Book Review, "The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism"

    This book, edited by Gregg Strawbridge, is a collection of 15 essays and an introductory piece by 16 authors, presumably invited by Dr. Strawbridge to participate in this project, as an ongoing part of his campaign on behalf of the titular baptism of children into the covenant in Christ's blood.  He was the general editor of a second work that I hope to include in my series of reviews of work on Covenant theology, which similarly arranges pieces in favor of paedocommunion.
 
   Unlike that work, however, which appears to be largely a collaboration between various men affiliated in one sense or another with the "Federal Vision movement" (as befits it's thesis), "Covenantal Infant Baptism" (hereafter CIB) was put together by a veritable who's who of the Reformed and Presbyterian community, representing various denominations, hermeneutical leanings, seminaries, churches and States of the Union.  Most notably perhaps, this panoply includes Dr. Strawbridge, two other CREC ministers (Jeffrey Niell and Douglas Wilson), and Peter Leithart, but also includes men who have operated in direct contradiction to the positions of the FV movement considered as a general "idea", notably Cornelis Venema and Joseph Pipa.  While these men therefore have distinct differences on issues like confessional subscription, eschatology, paedocommunion and it's attendant ecclesiological issues, and the nature of the distinction between the Covenants of Grace and Works, they have placed diverse hands on a single plow to uphold the titular case: namely that the children of at least one believing parent are part of the Covenant of Grace, and therefore worthy of the sign of that covenant, water baptism.  Some of the more intriguing aspects of the book, however, come from the fact that not all the hands appear to be directing the plow to the same furrow even on the issue from which they supposedly derive unity.  This blog will address this issue more in the future, but for now, I note in passing that both the inclusion of Dr. Leithart in the project, and the fact that many of the signatories of the "joint statement on Federal Vision" believe that children are not in the covenant intrinsically, but by virtue of water baptism, may indicate that where the future of Presbyterian sacramentalism is concerned, "the center cannot hold".

   After the even-handed introduction by Dr. Strawbridge, the book is loosely organized into "topics" or rather, general areas of interest to the defender of covenant baptism.  Loosely, these are: the origin and nature of baptism, the oikos (household) function of baptism, the biblio-linguistic basis for the purpose and mode of baptism, baptism in covenant theology, baptism and baptismal polemics in history, and "theology of children".  Some of these areas will be more interesting to those reading the book in order to "give an answer", while others are more items of general interest on the topic.

   The two essays on the "oikos formula", presented by Joel Beeke, Ray Lanning, and Johnathan Watt, demonstrate adequately the arguments from covenant continuity (e.g., that children were put into the substance of the Covenant of Grace in Abraham's day, and there is no explicit biblical warrant to put them out) and the federal nature of baptism (in juxtaposition to our modern individualistic mindset).  However, in my opinion they fail to adequately address some of the calls for consistency offered by credobapists, particularly to some of paedobaptists who make the family model the hinge turning the whole issue.*  For example, the issue of the baptism, or otherwise, of unbelieving spouses is left almost untouched throughout the whole volume.

   While Mark Ross presents an intriguing look at the exegetical foundation for Westminster's confirmation of baptism as a "sign and seal", the subsequent essay on mode by Joseph Pipa wanders into the woods in several places.  Although the linguistic case for baptism by pouring is adequately expounded, equal time is not given to the validity of immersion.  The notion of pouring or sprinkling as adequate only for young children, or for adults also is left untouched, and Pipa presents the rather interesting idea that regenerate Christians, who are "dead to sin", have only one nature, which is not a sin nature. (Kindle location 1350) While Pipa affirms that we are "not sinless", he fails to address Paul's notion of "the old man's" abiding presence within himself and that "what he does he hates", or to give a theology of "the flesh" that accounts for indwelling sin, if man no longer has a sin nature.  While this is not the subject of the book, or even Pipa's essay, it created an undue distraction from the primary thesis that baptism is a sign and symbol of regeneration, which this blogger grants.

   The concluding essays of the book, by Douglas Wilson and R.C. Sproul, Jr. are macro-level analyses of the "family church" which broaden and personalize the application of the oikos formula and the one-substance, multiple administrations (OSMA) position on the covenants.  The specific goal of the two is to expose inconsistencies in the family theology of credobaptist heads of household, while presenting an understanding of covenant baptism that transcends the categories of both ex opere operato sacramentalism and the concept of the "wet baby dedication".  They accomplish this task with Wilson's signature wit and Sproul's typical lack of sensitivity to weasel-words, as well as with a great deal of love for their "opponents" and a pastoral mindset throughout.  One can only hope the aftermath of the revelation of Sproul's fall regarding the Ashley Madison scandal will lead to true and repentant restoration for him, as such sin issues cloud exemplary work in the realm of comparative theology.

   In contrast, the low point of the book for me was rather strange little piece on the history of paedobaptism in the church by Peter Leithart.  I approached his contribution to the work with some trepidation given his prior statements (recorded in numerous other works) on sacramentology, and I could not help feeling that it was only with the greatest reluctance that Dr. Leithart refrained from inserting views into the piece that would have met with disagreement, if not horror on the part of some of the other contributors.  Specifically, his assertion that "the most serious threat to paedobaptism is posed...by compromised paedobaptists, who shrink from the full implications of their position and fail to embody their theology in practice" (2815), leads me to wonder, given the greater context of Leithart's systematics, what exactly he believes the "full implications" of the position in question are.  Additionally, if one is expecting a rousing defense of the historicity of paedobaptism, particularly in the early church, one will find neither that defense, nor the conviction that Dr. Leithart is especially concerned to provide it.

   By far the most important part of the book, to my mind, is located appropriately near the middle: namely, the defenses of the OSMA position, and it's corollary parallel between circumcision and baptism.  This falls to four chapters by Jeff Niell, Richard Pratt, Randy Booth, and Cornelis Venema.  The first two deal with the absolutely vital issue of exegesis, counter-exegesis, and hermeneutics of Hebrews 8:8-13 and it's citation of Jeremiah 31:31-34, which as I have stated elsewhere in "Notes", has become a key passage, perhaps the chair passage for the confessional, covenantal credobaptist position.  Thankfully, both Niell and Booth take special care to validate and address the concerns of those holding that view, although even here, the diversity (and perhaps in our present day, fluidity) of the covenant baptist perspective shines through, in that the two offer what could be viewed as contrasting viewpoints of the same passage. 

   In what may be the most important essay in the book, Niell goes through things that are not new in the new covenant that are presented in the Hebrews 8 passage so as to describe things that the passage cannot be describing in the fulfillment of the covenant in Christ's blood.  These include internalization of religion (including the writing of the law "on the heart" of man), divine initiative in confirmation of the covenant, personal relationship between God and the covenant members, knowledge of the Lord (surely regenerate people in the post-Sinaitic administration possessed this in some form) and Divine mercy proffered to men (without which there could be no regenerate persons in the first place).  Niell then goes on to lay out an argument based both on linguistic analysis of the phrases "from the least to the greatest" and "know the Lord", and the context of Hebrews generally (which is predominantly about leaving behind the types and shadows and pressing on into the fulfillment, which is in Christ, a massive epistolary theme of the New Testament generally.)  Niell concludes that "knowing the Lord, from the least to the greatest" is first and foremost about the abolition of the old priesthood and it's host of fallible human intermediaries, and the expanded egalitarianism in the transmission of the infallible mediation of Christ to the universal priesthood of the believer. (1660)  Additionally, he advances the case that the "law written on the heart" in fulfillment of Jeremiah is the ceremonial law, which the context of Hebrews establishes as being fulfilled in Christ and no longer obligatory for the Christian. (1597)  Space does not permit going into Niell's arguments in exhaustive detail, but it would suffice to say that I highly recommend this essay in particular to anyone currently wrestling with the issue of baptism, or study of covenant administration generally.  The essay's (seemingly) exhaustive treatment of what is not new about the New Covenant is particularly helpful, even outside the immediate subject of the book, as systems which do not hold the OSMA formula can often hold deep misunderstandings about the role of Old Testament saints before God.

