Mark Horne

At the end of Romans 9, Paul writes

What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written,

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

This might lead readers to think that the issue for Israel was a “method of salvation.”  But it is important to remember that “faith” here is personasl: trust in king Jesus rather than confidence in the sufficiency of the Mosaic Covenant.  The quotation from Isaiah 8.14 and it is, in context, quite obviously about Jesus.  Thus the Apostle Peter writes,

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture:

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,

“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”

and

“A stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

The Gospels themselves portray Israel’s spiritual problem in this way.  They want a king who affirms their righteousness rather than demanding that they understand their calling to serve the nations.  Jesus himself appeals to Psalm 118.22:

“Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

Notice that the reason for judging Israel was not that they didn’t value good works (“fruit”) but that they didn’t want to produce any because they didn’t believe they needed to do so.  When we come to the decision of the crowd in Jerusalem to reject Jesus, it comes as a choice between Jesus and another “son of the father,” BarAbbas–an insurrectionist and murderer.  Such a patriotic enemy of Rome was far more attractive to the Israelites and they were happy to force Pilate to release him and allow Jesus to be crucified.  The same reason that made Pilate believe Jesus should be released made the Jews believe that Jesus wasn’t worth saving from crucifixion.

After all, didn’t Phineas kill just like Barabbas did? And God had counted Phineas’ act as righteousness, and even made a covenant with him.  So the crowd cried out for the release of Barabbas.  In so doing they were crying out for their independent nation and a sanctuary not under the domination of a Gentile empire.  They were pursuing their covenant status as if the Mosaic Covenant was perpetual.  (In fact, they had even added laws to keep out Gentiles when the Mosaic Law permitted Gentiles to offer sacrifices through the Levites just like all other Israelites.)

But Paul has a far different vision of what Israel’s king was supposed to be like.  Precisely because the God of Israel is the God of the whole world, and the promise to Abraham is that he would inherit the cosmos, the King of Israel has to be the true world emperor, a challenge both to Israelite arrogance and to Caesar:

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. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

By faith [Moses] kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

So tell me:  Did Moses believe? Did Rahab?  Did David?  What about the People of Israel crossing the Red Sea?

And yet.

Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
where your fathers put me to the test
and saw my works for forty years.
Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
they have not known my ways.’
As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest.’”

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

So there is the same generation that turned to unbelief.  They crossed the sea by faith and were turned away from the Promised Land by unbelief.  And we are warned directly by their example not to do the same?

And so we are warned to heed their example:

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For,

“Yet a little while,
and the coming one will come and will not delay;
but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.”

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

And who gets destroyed?

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

So what is systematic theology for?  Is it to come up with coherent generalizations that account for all the data?  Or was it invented to replace the Bible with a truncated textbook that purports to accurately summarize the Bible?

Messengers get attacked, but it is the sender who is the real Offender.

On my theory, every one of the following statements are saying basically the same thing:

What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means!

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.

through the law comes knowledge [as in direct experience] of sin.

For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.

It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?

For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.

But the standard commentaries assign different topics. So:

What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means!

This is not about God being faithful to bring about the results that Israel had been commissioned to bring about (i.e. salvation to the world).  Rather, it simply means that God will continue to be righteous even when human beings aren’t.

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.

God’s mercy is shown in the face of human sin.  “Doing evil that good may come” refers only to providing God an opportunity to forgive more.  It has nothing to do with actually using sin (especially Israel’s) to bring about world salvation.

through the law comes knowledge [as in direct experience] of sin.

We learn what sin is by reading the Law.  Why God gave the law and let it fail to do any real good is not answered or posited as a millennia long demonstration that human beings cannot save themselves.

For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

We learn right and wrong more plainly from the Law and yet still fail to obey it.  Why then even give the law?  Why increase wrath?  Either simply as a lesson against moralism or else simply to provide more sin to forgive.

And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.

We are not to think that the parallelism teaches that as the one trespass led to judgment so the many treaspasses culminated in a free gift resulting in justification.  Rather, the judgement was executed on one trespass but the free gift of justification was executed on the guilt of many trespasses.

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

Why did God want to increase the trespass?  Not because it was necessary to produce abounding grace, even though the question in 6.1 would lead one to think that the implication is exactly what hearers found in the statement.  No, he simply did it but then did more by grace.  Romans 6.1 is really asking if we should continue to sin to give God more opportunities to forgive us, not if we should sin to make grace abound further on the world the way that the trespass of rejecting Jesus resulted in abounding grace.

For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.

This is about a personal struggle with sin, not about how the Law in fact historically increased trespasses in Israel.

It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

Again, this is about a personal struggle that happens to sound like the description of Israel’s and the world’s history in Romans 3-5.  Why God wants to aggravate sin in and individual, and how this description if accurate of 1) a regenerate person who cannot gain any victory despite Romans 6 and 8, or 2) an unregenerate person who nevertheless loves God’s law in his mind, is a matter of continuing controversy.

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh

This restatement of propitiation (Romans 3.21ff) could have been done at any time in world history and has nothing to do with the laws role in history of aggravating sin and increasing the trespass.

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

The fact that Paul will later write that unbelieving Israel has only be partially hardened should not be permitted to interfere with this passage.  God desired to show his wrath, not in how he set forth Jesus as an propitiation, and then declared that event in his Gospel in all the nations, but in his desire to harden and punish Israel for unbelief.

So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

This is narrative does not include the fact that Israel rejected and crucified Jesus but only that they rejected and persecuted the church later and thus jump-started Gentile evangelism sooner than the believing Jewish Church would otherwise have planned.  It has nothing to do with the mocking question in Romans 3 “let us do evil that good may come” and has nothing to do with the “the free gift following many trespasses” in Romans 5.  It is all entirely unrelated.

For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?

This is again, not about how Israel’s unbelief led to the propitiation necessary for world salvation, but only about how Gentiles got evangelized in the process of unbelieving Israel driving out believing Jews.

For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.

Same as above.

But is this really credible?  Is Paul dealing with a bunch of totally different topics that just happen to sound so similar?

Offering an elegant and simple solution is not absolute proof of veracity.  But I don’t see there is any way one can deny that my solution is much more simple and elegant than the ad hoc explanations that are put forward in the commentaries.

… Very much love to you, and all my thoughts and prayers.  How much I wish to know! “When you return to the lands of the living, and we re-tell our tales, sitting by a wall in the sun, laughing at old grief, you shall tell me then” (Faramir to Frodo).

So wrote J. R. R. Tolkien to his son Christopher on May 12, 1944.  Tolkien insisted his stories were neither allegorical nor even topical.  This seems interesting since he so easily invoked his own writing to explain or illuminate situations in his own life.

