why this should be so, and secondly, what it means in detail.

That the ethical ideal for man should be self-realization follows from the central place given him in this universe. God made all things in the universe for himself, that is, for his own glory. But not all things can reflect his glory self-consciously. Yet it is self-conscious glorification that is the highest kind of glorification. Accordingly, God put all things in this universe into covenant relations with one another. He made man the head of creation. Accordingly, the flowers of the field glorified God directly and unconsciously, but also indirectly and consciously through man. Man was to gather up into the prism of his self-conscious activity all the manifold manifestations of the glory of God in order to make on central self-conscious sacrifice of it all to God.

If man was to perform this, his God-given task, he must himself be a fit instrument for this work. He was made a fit instrument for this work, but he must also make himself an ever better instrument for this work. He must will to develop his intellect in order to grasp more comprehensively the wealth of the manifestation of the glory of God in this world. He must will to be an ever better prophet than he already is. He must will to develop his aesthetic capacity, that is, his capacity of appreciation; he must will to be be an even better priest than he already is. Finally, he must will to will the will of God for the whole world; he must become an ever better king than he already is. For this reason then the primary ethical duty of man is self-realization. Through self-realization man makes himself the king of the earth, and if he is truly the king of the earth then God is truly the king of the universe, since it is as God’s creature, as God’s vicegerent, that man must seek to develop himself as king. When man becomes truly the king of the universe the kingdom o f God is realized, and when the kingdom of God is realized, God is glorified.

Self Realization

But what then, in more detail, is involved in this goal of self-realization that man must set for himself? We can bring this out by working out the idea expressed above, when we said that man must learn to will the will of God. Man must work out his own will, that is, he must develop his own will first of all. Man’s will needs to become increasingly spontaneous in its reactivity. Man was created so that he spontaneously served God. For this reason he must grow in spontaneity. Whatever God has placed within man by way of activity must also be regarded by him as a capacity to be developed. Man was not created merely with a will to will the will of God. In his heart there was an inmost desire to serve God. But just because mas was created with this will, God wants man to develop this will.

In the second place, man’s will needs to become increasingly fixed in its self-determination. In other words, man must needs develop the backbone of his will. Not as though man was created a volitional amoeba, which had to pass through the invertebrate stage before it finally acquired a backbone. Man was created a self. He was the creature of an absolute self and could not be otherwise created than as a self. But for this very reason again man had to develop his self-determination. Man’s God is absolutely self-determinate; man will be God-like in proportion that he becomes self-determining and self-determinate under God. In proportion that man develops his self-determination does he develop God’s determination or plan for his kingdom on earth. God accomplishes his plans through self-determined characters. An unstable man would be useless in the kingdom of God.

In the third place, man’s will must increase in momentum. Man’s will would naturally increase in momentum in proportion that it increased in spontaneity and self-determinateness. Yet the point of momentum must be separately mentioned. As man approaches his ideal, the realization of the kingdom of God, the area of his activity naturally enlarges itself. Just as the manager of a growing business needs to increase with his business in alertness, stability, and comprehensiveness of decision, so man, with the development of his progress toward his ideal, would have to develop momentum in order to meet his ever increasing responsibility.

–From the not-a-book Christian Theistic Ethics, Vol III of In Defense of the Faith, pages 44-46.

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Obvious from the outside

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We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West has been so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.

Read the rest: China’s Future As a Christian Nation.

Given judgment

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As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.

via Passage: Daniel 7 (ESV Bible Online).

Everything about this passage indicates that a verdict is given to the saints. They are justified.

The Aramaic could conceivably bear the idea that the saints are given the authority to judge (“and judgment was given to the saints”). But that would be a real violation of the intent of the text….

And then the Apostle John comes along and tells us:

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.

Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.

Looks like John thought the Aramaic possibilities were significant!

005 The Victory According to Mark

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THE CALL (1:15)

The Victory According to Mark: An Exposition of the Second Gospel

John’s Vocation (1:5-8)

When King Ahaziah heard a description of a man his messengers had met, he exclaimed, “It is Elijah the Tishbite.”  That description of Elijah reminds us now of John the Baptist:  “He was a hairy man with a leather girdle bound about his loins” (First Kings 1:8)  It is not until chapter 9 that Mark reveals explicitly that John corresponds to Elijah in the prophecy of Malachi 4, but here Mark’s description of John’s camel hair clothing with a leather belt around his waist reminds us of the prophet.

But why Elijah?  Why not say that John the Baptist corresponded to some other prophet like Isaiah or Jeremiah?  What made Elijah especially appropriate as a way of describing John the Baptist’s identity?  Let’s start with some seemingly random observations, from Mark’s gospel and elsewhere, about John the Baptist.  Notice that John confronts a king (Mark 6:17) and stays in the region of the Jordan (Matt 3:5; Luke 3:3) in the wilderness (Mark 1:4) across from the Promised Land (John 1:28; 10:40).