   The difficulty with taking in Pratt's essay on the heels of Niell's, is that Pratt may appear, at first glance, to be accepting the credobaptist assumptions about the New Covenant, including the idea that "no man will teach his neighbor, and no man his brother, saying 'know the Lord'" means that all members of the covenant are regenerate.  However, Pratt is, on a close reading, bringing up something I addressed in my prior review of Gary Long's work on NCT: that there are two parallel elements cooexisting in Hebrews 8 that make it untenable as the "chair passage" for the Reformed Baptist understanding of the New Covenant: namely, that there are elements of the promise therein that are only for the elect (which are fulfilled in the live of every believer), but that an eschatological element remains to the covenant in Christ's blood that makes parts of the promise yet-unfulfilled.  Should one remain unconvinced, for example, by Niell's argument that the context of Hebrews dictates that chapter 8 deals predominantly with the abrogation/fulfillment of the ceremonial law, the other facets of the promise are encapsulated in the "already/not yet" hermeneutic skillfully expanded upon by Pratt.  The important thing to note here is that these two heremenutical principles are not mutually exclusive.  While the harmonization was not explicit to CIB, one must remember that the fulfillment of the ceremonial law is a promise presently realized for the whole covenant community (the Church visible) while the present reality of salvation in the blood of Christ and perfect knowledge of the Lord is only a present reality for the elect (the Church invisible) but that that reality has a teleological goal of expansion that adheres to the already/not yet advance of the Kingdom.  This is particularly manifest when we draw parallels to other covenant prophecies of the OT prophets, for example, the idea of the knowledge of the Lord covering the earth as the water covers the sea (Is. 11:9, Hk. 2:14).  This is a reason that I believe that covenant baptism walks hand-in-hand with a postmillenial eschatology; but that is a subject for another post.

   The latter half of the four essays on baptism as present within OSMA present more "macro-level" analysis of the historical/Westminsterian justification for CIB, which transitions smoothly into the historical essays proper.  I pause here only to note in passing that the post-"Klinean republication" view of Michael Horton's "Covenant Theology" comes under skillful fire from Cornelis Venema, particularly in Horton's distinction of the Sinaitic Covenant (including the publication of the moral law) as a "works-covenant" and the Abrahamic Covenant as purely a "Royal Grant" (e.g., one without expectations of, or promised sanctions on, the human "signatories" of the covenant).  The conditional nature of the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 17 is exposited, and Venema's work here provides material for a possible review of Horton on "Notes".  Part of my concern there (totally aside from the form-critical basis of Klinean republication generally) revolves around the fact that this disjunction in nature between the "absolute" Abrahamic and the "conditional" Sinaitic may prove too much, in that lack of conditions and sanctions for the overarching basis of the one Covenant of Grace could be consistently shown to undermine the traditional basis for CIB.  However, expanding on that score will have to wait for future entries.

   It may be premature, given the wealth of apologetic literature from both sides on the baptism issue, to label "CIB" the relevant work on the subject, but it cannot be denied that a treasure-trove of argumentation and relevant background to the topic is present here.  For those with a vested interest in the subject material, you owe it to yourself to pick it up.  Those already convinced prior to reading the work may find it superfluous, but on top of the concentration of diverse arguments and writing styles in one approachable work, it can give insight into the future if interior debate in the Presbyterian and Reformed community on sacramentology.  For dedicated students of both baptismal persuasions, particularly Reformed ones, this is as close to a "must read" as I can get.

5/5

In Christ,

~JS

*For an example of paedobaptist presentation under fire that I believe may rely too heavily on the oikos formula, see this debate between Dr. James White (a classic, and published, adherent to Hebrews 8 as "chair passage"), and Dr. Bill Shisko.

Of Standards and Sabbaths, or "Why the OPC doesn't like me"

"VII. As it is of the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in his Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him: which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord's Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath.
VIII. This Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their wordly employments and recreations; but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy."~ WCF XXI:7-8

 "Now it happened that He went through the grain fields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain.  And the Pharisees said to Him, 'Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?' But He said to them, 'Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him:  how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him?^'  And He said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.  Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”~Mark 2:23-28"


103.  "What does God require in the fourth commandment?"
"In the first place, God wills that the ministry of the Gospel and schools be maintained, and that I, especially on the day of rest, diligently attend church to learn the Word of God, to use the holy sacraments, to call publicly upon the Lord, and to give Christian alms. In the second place, that all the days of my life I rest from my evil works, allow the Lord to work in me by His Spirit, and thus begin in this life the everlasting Sabbath."~Heidelberg Cathechism, Lord's Day 38, question 103.

   As prior posts here should be sufficient to demonstrate, the proprietor of this blog is pro-confessional.  Specifically, yours truly holds the confessions of the reformation to be largely representative of the holistic teaching of Scripture.  Moreover, while this is decidedly a blog promoting sola scriptura, e.g., the idea that Holy Scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice for the Christian believer, it is diametrically opposed to the more recent practice of "solo scriptura", otherwise known as "me and my Bible under a tree".  Radical egalitarianism, willful ignorance of history or its relevance to our day, and rejection of (fallible) church authority have been absent from the honor roll here, and will remain absent.  However, all of these are one side of a dual error.

   Phillip Schaff, in the opening of his work on the creeds of Christendom, wrote that elevation of creeds and confessions to an unhealthy or imbalanced level of exaltation was "fundamentally Romanizing...[and] a species of idolatry."  I believe creeds, confessions and doctrinal statements to be vital to the life of the local church and even the individual believer, and would adhere to the notion that they function as hermeneutical guidelines and teaching tools.  However, I do not believe in binding the consciences of men by demanding that laymen in a given local church setting should be expecting to cling in slavish obedience to a specific confession or catechism.  (The issue becomes more complex for pastors in denominations where they are expected to uphold a symbol verbatim, which is why I doubt the possibility of my becoming a minister in say, the OPC).  Still less do I feel that such laymen should be subjected to the yoke of a man, or set of men's, interpretation of that standard.  This post is to demonstrate a specific area where I feel that this unjust binding is taking place, not to besmirch the Christianity of venerable authors of confessional standards, but to demonstrate the primacy and importance of a true and vibrant doctrine of sola scriptura (with it's attendant healthy skepticism) in the everyday life of the church.

   Above I have listed three texts I want to briefly examine, all of them touching on the nature and function of the Sabbath for Christians in the covenant in Christ's blood.  This is a broad issue, and it is beyond the scope of one post to go into each of the relevant substrata addressed in the passages above.  For the purposes of this post, I will be assuming the following: A) the "traditional", which is to say Westminsterian, understanding of the threefold division of the law (which has been addressed here before, and will be again).  B) That at least some elements of the covenant administration of the Sabbath have changed, including the shift from Saturday to Sunday (this is not an Adventist-apologetics post, although there is creative space here for one in the future).  C) That the covenant in Christ's blood may alter, shift or abolish whole elements of the covenant of grace present before the earthly ministry of Christ, but that explicit Scriptural revelation is necessary to demonstrate that such has taken place.

   Beginning with WCF XXI, there is much about the paragraph to like.  I concur with the perpetuity of at least some elements of the Sabbath command, bound up as it is with the eternality and immutability of the Decalogue, which is all classic threefold division stuff.  As I said, I concur with the change of day, insofar as that goes in it's limited confessional treatment.  However, I pause to ask how many people have ever, for "a whole day", rested from their works, words and thoughts (!) about worldly employments and recreations.  It must be pointed out that such passages as Christ's healing miracles on the Sabbath are seemingly, at least in some vague way, exegetically headed off at the pass with the passage about "works of necessity and mercy".  However, there are, to me, two issues outstanding.  1) Given the seriousness of the moral law, and the historical seriousness of Sabbath-breaking in the OT (see for example Numbers 15:32-36), can we safely draw the specificity and rigor of the exact wording of the confession from Scripture?  2) Does the Bible bear out the "one-to-one equivalence" of the Christian Sabbath to that of the OT that is implied in the language of the WCF?

   The entire address of the Sabbath in the Decalogue itself comprises three primary elements: 1) the general command to remember to keep the day holy/set apart.  2)The specific command to do all labor six days and do no labor on the seventh.  3) The grounds for the command, that is that the Sabbath is patterned after God's activities in creation, and thereby tied to the creature/Creator relationship itself.  This third point is a primary basis for asserting the perpetuity of at least the essence of the Sabbath command, since the grounds for the command, like the rest of the moral law, transcends covenant administration and is linked to God's rights over creation generally (for a parallel, note the condemnation and penalogy regarding murder, and the grounds thereof, in God's pronouncing sentence over Cain).