I think his point was that he wanted all his readers to be able to do the same as he did without feeling constrained by his own “topical” use of his text.  That, at least, is the best I can do to make sense of his “anti-allegoricalism.”

Ever heard the expression, “There’s no such thing as being a little bit pregnant”? It’s used when people try to underplay something in an inappropriate way. “I sort of told a lie.” The fact is, some things are simply either/or. Either you told a lie or you didn’t. Either you’re pregnant or you’re not.

But, then again, pregnancy is progressive–from conception to delivery. Is that a contradiction? No. We’re comparing apples and oranges. The development of a fetus is not in conflict with the status of being pregnant. One is either/or and the other is gradual but they both reflect the same reality.

This simple illustrations might show you why I am so frustrated to hear of educated theological popularizers who demand a “nanosecond” between justification and sanctification in order to “protect” one from the other–typically to protect justification from sanctification (no one seems really to worry about the integrity of sanctification that much).

The Westminster Larger Catechism is a good guide for this:

Q77: Wherein do justification and sanctification differ?
A77: Although sanctification be inseparably joined with justification, yet they differ, in that God in justification imputeth the righteousness of Christ; in sanctification his Spirit infuseth grace, and enableth to the exercise thereof; in the former, sin is pardoned; in the other, it is subdued: the one doth equally free all believers from the revenging wrath of God, and that perfectly in this life, that they never fall into condemnation; the other is neither equal in all, nor in this life perfect in any, but growing up to perfection.

There is nothing here or anywhere else about the difference lying in differing moments, seconds, or even nanoseconds when they begin. On the contrary, they are “inseparably joined.” There is not even a nanosecond when one is found without the other.

This is amply demonstrated by looking at an earlier question and answer:

Q67: What is effectual calling?
A67: Effectual calling is the work of God’s almighty power and grace, whereby (out of his free and special love to his elect, and from nothing in them moving him thereunto) he doth, in his accepted time, invite and draw them to Jesus Christ, by his word and Spirit; savingly enlightening their minds, renewing and powerfully determining their wills, so as they (although in themselves dead in sin) are hereby made willing and able freely to answer his call, and to accept and embrace the grace offered and conveyed therein.

Notice that the catechism is speaking here of the inception of saving or justifying faith. One embraces “the grace offered and conveyed” in God’s mighty call by “accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace” (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 14, Paragraph 2).

Notice what attitudinal and behavioral change is produced by this “work of God’s almighty power and grace.” Quite obviously, this is a description of the beginning of sanctification as well as of justification. To say that justification precedes sanctification, even for a nanosecond, is to denyjustification by faith alone. Actually, it is to deny justification by faith at all. The only way to get around this would be to claim that justifying faith is within the ethical ability of the natural man.

But if we keep in mind the difference between a legal status and a transformation of character then we realize that they can begin simultaneously without being in any way confused with one another. In fact, to even assert the need for some difference in time of inception, implies confusion either of the nature of justification or of sanctification. If one was thinking clearly, there would have never been any need to postulate the unconfessional and unbiblical nanosecond.

PS: a related post.

This is an important question. It is no surprise whatsoever to me that Leithart denies the imputation of Christ’s active obedience (and even is suspicious about the very concept of imputation in general). Once you deny the legal nature of the covenant of works, it takes about nine minutes to muck up the doctrine of imputation as well.

via Response to TE Rayburn, part 7 « Green Baggins.

The FV smear bund continues.  Look for yourself.  Here is Dr. Leithart’s most recent thought.

1) A recurrent charge against imputation is that it seems to rest on a legal fiction – someone being treated as guilty who’s not, someone being treated as just who’s not.

2) There are hints within the Levitical system that imputation is not just a strange exception to the standard way of doing things, but that some act of imputation is always at work in any sinful action.

3) I have in mind the phrases “he shall bear his iniquity” and “their/his blood on them/him.”  These phrases occur in contexts prescribing capital punishment for various crimes.  When the text adds “his blood is on him,” the implication is that the blood is not on the people who shed the blood – namely, the citizens who stoned the criminal.  But the further implication is that the blood must be on someone.  Free-floating blood, as it were, is not an option.  Either the person who did the crime must bear responsibility, or the people who failed to carry out the crime, or, in some cases, a substitutionary animal must bear responsibility for the crime.  That is, some assignment of responsibility is necessary.

4) That seems to presume that there is some distinction between the act itself and the assignment of responsibility for the act.  When a man takes his sister as a wife, he is “cut off in the sight of the sons” of Israel (Lev 20:17).  That probably does not refer to a death penalty.  In any case, that is followed by the declaration that he “bears his guilt.”  But if the wrong action attracted guilt to it “immediately,” then the additional statement that he bears his guilt is redundant. Of course he bears his guilt; who else would?  But the phrase suggests that someone else might, and thus suggests that the assignment of responsiblity or guilt is a distinct “event” from the wrong action itself.   In short, wrong acts must be judged wrong.

5) There’s a particular spin on this for capital crimes.  A man, for instance, has homosexual relations in ancient Israel, and by the Torah must die (Lev 20:13).  He has committed a wrong, and must be punished.  But the punishment itself needs to be atoned.  His death leaves the land bloodstained.  That can’t be left alone.  Somebody has to pay for it.  The law says that the person who died paid for it with his death.  His death is a punishment for the crime, and the bloodshed involved in his death is assigned as his responsibility.  In a sense, there’s a kind of inverted double jeopardy here – the man dies once for two different wrongs – the wrong of his original sodomy and the wrong of shedding blood on the land.  The Torah treats his bloodshed as if it were suicide – “his blood is on him.”

6) If there’s always an assignment of responsibility distinct from the wrong of the act itself, then that leaves open the possiblity (#4) that someone other than the actor might bear that responsibility.  It suggests the possibility that the iniquity might be “imputed” to another, to a sin-bearer.  On this theory, “imputation” is not what happens when someone else takes the guilt; imputation is necessary for any assignment of guilt, whether to the perpetrator or to someone else.

7) This rests on a social understanding of human being.  Let’s start at the other end, with a pure individualistic account.  On individualist premises, if I act badly, I’m guilty.  My guilt is simply mine; no one had to judge me guilty; no one had to assign responsibility.  My guilt is mine just as completely and immediately as the action itself.

On the theory I’m offering, guilt and responsibility are assigned socially/theologically, that is, by another or Another.  Responsibility is mine only when it is assigned to me, and it might not be, for various reasons (such as the incarnate Son agreed that it be assigned to him).  I am guilty or innocent in the regard of the proper judge/Judge.