Now a few of these details do remind us of Elijah.  He too confronted an evil king (1 Kin 17:1; 21:17-19) and spent a lot of time outside of Israel proper (1 Kin 17:3, 9). But he also did more. He called down plagues on the Land (1 Kin 17:1), called down fire on his sacrifice (1 Kin 18:38), was fed by angels in the wilderness (1 Kin 19:4-7), and met God at Mt. Sinai (1 Kin 19:8-14).  Elijah stands out among Old Testament prophets as a new Moses. No one else was met by God at Mt. Sinai.  It is a unique marker in the Bible. Incidentally, both Moses and Elijah end their careers by ascending—Moses up a mountain to die and Elijah in a fiery chariot. In both cases, this happened across the Jordan from Jericho (Deut 34:1; 2 Kin 2:4-8).

There is more to say about John as Elijah, but for now it will suffice to recognize that linking John to Elijah also links him to Moses, the foremost of the prophets.

Yet Moses and all the prophets are about to be surpassed.  John is speaking for the whole Mosaic administration when he confesses, “After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals.”  John’s prophecy echoes Malachi’s prophecy.  Malachi said that a messenger would prepare the way for the Lord; John says that he is preparing the way for Jesus.  It is rather hard to escape the idea that Mark is affirming the deity of Jesus by parralelling Malachi’s prophecy with John’s.

John says the one who is coming will baptize with the Holy Spirit, whereas he merely baptizes with water.  It has become something of an American fundamentalist shibboleth to use this verse and it’s parallels to claim that the real baptism mentioned in places like Romans 6:3 or Colossians 2:12 is a dry “baptism” done by the Spirit, not with water.  Whatever the merits of this idea, it is almost certainly not what John the Baptist was saying, according to Mark and the other gospel-writers.  Rather, this refers to the miracle of Pentecost when the Spirit signed and sealed the identity of Jesus’ disciples as His new people (Acts 2).  After Pentecost and a three other Pentecost-like events (Acts 8:14ff; 10:44ff; 19:1ff), water baptism is once again the normal means of entering the Church and gaining access to all the blessings Christ has given the Church (Acts 2:38-41; 22:16).

Three questions demonstrating why Calvinists need to recognize the value of more than one perspective

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Rather than explain what I mean, I’ll suggest the questions and trust that my meaning will be clear.

Question One: Did God lead the people of Israel out of Egypt in order for them to die in the wilderness?

Throughout the Exodus story the people grumbled against Moses and against God and accused one or both of intending exactly that: God took them into the desert to die there. Did God regard this as a true statement of his intentions? No. He claimed he was leading them through the wilderness in order to bring them into the Promised Land.

But because of their unbelief and increasing rebellion, God did eventually destroy that generation in the wilderness. So does that mean that we Calvinists must side with the grumblers? Do we agree that God brought them into the wilderness in order to kill them there? Did they speak the truth about God?

Yes or No?

Question Two: Was it God’s will for David to take Uriah’s wife?

God obviously worked all things together to bring about the birth of Solomon as the heir to the throne of David. So was David doing God’s will when he seduced Bathsheba? Or when he got Uriah murdered?

Yes or No?

Question Three: Were Jesus’ bones breakable?

I stole this one from John Calvin. But what is your answer? Isaiah prophesied that Jesus’ bones would never be broken. They never were. So were they unbreakable?

Breakable or unbreakable?

The point:

No Calvinist can operate without acknowledging different levels in how one speaks of God. They seem contradictory, but they are not dealing with the same level of reality. We can speak of God from the standpoint of his unconditional and certain decree, and we can speak from the perspective of his revealed character, his sincere offer, and the nature of things in themselves.

Justification as status and verdict

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Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

via Passage: Romans 5 (ESV Bible Online).

Daniel 7 describes a justification that takes place in history. The saints are under the tyranny of beastly powers and then God will act from heaven to give them the kingdom. This will be, in Daniel’s vision, a verdict, a judicial sentence. It is an act in history on behalf of a corporate group.

So in the above portion of Romans 5, in the second paragraph Paul speaks of being justified by and when Christ died and rose. All of Romans 1.18ff is summed up, with its downward spiral into apostasy, as “while we were still sinners,” and “while we were enemies.”

Paul can refer to the justified status as something one had by faith both in the OT and now in the Gospel age. But it is also a transition that occurred in history. Before Christ died, we were all sinners and enemies. Now we’re not.

God’s righteousness, redux

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I was listening to Romans tonight and something hit me for the first time in chapter 15. I had read the verse and yet missed it. (Aside: eyes are far more deceitful than ears.)

For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,

“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles,
and sing to your name.”

And again it is said,

“Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.”

And again,

“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,
and let all the peoples extol him.”

And again Isaiah says,

“The root of Jesse will come,
even he who arises to rule the Gentiles;
in him will the Gentiles hope.”

Notice how this goes back to God’s righteousness in chapter 3:

Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,

“That you may be justified in your words,
and prevail when you are judged.”

But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.

So Paul confirms my reading of this passage in chapter 3, and my thesis about Romans in general: Israel’s unfaithfulness in crucifying the Messiah demonstrated God’s faithfulness and righteousness in accomplishing salvation for the nations in the Messiah. God’s truthfulness is proven.

And furthermore, this goes all the way back to how Paul describes his Gospel at the beginning of Romans, as that which “confirm[s] the promises given to the patriarchs”

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord

No wonder then, that the Gospel declares God’s righteousness (Romans 1.17). He has kept his promises. He had been true to his word. He had brought salvation to the nations.