   Note both what is present and what is absent, relative to WCF XXI.  First, working six days is issued in the imperative and without distinction from the rest of the command, yet the strictest of Presbyterian Sabbatarians have not typically said that Christians must be gainfully employed six days out of the year.  True, there is room for saying that the general purpose of the command is to affix a minimum portion of rest rather than an exact amount of work, but given that it is vital to the Westminster Sabbatarian position that the administration of the commandment change only in the day, this befits a non-WCF hermeneutic better than one in keeping with the Divines.  This will be important in our exposition of Jesus in Mark 2 in a moment.  Secondly, nothing about thoughts or words is mentioned in the commandment, nor in fact are thoughts or words mentioned in any Sabbath command in the remainder of the OT.  Third, and in a similar vein, there is no mention of "recreation", even that of the "worldly" variety in any of the Sabbath commands of either testament.  Regarding these latter two points, rigorous Sabbatarians could appeal to the internal admonishment to keep the day holy or set apart, but when considering the specificity of the claims made by the confession, a mere argument from silence will not do.  When the Decalogue does not command it, the sheer volume of expectation placed on Sabbath-keeping in the original confessional language, given the gravity of the commandment, may appear to be tying on heavy burdens in the sense of Matthew 23:4.  But to merely demonstrate the specific confessional language does not occur in the OT does not fit a sufficient burden of proof.  Especially in light of the traditional commitment of the people of God to keeping Sabbath, what we require is specific New Testament language indicating that the covenant in Christ's blood does not require abstinence from recreation, "worldly" words and works, or (in the case of some who teach on a minimal alteration of administration on this point) overmuch physical exertion.  It is that NT proof that I set forward to provide.

   From the above exchange in Mark 2 between Christ and the Pharisees, we can glean several important Truths about the Sabbath and Sabbath-keeping.  Firstly, while Christ is making one of his numerous claims to the lineage and throne of David here, he is also making application that extends beyond the isolated incident at hand and encompasses more than just heads of grain, and more people than merely himself or his apostles.  If the greatest king of Israel had committed what would have been perceived by the Pharisees as a greater Sabbath violation, in a more rigorous time of application of the commandment, we can reason from the lesser to the greater.  The Pharisees, who commanded meticulous rule-following governing every aspect of life on the Sabbath (a trend which one can witness today in rabbinic Judaism), would not have accepted the apostles actions here as being an act of necessity or mercy.  This holds true even on the level of David's requisition of the showbread or of Jesus' healing miracles (although in their blindness, they opposed all three.)  It is important to recognize in this that Jesus kept the moral law perfectly, and was not advocating dishonoring the Sabbath, but was instead showing no regard for the "rule-following" pattern advocated by the scribes and Pharisees.  Christ also circumvents the accumulated tradition surrounding the Sabbath and returns to the creature/Creator interaction nature of the commandment I previously alluded to.  If, in fact, the Sabbath is made for man and not the reverse, than Sabbath-keeping, while important to honor God's law, is not about formalism or lists of don'ts, but at least partially about rest for man, even if that doesn't always look like what is expected.  Thirdly, and perhaps most crucially, as True God and True Man, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, and He dictates what it will look like.  This teaching, by itself, does not demonstrate a specific doctrine of the Sabbath in the New Covenant, but it does leave the door open to a change in understanding of it, perhaps even a radical one.  Apostolic Christianity would provide additional epistolary evidence for just such a shift in understanding.

   In Colossians 2:16-17, Paul writes "So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths,  which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ."  This passage is key to the issue, for obvious reasons, and interpretations exist along a spectrum ranging from the idea that it supports the total abrogation of the Sabbath command (reflected in NCT and to a certain extent in the well-known work by DA Carson, "From Sabbath to Lord's Day") to the full Sabbatarian perspective.  Dr. Joseph Pipa, in the wonderful little book "Perspectives on the Sabbath", hypothesizes that only "ceremonial" sabbaths, or even non-christian religious festivals are in view, but this ignores the narrative flow of Colossians 2 in the overall context of Pauline theology.  Paul has just concluded admonishing the audience of his letter not to abide by dietary restrictions pressed on them by the proto-gnostics they were dealing with at Colossae, which ties into his statements regarding no longer keeping ceremonial food laws.  This comes on the heels of references to the "circumcision done without hands",(vs. 11) analogous to baptism and the new birth in regeneration, which is another reference to the ceremonial code's abrogation in Christ.  Bolting all of this together is the assertion that "the requirements which were against us" have been nailed to the cross. (vs. 14)  While there were clearly some pagan or Hellenized influences at work in the heresy at Collossae, all of these references show close ties to the kinds of language Paul used with the potential victims of the Judaizers at Galatia.  Sabbaths, festivals, food laws and other ceremonial, external religious observances have been swallowed up in the "substance, which is Christ".

   Some might point out that this lays the framework for the NCT position of the abrogation of the Sabbath, but as mentioned above, the eternality of the Decalogue and the links in both testaments between the Sabbath rest and the creative decree make this untenable.  However, an analogy can be drawn between the administration of the Sabbath being altered for Christians, in much more than in a mere change in the day of observance, and the change of administration in circumcision, which has been subsumed in the "circumcision done without hands" and its covenant sign, infant baptism.  For Pipa or other WCF Sabbatarians, denial of this analogy would undercut one of the major lynchpins of Reformed paedobaptist practice!  While Jesus never abrogates the Sabbath, or recommends its violation, in the gospels, whereas circumcision as a ceremonial practice was done away with by Paul, there is room in the passages we have explored for a "middle way", in which the essence of the Sabbath command is observed without a set list of forbidden "thoughts, words and works" as in the WCF.  (It is worth mentioning in passing that there is great disagreement within the WCF camp as to what exactly such a list would constitute.)  

   Such a "middle way" may be alluded to in Hebrews 4:1-9, in which the "rest" in which the elect enter into in passing from death into life, the "rest" which Christ enters into in ascending to the right hand of the Father, the "rest" of passing from the wilderness into Canaan, and the Sabbath rest of the Decalogue are switched between rapidly so as to be functionally equated by the author of Hebrews.  The "rest" that remains for the people of God in verse 9 is specifically said to be a "sabbatismos".  With this passage taken with the others we have discussed, I would suggest that the date of the Sabbath day of rest has in fact, changed, but in that Christ Himself is the Rest for His people, I believe that the language of the WCF regarding total abstinence from worldly affairs on a specific day of the week is as extraneous as that which Colossians 2 calls "the appearance of wisdom". 

   If the Westminster Standards fall short in having too narrow and fixed a definition of the Christian Sabbath, I feel that the 103rd question of the Heidelberg Catechism above demonstrates a more balanced view.  The answer encapsulates two key portions of Scripture's teaching.  Firstly, the maintenance of the Lord's Day as holy through the learning of the Word and the use of the sacraments, and secondly, the acknowledgment of Christ as our rest through turning from evil works and preparing for the consummation of that rest, not one day out of seven, but "all the days of our lives".  To my mind this says enough without saying too much (and perhaps rescues this blog from the reputation of "confession-bashing").  It is worth pointing out that each section of the Heidelberg is named after a "Lord's Day" of the year, and that the term "Sabbath" is predominantly applied only in Lord's Day 38, to our eternal Sabbath, which is in our union with Christ.

   Hopefully this material will be useful to people who have questions about the Sabbath in the standards, and the issue generally.  Not all answers were forthcoming here, or were intended to be.  Carson's work on the Sabbath, and the "Perspectives" book listed above, as well as Calvin or a solid exposition of the WCF, would all be good places for further reading.  As I post this, we are entering the early hours of the Lord's Day itself, and I hope that each day of your lives remains a sabbatismos for you as a child of God.