8) On this suggested view, there is no “open space” for the legal fiction to occupy.  There’s no “real inherent guilt” that is cancelled or ignored in favor of an “imputed righteousness.”  I am either guilty or not by virtue of God’s assignment of responsibility, guilt, or innocence.  That simply is my guilt or innocence, rather than something added to the “inherent” guilt or innocence of my action. If He says I’m righteous, there you go.  It’s over.  If He says that He’s taking responsibility for my sin, it’s over.

The claim that Dr. Leithart denies the legal nature of the Covenant of works is so far out of reality, I don’t even know what to point to.  It is like proving the existence of the “external world.”  One should simply wave one’s hand.  In this case, please read anything by Dr. Leithart.

But far be it from me to try to interrupt anyone’s noose tying party in the blogosphere.  Just ignore anything by Leithart and get all your information from Wurmtongue’s comment system.  Jesus totally approves of that.

YouTube – Audi 2010 Green Car Super Bowl Commercial.

The fact that Audi believes this ad reaches their customer base is a good thing.  It means they know the population hates the coming slavery and wants it to not happen.

But it also shows us Audi’s business model: the government is going to punish people who don’t use our product, so we have a viable chance of winning market share.  This has been the tried and true method by which robber barons make great fortunes.

Nevertheless, the ad is sickening and it was a miscalculation to think that this will actually sell cars, in my opinion.  I’d like to think that someone in Audi hates the coming slavery and loathes having to do business to cater to the slave masters.

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

The statement above ends with a quotation from Habakkuk. The problem in that book is 1. That Israel is in great sin and 2. God promises to deal with it by bringing about the more sinful Chaldeans.  This presents a problem to Habakkuk: How can God respond to sin with more sin?

The Hell-in-a-handbasket message of Romans 1.18ff presents the same dynamic.  God responds to sin by punishing people by giving them over to more sin.  But how can God do this?  Why does he not stop it?  After all, while the punishment may be just, it doesn’t really satisfy a holy God.  It is mixed with kindness and patience all along the way, and a great deal of forbearance in passing over sin:

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

God told Habakkuk that he would used the Chaldeans to bring about a righteous result.  The righteous will live by faith in God’s promise.  Likewise, the very piling up of sin on top of sin, and thus wrath on top of wrath, brings about a moment, the “present time” when Christ can be put forward to satisfy all that wrath and appease God:

But now the God’s righteousness has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— God’s righteousness through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, through faithfulness. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who is of the faithfulness of Jesus.

So like the God’s kindness and blessing on the Chaldeans enabled them to be used to judge Israel and bring about a better situation.  God’s patience in enduring sin and allowing sin to pile on sin and build up wrath, precisely gave Jesus the moment he needed to add his own rejection to that sin and then propitiate the wrath of God.

Thus:

What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means!

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.

through the law comes knowledge [as in direct experience] of sin.

For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.

It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?

For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.

Having begun his argument with the prophecy of Habakkuk, Paul ends with a quotation from Elihu who tells Job of his sufferings,

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Job wanted to know why he was subjected to so much suffering and he never got an answer.  Romans tells us why God has allowed the world to get so bad up to the first century.  It doesn’t answer everything, of course, but it does provide a partial answer and the evidence of that a full answer will be given some day.

The principle that must be remembered is that God does not judge arbitrarily (even if we can never know enough to predict when and how he will judge the world.  He let the world progress in evil until finally sending the flood.  He refused to give the land to Abraham because the Canaanites were not bad enough (Sodom and Gomorrah were worse, so he judged them sooner).  Throughout Israel’s history God was patient before finally judging.  And each time he saved a remnant and rebuilt a new Israel from grace so that their sin afterward was all the more serious.

When Jesus arrives, Israel is no longer good enough to be conquered by mere Chaldeans, and the Romans aren’t really bad enough to count.  Demons have been unleashed on Israel like never before.

So this is the picture: God decided not to judge Adam and Eve when they sinned.  If he wanted a chance to deliver a justifying verdict, he needed to produce the right opportunity for a Judgment Day.

And he did.  Romans explains how and why.

Thus, as I blogged earlier, without Romans John 3.16 makes no sense.

Here are my first notes I scratched out that led me here.

So we should not try to be part of the same church with people of other confessions, even with evangelicals (which are the main focus of Horton’s proposal). Our homes are the denominations and congregations. But from time to time we may associate in a friendly way with others who mingle on the village green, on the basis of “shared interests.” Our home is the Reformed tradition. Non-Reformed Christians are only casual acquaintances.

I have belonged to churches and Christian organizations that hold this view of things. My testimony is that these communities are often spiritually debilitating. In them, one hears a lot about tradition and church history, much less about Jesus and the Bible. Children are catechized, rather than receiving detailed teaching of Scripture. (Sunday school, of course, is considered by many to be an evangelical aberration, not a Reformed institution.) Sermons are little doctrinal treatises or objective redemptive-historical narratives, making no attempt to touch the emotions, even when the texts of these sermons are intended to arouse godly feelings. Much less will these sermons attempt to give people practical help with spiritual problems, even though that help may be found in the passages themselves.

In these bodies, one of the main topics of conversation is who is and who is not “truly Reformed.” Presbyteries, classes, and congregations get tangled up with debates about doctrinal and procedural minutiae. Factions about such subjects spring up, and church bodies divide over them. People speak with dogmatic assurance that they, and not their opponents, represent the tradition. They are assured of matters far beyond their area of expertise. And their expertise is often merely academic, rather than the expertise of those who have grown to be spiritually mature. Those given to prayer and evangelism are treated with some suspicion, as if they are at least on the brink of losing their allegiance to the Reformed movement. Even those who prefer to “emphasize” themes different from the traditional emphases are under suspicion.

The impression is given that all of this is the Reformed way, and anyone who dissents from it is not truly Reformed. The Reformed tradition is the best of all traditions; indeed, most likely it is the only tradition that actually embraces the Gospel. Little is done to cultivate love in the body and love for those outside the body, even though love (John 13:34-35) is arguably as much a mark of the church as are the traditional marks of Reformed theology (the word, the sacraments, and discipline). When the subject of evangelism arises, the main emphasis is that we should not do evangelism as the Arminians do. There is no suggestion that we can learn from any other branch of the church about anything. The cessation of the charismata is presented in such a way that believers should not expect God to do anything in the world except for the word and sacrament in the church service.

There is a very different way to look at the Reformed faith, and I would recommend it as an alternative to Clark’s. We begin with Jesus himself, who by his atoning death and resurrection built one true church (Matt. 16:18, Eph. 2:19-20). After the time of the apostles, he continues to rule that one church from Heaven, granting authority to elders and deacons (1 Tim. 3:1-13, Tit. 1:5-9, Heb. 13:17). He has left no alternative method of ordering the church. Nobody is given the right to leave the one true church and start his own denomination. Nevertheless, the one true church eventually divided. Groups broke away from the fellowship: west broke from east, Protestant from Catholic, Protestant from Protestant. These divisions grieve our Lord, who prayed before his death agony that all his people would be one (John 17:21-23). The blame, of course, is not on everyone equally, but these divisions always resulted from someone’s sin—either the sin of those who illegitimately left the one body, or that of those who illegitimately forced them to leave, or, in most cases, both.

So the one true church is now broken up into thousands of denominations and varying traditions, contrary to our Lord’s will. The church is still one in that it has one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. But there are divisions of theology, practice, ethnicity, of which the Reformed tradition is one.

Christians are committed first to Christ, then to the one body of Christ, and only then to a particular form of the church. They must make the third commitment only because history has made it necessary. Because of the tragic division of the church, one may not be a “mere Christian.” He must join a congregation that does not have fellowship with all other congregations. So he must be Reformed or non-Reformed, not both. But a believer ought to be at least a little sad about this historical necessity. There should be in his heart a purpose to do something, even if he can only do a little bit, to lessen the divisions of the church and to make progress toward the reunion of the church.

If a believer is Reformed, he should give due appreciation to the achievements of that tradition in theology, church government, and other ways. But the focus of his life should not be on his denomination or tradition. It should be on Christ and the Scriptures. He should feel deeply the errors of Reformed chauvinism, the attitude that celebrates and seeks to preserve the distinctiveness of Reformed Christianity from the influence of other branches of the church. He should learn from other traditions and recommend what he learns to his Reformed friends. He should do what he can to avoid the practices I mentioned earlier that are spiritually debilitating.

Read the rest here.

I think the Reformed Faith is true and worth preserving.  I also think its primary attraction is as a rationalization for hating other Christians.  If people come to it initially for spiritual reasons they will be trained to remain loyal for reasons of the flesh sooner or later.

Got no proof.  Don’t care if you agree with me or not.  I’ve been here for many years now.  That is my opinion, and I’m not going to pretend I think otherwise.

If it helps, I suspect most other traditions/doctrinal schools of thought/ideologies probably operate generally the same way.

Why do I mention this obvious point?  Because Augustine was not correct in his understanding of justification and was quite plainly a “moralist” in his conception of how salvation involved becoming righteous in order to be acceptable to God.

It is one thing to have to correct laypeople making such basic conceptual mistakes.  It is quite another to see professors of church history pumping out such mistaken lessons.

Treating assurance as a personal quest, and claiming that an individual can only know that he or she is regenerate and have no such knowledge about others, destroys the rationale for the ethic that Paul presents for life in the Church.

Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written,

“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess to God.”

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.

How does this work if you don’t know who your brother or sister is?  It doesn’t work at all.  Paul tells us not to destroy the one for whom Christ died knowing confidently that we can recognize those people.  They are the fellow members of your church.  The permission to doubt the status of others virtually demands the opposite ethic: that we judge everyone.

For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.

Again, is there any question for whom Christ died?

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.

So Paul says you have need of your brothers and sisters in the church and cannot say to them “I have no need of you.”  But isn’t that precisely what is claimed about being in doubt about the status of other members of the church?

I could go on and on through all Paul’s epistles.  Paul does have concerns about those in the church who prove to be unregenerate.  But this involves church discipline, not generalized doubts.  All within the church are to be regarded as “one body,” not a mixed multitude.  The last passage quoted above is from 1 Corinthians 12 and connects baptism with confidence that we are one body.  Thus the Westminster Larger Catechism passes on this teaching:

Q. 167. How is baptism to be improved by us?
A. 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.

The bare fact that not all people in a given church are truly regenerate does not justify doubting the status of anyone.  As long as one is persevering in the faith (thus, “endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before” God–WCF, 18.1) one is to be regarded as a child of God.  Period.

And one’s own assurance will only hold up if one is gracious with others in regarding them as one body with you.  Ultimately, stinginess with regarding others as family will lead to doubts as to whether you really belong.  God is just that way.

I’m not going to dignify links but the orgy of revisionism in the name of “defending orthodoxy” from the alleged “Federal Vision” is getting overwhelming regarding baptism and assurance.  For now I’ll just mention that if you don’t believe that baptism confers a covenantal status on the person baptized in the act and in every case (without questioning whether there is not also some sort of previous status in some cases) then

You.

Are.

Not.

Reformed.

You may love predestination and read the Westminster Confession for inspiration (though obviously not for content), and have been given the seal of approval from some guy who teaches at a seminary who is mean enough to be trusted as an impeccable source.  But you are no more Reformed than a baptist.  This is true.

Maybe this is good.  Maybe the Reformed Faith is wrong.  But be a man and say so.  Stop pretending.

And stop attacking people who are Reformed.

This is not hard to prove and I’m not going to cut and paste another blog post to prove the obvious.  Here are two that can be read in order:

Baptismal Efficacy and what Presbyterians are supposed to teach.

Westminster Confession and internal, external, and covenant.

We have seen debates on how much “strict” agreement to the Westminster Confession and Catechisms should be demanded of officers in the PCA.  But this is a case where agreeing with the actual content is being declared outside the Reformed Faith.  This is an insane travesty.

THE REFORMED VIEW ACCORDING TO OFFICIAL PRESBYTERIAN DOCTRINE

The contrast between Law and Gospel is often treated as if it were a uniquely Lutheran idea, but Reformed doctrine also uses such a formulation. In fact, the distinction is important to understanding both Covenant theology and the essence of Christian catholicity. Chapter VII of the Westminster Confession of Faith is “Of God’s Covenant with Man.” It points out that originally, before sin, God made a covenant promising eschatological life upon condition of perfect and perpetual obedience. However, once Adam and Eve sinned, God did not destroy them as they deserved. Rather,

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.

This second covenant, the covenant of grace, includes both the period of the Mosaic Law as well as the present age of the Gospel.

V. 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.VI. 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.

The difference between Law and Gospel then is that of promise and fulfillment, type and substance, and partial and completeness. This is not all that controversial nor unique to the Reformed heritage. However, the difference between Law and Gospel is also that between ethnic exclusiveness and cosmopolitan inclusiveness, or between sectionalism and catholicity.

In order to keep in mind how the Westminster Confession differs from Dispensationalism, Lutheranism, and other views, notice that the difference between Law and Gospel is never portrayed as the difference between works and grace–between earning salvation and being given salvation. The Westminster Confession, following Scripture, is quite clear that the Mosaic Administration was a manifestation of the Covenant of Grace. The Law administration given by Moses never expected anyone to perfectly and personally obey God. What good would it do to make such a covenant with sinners? No, God’s covenant with Moses was grace from start to finish. To be sure, there is more grace manifested in the Gospel age (John 1.17), but that doesn’t change the fact that the Mosaic economy was the same “in substance” as the Church age. It is as true of the Law as it is of the Gospel that, “God having, out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer” (Shorter Catechism 20).