~JS

Popery and other Humbugs, or "the Vindication of Norman Vincent Peale"

  Just kidding.  This post will have little positive to say about Mr. Peale, the man or the theologian.  If you wanted a blog that raved about Methodist Freemasons who advocated autohypnosis, you clearly took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.  However, seeing as how in 1960, even men of that pedigree were opposed to a Roman Catholic running for President, the last fifty-five years have seen remarkable change in both this country and the peculiar Italian institution, no?
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   To describe responses to the Papal visit to the New World this week as "mixed" would constitute an exercise in calculated understatement; at least among card-carrying members of the religious right.  Such responses range from the chummy pictures of Rick Warren and TD Jakes (ok, I'm stretching the definition of "religious right" there) waiting anxiously to kiss the ring of the World's Greatest Climate Scientist (tm) , to the somewhat hysteria-tinged posts over at Pulpit and Pen.  For the record, while the creation of the hashtag #StillProtesting was a nice touch, reading far too much into the typical vagaries Bergoglio had on offer to provide ammo for snarky Facebook memes about the "Man of Sin" is exactly the kind of imbalance that bolsters P and P's reputation for intransigent counter-productivity. 

   JD and Co. are not alone in this, of course.  The gratuitous fawning that highlights Faux News' typical response to anything Papal had most Reformed folks' hackles up, myself included.  However, even in the case of something this central to our pet peeves, it's important to think through the relevant issues, address contemporary realities, and come to conclusions that function in the real world of apologetics.  The universe that starts on your doorstep and ends at your computer server contains real Catholics with real beliefs, to say nothing of the great crowd of the religiously abused and denominationally confused, and I'm concerned our typical battle plans will stand contact with the proverbial enemy even less than the average.  With this in mind, three general themes to touch on as Catholicism enters the national consciousness for the typical fifteen minutes before we remember the backlog on our DVR: 1) the necessity and relevance of a Church Reformed and always Reforming. 2) Evangelistic pragmatism, it's pitfalls and positives.  3) The consequences of the fact that this is not your grandfather's Catholicism, nor that of your neighbor Ryan Ohoulihan's grandpappy Patches.  In full confidence that that sidelong reference to "Dodgeball" will increase the popularity of "Notes" with the youth of America, I press on.

   As this is, after all, a Presidential election season, I will start by throwing some red meat to the base.  (Can a readership of seven people have a "base"?)  To put not too fine a point on it, the Papacy is an institution built on a combo of historical fabrication, political expediency, and a whole lot of indulgence money bilked out of European peasants, which funds, I pause to note, are perfectly consistent with the soteriological backbone of Romanism, which is the heart of the matter.  Men do not command Christ to render himself present, body and soul, on an altar.  Neither should they appropriate the terms "Holy Father", "Prince of Peace", or "Alter Christus".  Furthermore, Jesus is not honored when his gospel is swapped out for a system in which your eternal destiny rides on hoping a bus doesn't hit you crossing the street on the way to confess your latest lustful thoughts to one of these little christs.  To the extent that Francis, and all other Roman priests, assume these powers and titles, the institution and it's teachings are to be rejected by Bible believers. 

   Opposition to Popery is not limited to abstractions or the occasional concern in the midst of jaywalking, either.  For every non-Catholic Christian reading this blog, you have to ask yourself, with all apologies to James White, whether you are a Protestant of convention or commitment.  (Incidentally, I would say the same in reverse to Catholics).  The funny hats and smell of incense are not gospel issues.  Whether or not the Roman Catholic mass is the same sacrifice as that of Christ, but similarly (by the theory in question) perfects no one, is.  Whether the penalty for the sins of God's people was paid on the tree or must be absolved by a human priest, is.  Whether Jesus Christ is a perfect savior who loses none of what was given to him most decidedly is.  How we live, our eschatology, or ecclesiology, our relationship to each other and to our pastors, our very relationship to Christ and what we trust in for the security of our eternal soul (and how secure is that security, anyway?) hang on the differences between Catholicism and the Reformed faith.  Not only that, but our answers must, and can be, as biblical and relevant to a fallen world here and now, as in 16th century Europe.  So yes, the watchword is, has been, must be, Reformata et Semper Reformanda.  There's a river flowing deep and wide, and it's called the Tiber.  Tulips are lovely flowers.  Be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us, in contradiction to false hopes.  Let there be Calvinism on Earth, and let it begin with me (and you).

   Thus, the bait; now, the switch.  It is true that the Rick Warren approach is demonstrably a betrayal of the Reformation.  However, I trust the average reader of this blog to be able to spot capitulation on that scale when they see it.  The flip side of the coin (all imbalances have an opposite tipping point) is the fact that smugly quoting WCF XXV.6 does not create Protestants, but rather pissed-of Roman Catholics.  Lest those that know me best fear I have taken leave of both my senses and my Van Til at the door, I am not suggesting that the gospel be altered, redacted, shrunk, massaged, nuanced away, or fashioned into a feather with which to tickle men's ears.  Paul said that those at Mars Hill worshipped those which are not gods, and we can say, in full confidence that the Spirit does as He pleases, that Catholics preach (to a lesser or greater degree) that which is not a gospel.  That being said, as Paul's solution to the monument to the Unknown god was not to break out the jackhammers, we should begin at the beginning with a positive, affirming presentation of the plain truths of Jesus Christ crucified in the place of dead men and interceding now on behalf of the living.  This stands in contradiction to the often more satisfying (and certainly more reaction-eliciting) tactic of snide comments about the person of the Pope, hastily composed imprecatory psalms against every Catholic in earshot, and Pharisaical invocations of the flames of perdition against worshippers of images.  (Yes, I said Pharisaical, you too once worshipped those which are not Gods, and in our imperfect state of sanctification, we sometimes still do.  Hypocrisy is most foul on the lips of the redeemed).

   This does not make certain practices of Rome any less odious, particularly to any cradle Calvinists I may have in the audience.  The virgin Mary is not anyone's mediator, and to insist otherwise invites personal spiritual calamity.  What it does mean is that we are called on to proclaim the gospel unedited, but adorned.  Don't emphasize Revelation: emphasize Romans, by which I mean chapter 5, not 9.  Don't start with Mary, or transubstantiation, or even the historicity of the Papacy: if you have an apologist, amateur or otherwise, on your hands, they'll take you there anyway.  Start with the peace with God that you experience through Jesus Christ, that masses and indulgences cannot give or buy.  Catholicism is a girl with too much makeup: the frippery and trappings distract from the core insecurity, and apologetics is about core issues.  This goes for all the religions of men, but doubly so for as complex but fundamentally anthropocentric a religion as Rome's.  When I referenced the counter-productivity manifest in the Hall camp earlier, do not misread "productivity" as "decisionism": but also don't confuse effectiveness with compromise.  As a former Catholic, I can tell you that no one was going to convince me to come out of Babylon by describing it as icky.  Point to yonder wicker gate, and tell your Catholic neighbor to fix their eyes on it. 

   Finally, a related issue to that above, but one much closer to the heart and experiences of Dr. White than of JD Hall: many Calvinists, Dr. White less than some, are shadowboxing with Jesuits who have been dead for two hundred years.  It should be self-evident (but often isn't, particularly to a neoconservative stream of Catholic thought) that Francis is not Pius X.  Dr. White emphasized only a few days ago on the most recent podcast that we should not be hammering away at canned speeches by Francis before the American Congress, which can be parsed for "fallibility" and "reinterpreted in light of Church teaching" by the Vatican's seemingly endless team of spin doctors, both professional and unpaid.  Rather, says the good Doctor, we should focus on the dogmatic teachings of Rome themselves: ex cathedra papal statements, conciliar documents along the lines of Trent, etc.  He has a point, in that these are the historical grounds of the soteriological heart of Romanism, but Dr. White has for a long time been engaged primarily (sometimes only) with the most informed, trained, conservative and apologetically engaged camp within the big tent of Rome.  I live in Washington State.  With all due respect to the "good Catholics" that I know, (and I do), the number of Catholics I know who can name the sources of dogma, let alone have systematized the arcane web of teachings of historical Catholicism into a daily complex of belief is slim.  Here, conservative Catholics are rare, informed ones rarer still.  Tridentine informed conservative Catholics are a particularly argumentative unicorn.  This has consequences for our engagement with the man or woman on the street.