Notice also that the distinction between Law and Gospel is, if we insist on making these separate categories, more about what we call ecclesiology rather than soteriology–more about the doctrine of the Church than the doctrine of salvation. Indeed, we don’t find much made of the distinction in the chapters on soteriology. But when we get to Chapter XXV, “Of the Church,” we read:

II. The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.III. Unto this catholic visible church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world: and doth, by his own presence and Spirit, according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto.

The Law-Gospel distinction is explicitly invoked here in the chapter on the doctrine of the Church and we are told that the Gospel, in contrast to the law, means a new catholicity. Now all nations are welcome into covenant and Church. There is no distinction between circumcised and uncircumcised. Notice that the description in Paragraph 3 of the “ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God” refers back to paragraph 6 of the chapter on the covenant where the ordinances of the Church are spelled out.

This ecclesiological definition of the Law-Gospel distinction is also reinforced by the Book of Church Order:

1-3 The members of this visible Church catholic are all those persons in every nation, together with their children, who make profession of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and promise submission to His laws.2-1 The Visible Church before the law, under the law, and now under the Gospel, is one and the same and consists of all those who make profession of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, together with their children.

Here, not only is the ecclesiological context prominant, but the BCO clearly states we are not without laws that we as Christians in the new Covenant are supposed to obey. Having been saved by grace, Christians must trust and obey. The definition of a Church member is two-fold: he professes faith and promises submission to God’s laws.

To sum up then, according to the Presbyterian understanding of the Bible, catholicity is important. It was a hope of the Law which could not be realized until Christ came and ushered in the administration of the Gospel. With the Gospel all nations were and are to be welcomed into the Church on equal footing. Until that time, believing Gentiles were second-class citizens in the Kingdom. Furthermore, having been saved by grace, God’s people are to be obedient and thus continue in the Church “out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.”

What About the Republication of the Covenant of Works?
Since there has been some attempt to reformulate orthodoxy along different lines than that of the Confession, perhaps some more needs to be said. In some cases this new formulation regarding the covenant of works and the covenant of grace has become regarded as so essential that any other belief is outside of Christianity. This would not only fail to be catholic in regard to other denominations (including Lutheranism, for what it is worth) but it would actually expell the majority of the Reformation heritage.

The Westminster Confession and catechisms never say nor imply that the Ten Commandments are a (re)publication of the Covenant of Works. Rather, they clearly and consistently state that the Ten Commandments were part of the administration of the Covenant of Grace.

It is true that the Ten Commandments reveal the moral law, and it is true that Adam and Eve in the Covenant of works were supposed to be perpetually and perfectly obedient to that moral law (which was in no way burdensome or difficult since they were created in knowledge, righteousness and holiness). It is also true that the moral law reveals sin and every sin deserves God’s wrath and curse.

But a republication of the covenant of works would mean that we are under obligation to be perfectly and perpetually obedient in order to inherit glory. That simply is not true. God gave the decalogue to sinners, having saved them from Egypt by his own covenantal mercy and with the promise of continual forgiveness of sins. To claim that one might inherit life by keeping the moral law perfectly is to adopt the pelagian idea that we are not from conception, already guilty and corrupt in God’s site. The Mosaic law is not a pelagian covenant. It presupposes the fall and the grace of God.

Thus again we read in Chapter Seven of the Westminster Confession of Faith:

III. 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.V. 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.

VI. 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.

Both the age of the Mosaic Law and the Gospel age are administrations of the one Covenant of Grace.

Consider also Chapter 19, “Of the Law of God”:

VI. Although true believers be not under the law, as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified, or condemned; yet is it of great use to them, as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life informing them of the will of God, and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts, and lives; so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin, together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of his obedience. It is likewise of use to the regenerate, to restrain their corruptions, in that it forbids sin: and the threatenings of it serve to show what even their sins deserve; and what afflictions, in this life, they may expect for them, although freed from the curse thereof threatened in the law. The promises of it, in like manner, show them God’s approbation of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof: although not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works. So as, a man’s doing good, and refraining from evil, because the law encourageth to the one, and deterreth from the other, is no evidence of his being under the law; and, not under grace.VII. Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel, but do sweetly comply with it; the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely, and cheerfully, which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done.

The reason why believers are not under the moral law “as a covenant of works” is because they are under “the covenant of Grace” just like all the Old Testament believers were. The proper uses of the Law of God “sweetly comply” with the grace of the Gospel.

If one wishes to doubt the meaning of the Westminster Assembly, consider Q&A 101 of the Larger Catechism:

Q101: What is the preface to the ten commandments?
A101: 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 delivers us from our spiritual thraldom; and that therefore we are bound to take him for our God alone, and to keep all his commandments. (emphasis added).

God did not enter into a covenant of works with Israel any more than he does with believers today. On the contrary, he saves us by grace so that we are put in covenant with Him and are thus bound “to keep all his commandments.”

In case this is not clear enough, the conditions for salvation are the same in both the case of Law and Gospel. Both administrations belong not to the covenant of works, but to the covenant of Grace, wherein God “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.” Thus, when describing “What doth God require of us, that we may escape his wrath and curse due to us by reason of the transgression of the law?” (153), the Westminster Larger Catechism has no problem taking the answer from both the New Testament and the Old:

That we may escape the wrath and curse of God due to us by reason of the transgression of the law, he requireth of us repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ [1], and the diligent use of the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation [2].

1. Acts 16:30-31; 20:21; Matt. 3:7-8; Luke 13:3, 5; John 3:16, 18
2. Prov. 2:1-5; 8:33-36

The Westminster Divines are following the mainstream Reformed tradition in explicating faith as including or unfolding in repentance and discipleship. Zacharias Ursinus, the primary author of the Heidelberg Catechism said much the same thing.

There is but one covenant because the principal conditions, which are called the substance of the covenant, are the same before and since the incarnation of Christ; for in each testament God promises to those that repent and believe, the remission of sins; whilst men bind themselves, on the other hand, to exercise faith in God, and to repent of their sins (Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, p. 99).

CONSIDERING SCRIPTURE

The Scriptural case for the Presbyterian position on Law and Gospel would require voluminous argumentation with those representing other positions. Here are a few brief points about three of Paul’s letters. Hopefully, this can provoke thought and clarification.