   At the demonstration against Planned Parenthood I attended recently, Catholics outnumbered non-Catholics by a factor of at least three to one, and the conservatives amongst them, in various states of knowledge regarding their own faith, did not shrink back from proclaiming their whole counsel to me.  (One wishing to see the same in reverse was, typically, disappointed.)  These nice (predominantly) ladies, upon learning of my prior experience with Rome and my belief that the modern Vatican constitutes a departure from historic Catholic orthodoxy, promptly issued lines about "yes, all of that may be true, but do you know how many bad Popes we've had".  I lack time and space to describe exactly how and why that "defense" of the Papacy is underwhelming, but the enterprising among you will be able to fill in the gaps.  My point is this: beyond the positive presentation of the Biblical gospel, I do not believe we should start with Trent, because modern Roman Catholics are no longer part of the religion of Trent.  The conservatives among them, proportional to the degree that they know their history, will desperately wish they were.  Most will say they are.  They are beholden to an institution that has a vested interest in telling them that they are.  But they are not.  Don't battle transubstantiation: ask them when they last left a mass that departed from Catholic worship standards.  Don't start in on the nature of indulgences: ask them when the last time they heard a priest teach the necessity of priestly absolution for salvation was.  Don't begin with the nature of purgatory (although this may come up incidental to the finished work of Christ): ask them whether they believe that Trent's view aligns with the multitude of Papal speculations in recent years about "instantaneous purgatory" and the like.  Expose self-contradiction.  Expose the severing of a wide swath of Catholicism from it's roots.  Describe a basic familiarity with their faith, and ask them whether the timeless march of their unchanging Church is delivering on it's promises.  This should come secondary to your positive, Biblical presentation, but the goal is not a that-day "decision for Jesus" (anything that easy will fade easily) but the planting of questions about the Catholic's authority.  As with the Reformed faith and it's absolute dependence on inerrancy, the claims of Rome will live and die with the trustworthiness of the men making them.

   "All of this sure sounds like a lot of work", you grumble, secretly wishing I'd been more ruthless with my elimination of run-on sentences.  "Who has time to learn all of this, and who gets argued into the kingdom anyway?"  First, you do.  I play video games and have a job.  I know you do.  Second, I did.  Second redux, we have a duty to God to proclaim his gospel and give that answer for the blessed hope, and contrary to what  you may have been lulled into believing, Catholics are not stupid, nor are they mere creatures of their environment (not the practicing faithful, anyway).  They have ready-made answers to difficult questions, and this is not their first rodeo.  (If it is, they have a friend for whom it is not).   I'll close with some questions: how important is the gospel of Christ to you?  Has it changed your life?  Did it give you a new heart?  How thankful are  you, really?  Is what is worth having, worth sharing?  And, to echo the man seeking to justify himself (Luke 10:29), who is your neighbor? 

   No one expects evangelistic perfection, or even a flawless readiness to give an answer.  I don't have either, and neither does anyone else.  Jesus does expect that we take the Great Commission as marching orders, though.  But hey, I understand if you're busy.  There really are a lot of channels on TV.

~JS

"About last night...", or "the CNN GOP debate in review"

  A few people specifically requested I do a write-up of last nights' clash of titans, or approved of my stated intent to do so.  Never let it be said that I don't do requests.  Hoping this won't be overly lengthy, but also hoping this will wet my thirst to return to regular updates.  We'll see.
   Without further ado, a brief summary of each persons performance, with a 1-10 scale.  Note that the ranking is not based on agreement or disagreement with the person's policy positions or ideology, only how well I feel they did in the debate.

Rand Paul

He is, as the kids say, "my boy", and he had a golden opportunity in this venue that I would say was only "partially seized".  He stumbled falling out of the gate, because while he may have been able to play the persecution card regarding the usual Trump ad hominem, his opening statement did not take full advantage of the time allotted, and he seemed to lack an ability to connect with the audience. (Minus that one guy who clapped for everything he said, who I suspect is the same guy who travels to golf events to yell "get in the hole" whenever someone putts.)  This lack is not surprising, as the Paul family appears to share my occasional delusion that the truth is it's own defender.  It would be, and is, in the scope of providence, but here a little more pathos might be required.
   He finished strong, I thought that he accurately and directly summarized his views and he shines most when he diverges from the Republican mainstream, as on the Middle East and weed.  Personal bias is playing a role there for me, of course, but I will leave it to the viewer to judge how much.  Ultimately he was most damaged by a weak opening and a weak conclusion.  Come on, the secret service isn't going to use a three word phrase for a codename.

6/10

Mike Huckabee

In the past I have not been a Huckabee booster.  I have still not gotten over the inanity of the typical fundygelical crowd's Dolchstosslegende during the Romney campaign.  I continue to find the man's theology eye-roll inducing.  All of that being said, he acquitted himself well Wednesday night.  He had limited opportunity to speak (even with three hours, eleven speakers is a hard row to hoe), but on each of his presentations, he was unafraid to speak truth to power, particularly on the issues that matter most to Christians.  He also had one of the strongest opening statements.  I wouldn't give him an official "winner" label, as I doubt he can, or intends to, reach the broad conservative mileau, but the hour suited the man from the Christian perspective.

8/10

Marco Rubio

A clear winner on Wednesday.  Looked intelligent, capable, well-spoken and ready to lead.  Dominated Trump on the question regarding Trump's prior foreign policy gaffes.  I doubt very much I am in the Rubio camp personally on foreign policy issues, and I think tactics like calling Vladimir Putin a "thug" reflect the typical neoconservative fantasy that we are still living in the 1980's and still dealing with the same Russia.  But that does not reflect his score, and he showed a competent and polished blend of "compassionate conservatism" (his appeal to Spanish-speakers was a masterstroke) and no-nonsense American exceptionalism that plays to the base ("the American military was not designed for pinpricks" was similarly excellent).  I saw concerns that he came off too scripted in the moment, but I don't doubt his commitment to his convictions, and after President Teleprompter, I don't doubt that most things would be an improvement.

9/10

Ted Cruz

Yawn.  Disappointing performance of the night goes to this guy.  On top of the sheer moroseness of his mannerisms (one participant in my facebook drama during the live coverage wondered if the Clinton family was shooting his dogs whenever he answered a question), Senator Cruz meandered into generalized talking points rather than giving policy specifics.  I thought essentially refusing to give an alternative to the Iran deal while insisting on the "tear it up" approach probably hurt him with "moderates".  For those inexperienced with Ted Cruz, I recommend his Senate floor presentations over this debate.

4/10

Ben Carson

Numbers don't lie, this guy is within 3-5 points of Trump right now, although how much he's getting the benefit of some obvious voting tactics I'm unsure.  He presented as dignified and confident throughout the debate, although the seeming lack of passion in his calm demeanor may hurt him with the right of the party.  Was called one of the big losers of the debate on CNN, but I doubt his numbers will fluctuate much after his sticking to his guns.  He was also one of three men on stage willing to talk about former foreign policy gaffes on the part of this country, which the media consistently underestimates in terms of impact on the white 18-30 crowd.

7/10

Donald Trump

The debate format was structured essentially to give the other lobsters in the pot an opportunity to claw at the one on top, which they efficiently did.  I had a whole post started on this man, but haven't finished it and am unsure that I will.   Suffice it to say I think he showed his true colors in this event.  Swaggering, blustery and utterly unconvincing on women's issues (he was actively booed when going after Bush on funding for women's health), the man has (hopefully) shown the American people that he cannot, in fact, be trusted to govern.  He proved vague on immigration, nasty and issue avoidant in engagement with specific candidates, and paranoid and shallow on the issue of vaccines (Carson's line about doctors was particularly adept.)   He also served as a near-bottomless fount of easy wins for Fiorina, which I doubt he grasped.  On the other, hand, I think I'm probably awarding him a full point for his Secret Service codename joke.

3/10

Jeb Bush

Started out slow, giving me the impression he would sink to his common perception of being too soft. He later rallied, and I thought took an impressive stand on Planned Parenthood.  While I disagree with him on minutiae of marijuana legalization, I thought he came off as honest and forthright with the American people on the issue, as well as humble.  That moment alone was a high-water mark.  Bush showed himself to be particularly adept at attack by defense.  As the primary target of calumny from Trump, he showed a remarkable willingness to stick to his guns and defend both his family and his policy statements, which I think people will like.  I doubt I'd vote for the man in a multi-option primary setting, but he displayed a deftness on Wednesday that will help him more than his copious cash reserves.