A Brief Look At Ephesians
It is not at all surpising that the Westminster Confession appeals to Ephesians 2.15-19 to prove that grace is “to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles” in the Gospel administration. Paul there explicitly says that the work of Christ united Jew and Gentile in one new man. He then goes on in chapter 3 to say that newness of the Gospel lies in precisely this fact: that Jew and Gentile are now one people of God by faith alone.

It is true that the Gospel as a report is, as defined by content, the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus (First Corinthians 15.1ff). But the Gospel is also that administration that results from hearing and believing the story. Thus, the Gospel economy, as opposed to the Law economy, is the state of affairs in which “the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel” (3.6).

I have preached on this passage in more detail, but in this brief consideration I will simply point out that the gospel-mystery is the Gospel itself. Paul claims he is a “prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles” (3.1) and goes on to speak of the heretofor unknown mystery made known to him by revelation. He later reiterates these terms in a slightly different order. He asks for prayer that he might boldly proclaim “the mystery of the Gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains (6.28, 29). In Galatians, Paul uses virtually identical language to explain his commission to preach the Gospel, speaking of when God “was pleased to reveal His Son to me” (1.15) as the time when he received both his commission and the content of the Gospel (1.12 in context). Consider also Colossians 1.24-29:

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Obviously the message which brings suffering upon the Apostle Paul is the Gospel. “Him we proclaim” says Paul, referring to Christ. But Christ is proclaimed with special reference to the Gentiles. “Christ in you” should almost certainly be read as “Christ among you Gentiles.” Paul’s Gospel is that Jew and Gentile alike are members of Christ and both are on equal footing in the Gospel administration.

A Brief Look at Galatians
In Augustine’s pastoral opposition to the Donatists, he made it clear that the very nature of the Gospel was at stake and he used Paul’s letter to the Galatians to prove it. He wrote to his friend Generosus:

Since you were pleased to acquaint us with the letter sent to you by a Donatist presbyter, although, with the spirit of a true Catholic, you regarded it with contempt, nevertheless, to aid you in seeking his welfare if his folly be not incurable, we beg you to forward to him the following reply. He wrote that an angel had enjoined him to declare to you the episcopal succession of the Christianity of your town; to you, forsooth, who hold the Christianity not of your own town only, nor of Africa only, but of the whole world, the Christianity which has been published, and is now published to all nations. This proves that they think it a small matter that they themselves are not ashamed of being cut off, and are taking no measures, while they may, to be engrafted anew; they are not content unless they do their utmost to cut others off, and bring them to share their own fate, as withered branches fit for the flames. Wherefore, even if you had yourself been visited by that angel whom he affirms to have appeared to him — a statement which we regard as a cunning fiction; and if the angel had said to you the very words which he, on the warrant of the alleged command, repeated to you — even in that case it would have been your duty to remember the words of the apostle: “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” For to you it was proclaimed by the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, that His “gospel shall be preached unto all nations, and then shall the end come.” To you it has moreover been proclaimed by the writings of the prophets and of the apostles, that the promises were given to Abraham and to his seed, which is Christ? when God said unto him: “In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed.” Having then such promises, if an angel from heaven were to say to thee, “Let go the Christianity of the whole earth, and cling to the faction of Donatus, the episcopal succession of which is set forth in a letter of their bishop in your town,” he ought to be accursed in your estimation; because he would be endeavouring to cut you off from the whole Church, and thrust you into a small party, and make you forfeit your interest in the promises of God.

While Augustine directly quotes Galatians 1.8 and 3.16, the quotation of Genesis 15 is also anchored in Galatians as well: And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” As Augustine understands it, reducing the Church to a small sect within it is a different Gospel because the content of the Gospel preached to Abraham was a promise of redemption to all nations. The Gospel, in a significant sense, simply is the declaration that all nations are to be blessed in Christ.

Defining the Gospel as the blessing going to all nations alike without any nation having a special covenantal privilege corresponds rather precisely to Paul’s statements in Ephesians and Colossians.

This is in fact precisely Paul’s point in Galatians in his contrast between the promise to Abraham versus the Mosaic Law (3.15-18). The promise to Abraham was for a single seed, a single family (c.f. 3.29). But the Law, while necessary because of trangressions, did not allow a single family, but created divisions. The fact that God is one proved that the Law had to be temporary until the one seed could be found in Christ (v. 20; compare Romans 3.29, 30).

For a more comprehensive look at Galatians, Derrick Olliff’s excellent essay (though you may want to read his essay on the Gospel, first). For a brief overview of why attempts to make Galatians support a different sort of Law-Gospel distinction fail to deal with what the letter actually says, take a look at Tim Gallant’s “What Saint Paul Should Have Said.”

A Brief Look at Romans
Paul’s defines his Gospel as a report on the death and resurrection of Jesus (Romans 1.2-4). But he soon branches out to discuss the Gospel as administration,

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek (Romans 1.14-16).He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality (Romans 2.6-11).

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one. He will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.(Romans 3.27-30).

Paul goes on to point out in chapter 4 that Abraham was counted as righteous before God as a God-fearing Gentile rather than as a circumcised Jew,

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” (Romans 4.16, 17a).

While I don’t have the space or time here to write a comprehensive commentary on Romans, it is obvious that Paul considers unity in Christ between believing Jew and believing Gentile to be a hallmark of the Gospel age as opposed to the previous administration. As in Galatians he argues from the nature of God’s promises to Abraham and the oneness of God himself to show that the divisions in the Law must be temporary. God always intended a single covenant family.

Francis Turretin is a leading exponent of classical Reformed orthodoxy in the latter part of the seventeenth century. In answer to the question whether faith alone justifies, Turretin observes: “The question is not whether solitary faith [fides solitaria], that is, separated from the other virtues, justifies, which we grant could not easily be the case since it is not even true and living faith; but whether it alone concurs to the act of justification, which we assert: as the eye alone sees, but not when torn out of the body. Thus the particle alone does not modify the subject but the predicate, that is, faith alone does not justify, but only faith justifies; the coexistence of love with faith in him who is justified is not denied, but its coefficiency or co-operation in justification [Ita particula sola non determinat subjectum, sed praedicatum, id est, sola fides non justficat, sed fides justificat sola: non negatur coextistentia charitatis in eo qui justificatur, sed coefficientia vel cooperatio in justificatione].

Turretin is saying that “alone” must not be understood as an adjective modifying “faith” so that justifying faith would have to be viewed as “solitary,” or in isolation from its working or from its manifestation in obedience to Christ. Rather, “alone” is to be understood adverbially as pointing to the distinctive role played by faith in relation to the other gifts and graces with which it is invariably associated. Only faith justifies. Only faith to receive, accept, and rest upon Christ for justification and salvation from eternal condemnation. This is what Turretin means when he says that faith alone concurs to the act of justification.

But this faith which alone concurs to the act of justification is not, in fact, alone. It is not solitary. A solitary faith is not a true and living faith and therefore cannot be a justifying faith. Turretin does not deny the coexistence of love with faith; for faith without love would be a dead faith just as love without faith would be a dead work. But he does deny the coefficiency of love with faith in justification. Turretin is here insisting that although justifying faith must be true and living – otherwise it could not justify – the ground or cause of justification is in no sense to be found in the believer himself. The ground and cause of justification is Jesus Christ and his righteousness. To be justified one must abandon all personal resources and lean wholly upon Christ. This is what is done in faith. Faith is wholehearted trust in Christ and by this faith the believer receives, accepts, and rests upon the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ alone for justification.

The analogy of the eye which Turretin uses is one that is frequently found in Reformed authors to accent the distinctive office of faith in relation to justification while preserving what must be said about the vitality of this faith. The eye alone sees. The ear or the nose or the arm do not see. There is no other instrument of vision but the eye alone. However, there is no such thing as a seeing eye in isolation from the body. The eye sees only as it is organically joined to the body. Similarly, justification is by faith alone, but a faith, which is alone, does not justify. This is the teaching of James and Paul and it has been characteristic of Reformed theology.

Thus spake Norman Shepherd. Read the rest here.

Justification is God’s act.  It is a declared verdict.

So how can it be silent?  How can it be “invisible” or produce an “invisible” company? (The Westminster Confession makes no such claim, but I’m addressing popular calvinism).

There are sources of explanation, but I’m not sure which are best to use or how they can combine.

Jesus’ resurrection was a declared verdict (the word “vindicated” should be translated as “justified”)

Peter says the giving of the Spirit to the Gentiles was God’s “testimony” or “witness.”  This courtroom language could indicate the giving of the Spirit is God’s declaration that those to whom He has bestowed His Spirit are officially righteous in his sight.  This would seem to require pentecost-like miracles, but Peter hones in on faith as the ultimate sign. So could the gift of faith by which one is justified also be the declaration that one is righteous?

If one puts a couple of passages together, it is possible that the confession, “Jesus is Lord” is a sign from God one is justified… except that Paul seems to be making a distinction between heart and tongue corresponding to justification and salvation. Not sure what to do about that.

Here are the two passages:

You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

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. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

One might note that Jesus’ baptism involved a literal declared verdict (voice from heaven and the sending of the Spirit in the form of a dove).  This combines adoption and justification (both the giving of new legal status) and relates the sign of baptism.

I could dredge up some other possibilities, maybe.  But I don’t have a firm position to enunciate or defend.  I am posting this to register my complaint that no one seems to feel any burden to explain how a declared verdict can be silent.  This ought to be an object of scrutiny.  The only person I know who has raised the issue is Dr. Peter Leithart.

What TE Rayburn is saying amounts to this: the essentials of the Westminster Standards correspond to the broader Reformed community. This would correspond roughly to a “system subscription” view of the Westminster Standards, which, in my mind, creates a standard within the standards. It amounts to a limitation of the essentials of the system to an indeterminate number of doctrinal points, and then saying that that is the Reformed faith. I have dealt with various views of subscription here. The one point I wish to reiterate here is that the Federal Vision debate is NOT about strict subscription! My position is not strict subscription. But people do not understand what good faith subscription actually is. Good faith subscription means that candidates declare their differences with the confession, which are then ruled on by the Presbytery in accordance with the new RAO requirements, and then the Presbytery (after due examination) takes on good faith that the candidate agrees with everything else in the standards. The reason this is important is that some may believe that the particular points controverted are non-essential points to the system.

However, if one does not hold to a system, or loose subscription, then it is quite possible to belong to the “broader Reformed community” and yet hold views that are contrary to the system of doctrine in essential points. For instance, it could easily be argued that Reformed Baptists be included in the “broader Reformed community,” if one defines “Reformed” not as confessionally Reformed, but as soteriologically Reformed. And yet, what Presbytery would ordain a Reformed Baptist? They are part of the “broader Reformed community” and yet they hold views which strike at the essentials of the system of doctrine, particularly on the issues of covenant, church, and baptism. We need here to be reminded of the vows that we take as office-bearers in the church. We vow that we believe that the Westminster Confession is the system of doctrine taught in Holy Scripture. We do not take a vow that states: “I believe that the Westminster Standards contain the system (or worse, a system) of doctrine taught in Holy Scripture.” This would be a Barthian confessionalism. These vows mean that any differences, however small, need to be taken very seriously by Presbyteries.

So now the entire PCA is being accused of Barthianism.  Here is the actual vow:

Do you sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms of this Church, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures; and do you further promise that if at any time you find yourself out of accord with any of the fundamentals of this system of doctrine, you will on your own initiative, make known to your Presbytery the change which has taken place in your views since the assumption of this ordination vow?

I’m trying to cut back on what I say about the ongoing attack on ministers of the Gospel by people in the PCA who understand neither theology nor the Bible.  But occasionally they do provide insight that is worth recording, not because we didn’t know it was true, but because they are innocent enough to condemn themselves out of their own mouths.

An Answer to TE Rayburn, pa..

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

And the people of Nineveh believed God. So they all put their affairs into order and prepared for their death in little more than a month.

Oops.

I was quoting from Jonah 3 until that last sentence.  They believed God and immediately tried to escape the fate God had told them through Jonah that he would bring about.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

So the prophet says they will pe rish and they decide it might not happen?  Why is this characterized as believing God?  And yet:

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

Awhile back I mentioned my brother’s amazing essay “Bobsled sovereignty.” I have just run into another brilliant blog entry that approaches the same point in a different way: God is a haggler. Read the whole thing to the end.  You won’t be sorry.

It strikes me that the cultural assumptions in the practice of haggling might have ramifications.  As I tried to ask in my fictional story, when Jesus says “My child your sins are forgiven you.” Is he making and giving a gift that the recipient cannot fail to benefit from eternally?  Did the paralytic have a personal revelation that he was elect?  Or could he refuse the offer by later rejecting the Faith?

From Steve Wedgeworth:

Wright states:

The natural world, in this case, would be autonomous or free of God’s law, so that people could make their own rules as they go about their lives and work.  Moreover, this talk of spiritual life and Luthardt’s general emphasis on morality seem to demonstrate charges that Luthardt reduced Christianity to a matter of mentality or Gesinnung, to the interior of the Christian.  This would clearly be contrary to Luther’s teaching.