7/10

Scott Walker
There is not a lot to say here, as Walker didn't appear to have a lot to say there.  What he did say was correct, but in mannerisms and terminology he appeared to have accepted the status of an also-ran.  The appeal to Wisconsin experience was valid, but the lack of engagement with other candidates' specific statements made him look almost disinterested.  It's telling that I am having a hard time remembering specific things he said.

5/10

Carly Fiorina
Had the title of clear winner snatched from her by the presence of Rubio.  For every thrust Trump had, she had a parry, and she proved herself serious and competent even during the seeming throwaway questions.  Her closing statement and answer to the "woman on the ten dollar bill" gave her the appearance of a leader and an adult, and gave the audience what any debater should: take-away memories.  She was accused of being "unsmiling" in the aftermath, but I think many conservatives will recognize her as a serious woman for a serious hour in this nation.   Bonus for being one of the candidates to engage on foreign policy and present more than vague keyword phrases.

9/10

John Kasich

In one sense, he did was he needed to do: present himself, implicitly rather than explicitly, as the voice of reason among a pack of extremists, while also showing himself direct and assertive (he probably led in direct confrontation with the "moderators", who on a side note showed themselves unworthy of the title).  On the other side of the coin, he failed to convince anyone that all his talk of unity and compromise means anything other than the failed tactics of capitulation that the Graham's and McCain's have made a source of nausea for  consistent conservatives.  He dodged a bullet on not having to answer any questions about Kim Davis.  But I think the informed GOP voter will know *why* he didn't answer any.

5/10

Chris Christie

The man's record does not make him a viable choice for right-wingers, however he might try to spin himself.  Someone in the aftermath panel said a storyline of the debate was "magically, Chris Christie is a conservative", and in fact, he scored serious points speaking to his record as governor and his stances on the issues.  Both he and Dr. Paul may have lost more than they gained on the marijuana tiff.  He did, along with Kasich, show a seriousness and maturity in asked to hurry through the "fight with Trump" questions to the real issues.  In a hypothetical general election, however, his record would be his undoing.

6/10.

All in all, it was a fairly riveting three hour marathon.  Personally I'm hoping the current status of the polls will be shaken (or overthrown) by the exchange.  The clear winners were Fiorina, Rubio, in one sense Huckabee, in another Bush.  Cruz and Trump probably hurt rather than helped themselves.  I would look forward to voting for any of them that aren't named Trump, given the alternative.

~JS

Law/Grace Balance as central to the Gospel, or "yes, yet more musing on the law".

   Shout out to my friend Nathan, whose advice from the last post was "don't be Doug Wilson".  I regretfully informed him that much of my style, word choice, views, etc. were shared with him before I knew who he was, but it was good advice.  It would be uncharitable to liberals for there to be two of him, thereby causing their heads to explode.  That being said, we press on.
   I have several disparate categories of thought swirling around at the moment, and I'm going to try to connect them even if it only makes sense to me.  Lots of stuff has been in the news lately, and somehow my feebly sparking synapses have been unable to relinquish the notion of a connection between the recent decision of the General Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventist church to (fairly narrowly) reject women's ordination, and gospel preaching in the post-Obergefell kerfuffle.  In fact, I'm actually going to link both of them with why I disagree with NCT's view of the law.  So I guess you could call this "the month of Notes from the Shore in review".  If this blog were popular enough to have themed nicknames for trends of posts, that is.
  Years ago, in my ignorance (well, greater ignorance), when I doubt I was saved at all, and my systematic theology, such as it was, constituted a fear of hell coupled with semi-biblical deism, I would have described myself as "an Old Testament Christian".  I had back then a loathing of intellectual laziness and shallow morality systems that makes modern James look tame (it's possible, trust me), and untethered from rigorous commitment to two central Bible concepts (those being grace that is free, but never cheap, and Biblical support for robust Trinitarianism), I fell off a number of internal cliffs of thought. 
   The one most easily spotted as error by just about any regenerate heart was my acceptance of a standard hermeneutic of the "Christian left", at least some of whom are humanists playing religious dress-up. (In Obergeville, you'd better believe that's going to get more obvious.  Quickly.)  This principle is the juxtaposition of the God of the Old Testament, who is about icky, uncomfortable things like wrath, judgment, personal holiness, and law, with the God of the New, who is represented by the icons of Jesus the robed European Soccer player who can't continue styling his hair, only because he's too busy holding the adorable lamb and softly glowing in gold-pink hues.  This God, say our friends the ideological transvestites, is sweetness and light, acceptance and "love", knows all 271 verses to "Just as I Am" (and some he wrote himself), and is knocking meekly at the door of  human hearts to offer mankind the lollipop of forgiveness for things we couldn't help much anyway.  This God, say grown men who should know better, is a gentleman (or perhaps vampire), who will not cross that threshold to our precious feelings-bosom unless invited in.  And I, the little-Deist who couldn't, accepted the existence of these two deities.  I merely reversed the normal preference.
   The truth, of course, is that neither of these "Gods" exist.  The God of the Old Covenant, the God who thundered on Sinai, loves mankind, and offered grace that men may turn and live.  The God of the New Testament (who is the same being) reigns in a blood-stained robe with a rod of iron in His hands, and will (and is, and has) crush the nations in the wine-press of His fury.  And I am grateful (and hope to remain so eternally) that God, in resurrecting me from the dead, did not do the gentlemanly thing and wait around to ask permission from my corpse.  However, in believing an error in this arena, I developed a consequent, yet more subtle one, even after I had formally rejected the first. 
   Justification by faith became a doctrine for sluggards and intellectual freeloaders in my mind, even after coming to terms with the Holy Trinity and at least assenting intellectually to the inter-testamental unity of purpose in the Godhead.  I had come to see enough antinomians and those who pervert the grace of the gospel into licentiousness (Jude 4), or even enough just-plain mutton-heads, to believe that only a God who demanded self-justification by law was capable of being Holy and Righteous, and that only a God who stood over the shoulders of the redeemed with a clipboard was worthy of being worshiped, when in reality the gospel in all it's world-foolishness is the exact opposite.  And this brings me to my overall point: the risk of Law/Grace imbalance.
   Balance between Law/Grace is vital to the Reformed faith, and to the apostolic faith, because one can fall off the horse on either side; and men often do.  If a man believes that the prayer he prayed when he was four allows him to prolong his relationship with his live-in girlfriend, he commits the error of Jude.  If a woman believes that God has given her firstborn the chicken-pox because she missed her devotional on Thursday, and will make up for it with three tomorrow (which she will later commend herself heartily on for two weeks), she has committed the error of Galatians.  A God who delivers His Son, and thereby His very Self, to agony on behalf of spiritual worms is too Good to deny gratitude; and too Holy to mock by attempting to add to His work.  But if I could hazard a guess without being either telepathic or a perfect judge of character, I would bet that all of us do so, and most of us tend to one more than the other.  To apply the "split-God" hermeneutic much more accurately to our foibles than to God Himself, this creates "Old Testament Christians" and "New Testament Christians", and both types are imperfect by virtue of their category.
   This principle can be expanded easily to the macro-level, as churches, denominations and societies are little more or less than groups of men, humanistic theories to the contrary notwithstanding.  Just as there can be Christians who love the best seat at theological conferences and pray loudly to thank God that they are not like that man over there, who doesn't know the definition of "supralapsarian" (self-righteousness can be theological, too), there are churches who will put 18 year-olds in front of ecclesiastical courts for being alone with a person of the opposite sex.  And just like there can be Christians who think that Jesus' payment on the cross was sufficient to cover their offices' stapler (and three other things) too, there can be denominations that wink at sin, because after all, grace will abound.  Here's mud in your eye, Episcopalians.*
   I was forcefully reminded of all this by the recent news of attempted shenanigans in favor of women's ordination at the upper echelons of Adventism.  While there will be further repercussions as a result of what may amount to de facto rebellion on the issue in large swath of the North American branch of that denomination, it must be said that, as a church for whom cheap grace has seldom been a problem, SDA held the course in our "progressive" age where other organizations would have sold out.  That does not take Adventism off the hook on the other end of the stick, though.  This is not an Adventist-bashing post.  Were I to write a church-bash post (perish the thought), I would have a teeming horde of more profitable targets.  But an organization that maintains the centrality of original Sabbatarian commands and holds a belief that, at least in more conservative SDA circles, amounts to a covenant republication of portions of the ceremonial dietary law has reasons for low risk of antinomianism, not all of them the most healthy. 
   With that convenient ripped-from-the-headlines example in mind, I would apply the same principle to societies as a whole, and I would take the idea of balance, which we have already looked at in men and churches, and say that it is key to gospel proclamation in a societal context.  With all apologies to NT Wright, who is much smarter than I, Second Temple Judaism was a decidedly law-emphasis society.  Although, in fairness, it was probably much easier to have an "Old Testament God" mindset so close in history to the Old Testament.  The intellectual descendents of that mindset got Paul's most blistering graphe in the form of Galatians.  However, if I could rock a few boats for a second, legalism is (dare I say it?) not the predominant theological crisis in 21st century America.
   Calculated underexaggeration aside, in fact, the number of pastors who preach on Deuteronomy or Leviticus, the number of men who can quote or understand them at all, and the number of twenty-somethings who've read any of them after they were shaving or driving is, um, low.  The number of theologians who believe them to be inspired, or even relevant, is likewise less than stellar.  One can only speculate as to the number of 30-year old laypeople.  And this is why I believe that many Christians, even, perhaps especially Reformed Christians, are going about evangelizing this society the wrong way.  Permit me to speak boldly. 
   I have already commented on the fact that the particularly egregious forms of synergistic preaching are calculated to attract sinners without changing anything about them ("what a coincidence!  I love me and have a wonderful plan for my life, too!").  However, in our zeal for the gospel, Reformed Christians can tend to put the cart before the horse in more subtle ways.  "Jesus died for sinners", we say, "and you can be forgiven.  You can have a relationship with your creator".  All true, Amen and Amen, I got so excited I temporarily became a Baptist.  However, what do we do with a person, what do we do with a society, who responds to that message with "sinners do not exist because sin does not, and therefore I am not one"?  To them, I fear our response, if we are to awaken people, is to do what the classic "awaken-ers" like Jonathan Edwards did, e.g., bring the hammer.  We must be willing to say, if it costs us (and it will), if it gets us called hypocrites (and in once sense it will make us hypocrites, as we ourselves are sinners), if we see no fruit but derision for years, "you are a sinner, and this is why.  Activity x displeases God and without holiness, no one will see the Lord".  In saying this, I have been met with well-meaning responses of "no one will listen to that!".   People listened to Edwards.  And that's because, outside of the loosest of senses, Edwards was not speaking.  The Holy Spirit was.  On this front, the average American could stand a refresher on Calvinism 101.  The Spirit blows where It wills, and God does what He pleases.