(21)

Wright then goes on to show that this is actually an inaccurate reading of Luthardt.  Due to the recent misuse of traditional terms like “natural law” and “reason,” readers are easily confused when they read Luthardt.  According to Wright, “Luthardt declared that even though these institutions were under reason, they ‘are not really profane, but God’s endowment, order, and will, and God is present in the same’” (22).  Wright adds, “The natural law, which humankind knows through reason, was God-ordained too.”

So while many modern readers might be tempted to lay the blame of the modern “two-kingdoms” view on Luthardt, this is actually not the case.  Of course, this is not to say that Luthardt plays no role in the development of the modern doctrine.  In fact, Wright goes on to show that Luthardt was influential on the next major thinker in this line of thought, Ernst Troeltsch.

Wright identifies Troeltsch as the primary culprit for the wide-spread misreading of Luther’s position on the two kingdoms.  Wright states:

In his Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, Troeltsch argued that, with his teaching about the two kingdoms, Luther had promoted a dual morality for Christians; that is, one Christian moral law over against a worldly moral code under autonomous reason.  According to Troeltsch, in Luther’s teaching, the Decalogue and the natural law were opposed to one other.

(26)

Wright goes on to say:

Troeltsch spoke of the “autonomy of the various zones of value” (Wertgebiete).  Hence, many scholars believe that he was responsible for promoting the idea that ethical values develop out of unique historical experiences; that is, the are autonomously determined in their own spheres (the economic sphere, for example).  Of course, this was most certainly not a view presented by Luther in the sixteenth-century.

(26)

Wright finds that Troeltsch promotes a Machiavellian Luther.  He does not go so far as to sanction an immoral state, and Troeltsch also noted that “reason” and “natural law” are divine institutions.  Nevertheless, Wright believes that Troeltsch “had opened a door that would be difficult to close” (28).  Wright sees the misreadings of Luther that will appear in the works of Weber and Niebuhr both directly stemming from Troeltsch.  Indeed, it would be Niebuhr’s famous Christ and Culture that most widely promoted this new misreading of Luther’s view.

Read the whole thing at Steve Wedgeworth’s blog entry.

Lots of conservative Protestants want to answer “no” to this question.

The problem with this position is that conservative Protestants are bound to believe what the Bible teaches. And the Bible says inconvenient things, like “baptism now saves you” (1 Peter 3.21), or “all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3.27, 28), or “by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free” (1 Corinthians 12.13), or “all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death… Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6.3, 4), or “in Christ you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead” (Colossians 3.11, 12).

Many people have decided that since they know the Bible could not possibly be saying such things about baptism, the baptism being referred to must be a dry “spiritual” baptism, not water baptism.

But again there are some inconvenient statements in the Bible. For example, in the book of Acts in the first sermon of the Church, Peter gives this altar call: “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2.38). Here, there is no question that normal water baptism is intended, because the text goes on to record that three thousand were baptized that day in response to Peter’s words. Yet Peter’s statements about baptism are quite similar to those in the New Testament Epistles quoted above. On what basis do we claim that the Epistles must not be speaking of water baptism?

We can be sure, of course, that baptism does not absolutely guarantee that a person will inherit glory and escape condemnation at the resurrection. The Apostle Paul says amazing things about baptism in chapter 12 of his first letter to the Corinthians, but he warns them earlier that baptism does not mean they will escape the wrath of Jesus if they worship other gods (1 Corinthians 10.1-12). Likewise, Acts tells us of a man named Simon who was baptized but then manifested an unbelieving heart (Acts 8.9-24). Likewise, when the Apostle Peter writes, “baptism now saves you” he compares baptism to the Noah and his family brought to safety through the flood on the Ark. Yet Ham apostatized and rebelled as both Peter and his readers must have known.

So what are we to think of baptism?

If we try to solve this puzzle without considering anything besides the ritual itself, I don’t think a solution is available. However, what if we consider the fact that Jesus established a new society, His Church? The Church is “the household of God” (1 Timothy 3.15; 1 Peter 4.17). She is the Bride of Christ (Ephesians 5.32) and the mother of all believers (Galatians 4.26). She is a corporate priesthood and royal dynasty (1 Peter 2.5, 9; Revelation 1.6). The Church has been given Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1.22, 23) with all his benefits and gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor 12.4ff).

Here we have an angle that allows baptism to be something incredibly important and yet avoids superstition. Baptism is how one enters the Church. If the Church is the family of God (1 Timothy 3.15; 1 Peter 4.17) and the mother of all believers (Galatians 4.26), and if baptism is how one is admitted into the Church (1 Corinthians 12.13), then naturally, baptism would be the normal way one is adopted into God’s family as one of his children (Galatians 3.26, 27).

While members of the Church are promised forgiveness, the Spirit, and many other benefits, the Bible does not say that all members of the Church will take advantage of these great things. Sadly, some do not persevere in what they have been given. One is justified by faith, after all–a persevering faith (Hebrews 10.35-39). But the fact that baptism and membership among God’s people does not guarantee one will inherit eternal life, does not mean that we should disregard it as of no significance.

The point here is that it is easier to trust Christ to save us and bring us to the resurrection in glory if one is confident that one has been entrusted to Christ. The Church is Jesus’ special trust and we receive in baptism God’s promise that we belong to him and he to us. We must respond to this in faith by following Christ all our days.

No one should presume on his baptism as a “free pass” into heaven, but neither should anyone despise his baptism in unbelief.

The instinctive “Arminian” response to the idea that God controls all things (“all his creatures and all their actions”) is that it destroys moral accountability.  Unless I have free will I cannot be held responsible for what I do.  “Compatibilism” is ruled impossible.  Either God plans all things and we are not accountable to Him, or else we are morally responsible and God does not plan and bring about all things that happen.

So what do we say to this?

I think we need to argue that no human being can be held accountable to God if God is not control of history in an exhaustive way.

My argument is as follows: One: We are accountable to God because he made us. Two: We are products of historical circumstances brought about in part through human decisions. Three: Therefore, the human decisions of history must be God’s instruments to bring about people or else there is no moral accountability to God.

To get more specific, I teach my four children that God made them.  But Jennifer and I did the deeds that produced these four (as well as the preceding courtship and marriage).  These were spontaneous and real decisions, not impulses directed from outside of us.  We made choices as moral agents.  And yet this had to be under God’s control.  Otherwise, I can’t teach my children that God really made them. I would have to say that God contributed to their existence.

If God was not in control of human history (including human decisions) then God’s status would be akin to that of space aliens bringing human life to planet earth.  We might feel grateful to the aliens if that were true, but no individual would accept that he or she was accountable to them for every thought, word, and deed.

Was Solomon supposed to be grateful that God made him?  Yes! So what does that tell us about the relationship between God and human sin in history?