    It is for these reasons, first and foremost, that I fear the ramifications of the NCT hermeneutic (and others like it) regarding the law and Americans.  While the NCT men who exist right now are Calvinists, and gospel men, and lovers of the New Testament witness to morality, the one thing I feel Americans do not need more of is greater covenant disunity, that is to say, more reasons to disregard the text of the OT, and specifically the law.  I do not say that the NCT scholars disregard the OT themselves, merely that read in one light, the idea of such concepts as abrogation of the decalogue continues to kick up silt in the already hopelessly muddied pond of American ethics.  And while I know that this does not attribute guilt specifically to the nuanced and conservative positions held by these men of God, I can just hear the application of "love God and love neighbor" as NCT ethics chair passage to the rallying cry of the previously discussed Christian left.  "Love thy neighbor shall be the whole of the law", cry the camouflaged secularists, while promoting their neighbors' lifestyle choice of moral filth, and in response we must be willing to say that the buck stopped long before that, when tablets carved without hands were brought from Sinai to a people who I suspect we would leave in the dust in terms of riotous living.
   I have commented before that now is an age, and this is a nation, that is desperately in need of a proclamatory people.  I do not blame fellow Christians, including Reformed men, for a love of the gospel, for a genuine desire to bless their unbelieving neighbor, or for a natural human preference to bring good news before bad.  But we must follow the apostolic example. Lumps struck on the anvil of the gospel are made into tools for the Creator's hand, but they are struck by the hammer of the law.  But because this is offensive to men, does not make it impotent. One Spirit gave us life.  One Spirit gave the Apostles their victories.  That same Spirit can bring hope and change to us and to our fallen neighbor in the most unlikely message.  Men who God has known in eternity past will trip over the stumbling stone of the law and in doing so, see Golgotha in the distance.  We have marching orders and a conquering King for a general.  "Son of man, can these bones live?"

In Christ,
~JS

*I fully realize there are saved, and even Reformed men and women in general American Episcopalian circles.  To you I say: "come out from among them and touch no unclean thing, and I will be your God and you, my people."

Obergefalling all over ourselves, or "the causality of catechesis".

   In what may be my inflammatory link of the month (year?), Joel McDurmon (who else) posted here and here on the blame for gay mirage in America resting with eschatological pessimists generally, and dispensationalism more specifically.  While I am inclined to believe the AV club has something vaguely approximating a point, at least pertaining to the more....cavalier folks in the pop-dispensational camp, (here's lookin' at you, Hagee and Hunt!) I think that they are missing the forest for the trees.  In other words, the truth about the church and potential culpability in the mirage is not smaller than the problem of cultural defeatism in eschatology, but it may be bigger.  While conservative Christians can weep, gnash teeth and rend garments in a panoply of #thanksobama hashtags, most of us are complicit in the modern calamity to greater or less degree, and I will illuminate some broad stroke reasons that I feel this way below.

   1) McDurmon does have a point.
Without belaboring the issue, it is difficult to make progress one is neither expecting nor working for.  Theonomists have not been alone in presenting the problems with the sort of mindset McDurmon describes in the "rapture silver lining"camp. Suffice it to say I find the "escape hatch to heaven" doctrine both inconsistent with the overarching theme of Scripture and conducive to practice that has already cost multiple generations of Christians dearly.  However, as others will spill more than enough ink on the topic, I move on to other more pressing items.

   2) Christian complicity with State education.
Doug Wilson and others have written books, typed blogs and heated microphones to a steady radiance on the simple fact that Christian parents err grievously in handing over the time, energy and thought life of their still-developing children to as anti-Christian an institution as the US Department of Education.  If the fact that light has no fellowship with darkness is insufficient to make the point, said Department's joining the recent rainbow logo fetish should be demonstrative to believing parents that State educators have a vested interest in de-magnetizing their childrens' moral compass.  Plenty of parents whose children apostatize after years or decades in secular education express shock and dismay in the event, including parents who felt strongly that their child(ren) would be salt and light in the education system.  Too often this is the equivalent of housing your nursery in a dingo preserve and expecting an end result of vegetarian dingos.  Culturally, of course, the heirs of the legacy of Dewey (and by proxy, then, of Marx) are simply getting hungrier, as people perceiving increased proximity to their goals are apt to do.

   3) Christian underestimation of the power of media.
Many of the same kids (including my peers, who are no longer children) left the hours a day, five days a week of secular catechesis they were already experiencing in order to pick up secular extra credit for additional hours and days in the form of secular tv, film and books, particularly television.  I am no Luddite.  In fact contrary to the stance of JD Hall or others, I do not feel that only television programs depicting a minimum of sin are edifying, or that consuming tv that depicts sin constitutes celebration of same.  However, even if children, particularly young children (it is too late for much of my generation) are spared from exposed breasts and gunplay, the IV drip of poison continues in the form of ideological confusion.  Sit down in front of the average program on "ABC Family" and count the number incidents of a) endorsement or outright celebration of homosexuality or other "alternative lifestyles" b) confused or absent ideas of what a "family" or "parent" constitutes c) promotion of herd mentality, particularly in the form of generation splitting (the out of touch mother or the workaholic father are proven less wise than the main character, usually a teenager's, friends, who of course all agree on whatever it is) d) presentation of anyone over thirty as backwards or out-of-step with reality and anyone over sixty as racist, obstreperous or senile e) flattening out of the concept of love into a conglomeration of sentiment, sex and tolerance.  Prepare to be amazed.  With the number of people my age who went directly from school and homework to tv every day of the week, it's honestly a wonder there are any twenty-somethings without a rainbow filter on their Facebook.

   4) Christian ignorance of history.
We have been rendered impotent in the face of some of the most shallow and facile historical arguments I have seen on any issue.  The slavery and race comparisons are so utterly bad that to be flustered by them is worse than admitting defeat, it's snatching it from the jaws of victory.   Additionally, the inheritance of pietistic moralism in post-protestantism has resulted in a muddle of confusion on the distinction between sins and crimes, which results in the same regarding the states' role in either.  To issue the example that cuts to the heart of the matter the quickest, the segregationist business owner who attempts to hide his bigotries under Christian terminology is a sinner in need of repentance.  As soon as police officers force the desegregation of his business, he is now a resentful unrepentant sinner who is also a criminal.  The bigot has learned nothing, and what society (especially the parts of society who control the police officers) has learned is that it can dictate morality.  And a State dictating morality is not guaranteed to dictate only the kinds you like.

   5) Christian ignorance of the Bible.
We cannot teach what we do not know.  And I am not just talking about ordained ministers, but about parents, especially Fathers who are called to be the minister in their home.  I didn't keep a running tally of statements on social media that betrayed a mind-bogglingly bad knowledge of Scripture, but I probably should have.  These statements varied in content, but a fairly common example was, paraphrase permitting, "well, we all know that nothing in Leviticus or Deuteronomy [or the OT period] is applicable for Christians today, therefore...".  These are young adults, active in a church (in some cases, I may be stretching my definition), with a existing, English-speaking first world pastoral staff and two professing Christian parents.  Both the church and the parents are problems.  But since I'm going to assume readers of this blog are on board with modern applicability of Old Testament texts, we all need to be committed to starting with Deuteronomy 11:18-21. 

  The above issues are not new problems.  They did not arise overnight, which means that Obergefell v. Hodges did not arise overnight, and if there is to be counter-revolution, it will not happen overnight either.  As always though, change, if it is to come, must be Holy Spirit-driven, which is to say gospel centered.  Starting with our children and our next door neighbors, the answer to the modern American crisis is not the Republican party (or any other political institution), but rather the identity of the Church as, first and foremost, a proclaiming people.

In Christ,
~JS

Book Review: "NCT: time for a more accurate way", or "Covenants, Kids, and Commandments".

   Without further adieu, here 'tis in all its glory, my review of the relatively new work by Gary D. Long on "New Covenant Theology" (hereafter NCT) that Richard Barcellos called the best yet.  Barcellos does good work (for a Baptist, sorry, had to) on the subject, addressing it over at 1689 Fed as well as in his work on NCT and the Decalogue, and so I figured after getting the bare-bones basics of what is the new kid on the block (even relative to Dispensationalism, zing!) in the world of hermeneutics under my belt, I thought I'd start here.  If my thoughts aren't very organized....well, welcome to my mind.  Don't get lost.  Of note before I get started: I am currently coming from what I would call the "Strawbridge/Wilson" perspective on the covenants, which some might call "moderate Federal Vision-ism" but I would prefer to call "consistent Westminsterianism".  In other words, I'm as distant from Gary Long's perspective as I could get while still being willing to call that perspective a form of covenantalism.  I'm open to having my mind changed, though.  Unfortunately(?), as will be seen below, this book will not be the one to do it, for the reasons enumerated below.  While this post was originally intended to be a sparse few paragraphs highlighting strengths and weaknesses of the book, as my reading developed alongside this posts creation, it evolved into a full-fledged response to the book, and to the NCT position generally.  In other words, there's a lot to get to, so I'll start.

1) Child-kidnap, sprinkling, and other baptismal horrors.

   I have been told, without seeing the scene(s) in question, that a sequence on the television show "Lost" features a Roman Catholic denizen of the island in question, kidnapping an infant to guarantee its baptism.  Given the language on the question of paedobaptism in the book, which at times borders on the monotonous in its repetitiveness (a quirk I find bad editing on top of bad theology), one would almost expect this to be Long's belief on the tactical goals of covenant-baptists as a whole. Indeed, were Long's assertions about traditional Covenant Theology to be taken at face value, and were I a Baptist, I'd half expect Presbyterians to be hiding behind every rock and tree, lying in wait to merrily sprinkle every child within reach.  Consistently, Long continues to make the bare assertion that Westministerian Covenant Theology (hereafter WCT) leads inexorably to infant baptism, without providing additional commentary in the immediate context.  (See for example, 7441, where Long "...affirms that infant baptism of covenant children is the Achilles' heel, a fatal weakness in the whole system of WCT...").  Why is covenant baptism an Achilles' heel, precisely?  Predominantly because Long presupposes (and in this text, the claim very much IS presuppositional) that "...the Bible was silent regarding infant baptism" (303).  Now is not the time or place for me to go into an exegetical defense of the Westminsterian position, but suffice it to say that works such as that by Gregg Strawbridge, Doug Wilson and John Frame, as well as commentaries on the Standards themselves have sufficed to establish me in it, insofar as the Bible can speak to the nature of baptism outside of explicit reference to it's mode or subjects.  However, given Long's repeated insistence on the unbiblical, indeed dangerous nature of covenant baptism, it is evident to me that the first major challenge to WCT mounted by the book, that of the notion of the classical Calvinist understanding of the Covenant of Grace, is rooted in a presupposition, namely credobaptism as the only consistent Biblical position.  This weighs the book down in three ways: in terms of audience, in terms of historical perspective, and in terms of self-consistency. 
    The book is not a beginners' guide to the credobaptist position, and in fairness is not intended to be, but I cannot recommend it to a covenant baptist as a starting place on differences in the positions (for that I would refer you to any of the marvelous work by Drs. Barcellos and Renihan, or a solid exposition of the LBCF).  Neither can I recommend it in historical commitment to Reformed tradition, should that be something one is looking for.  Again, this is not something NCT typically claims for itself (the very name of the movement describes that which is fundamentally "new"), but a thorough, if not exhaustive historical exposition of the Reformed confessions (that is, the paedobaptist ones) raises each documents' stance on baptism and the covenant, and criticizes all of them and their authors as flatly wrong.  On this, Long and the movement can be commended for pulling no punches and not being afraid to hunt big game.  However, at risk of signaling some lingering papistry in my present position, the simultaneous claims of pure biblicism in the book, coupled with rejection of so much of Reformed history, sails close to the ill wind of failure to acknowledge that we stand on the shoulders of giants.  The greatest raise of the eyebrows in the historical arena came from Long's seeming affinity with the Anabaptists of the Swiss Reformation, specifically advancing the theory that Zwingli developed the confessional position on the Covenant of Grace (see below) unilaterally and out of whole cloth in order to pacify the sacralists of 16th century Switzerland (370).  Leaving aside the historical validity of Zwingli's theorized capitulation to such men (which is hardly set in stone), Long himself admits not only that the Anabaptists, including the Swiss Brethren, "had some major doctrinal deviations" (391) but also that Zwingli himself used preexisting analogies between the covenant signs (that is, circumcision and baptism) and an already present hermeneutic of "a unity of the testaments" in advancing his case (370).  If these elements pre-dated Zwingli's debate with the Swiss Brethren, one can hardly say that Zwingli is spinning theological gold from situational straw.  And I am certainly not alone in questioning the wisdom of aligning Calvinistic baptists with the 16th century Anabaptist tradition, as JD Hall and other 1689 adherents have pointed out.
   Returning to the historical-confessional issue, the criticism of the documents in question (that is, the WCF, the SCF, the Heidelberg, the Belgic, the First and Second Helvetic and the Directory of Public Worship) centers on the notion contained within each that God has made one Covenant of Grace with man, purposed from eternity past, which has existed under various "administrations" but bears the same substance.  Perhaps the most famous and perspicuous enunciation of this position is WCF VII's language: "There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations".  Long states not only that paedopatism is "the doorway to the heart" of WCT, but that in reverse (citing theologians such as Bavinck) that the covenant of grace in the Westminsterian understanding is the foundation of Reformed infant baptism.  In other words, in studying confessional history, Long has (correctly) come to the conclusion that "the one covenant of grace and infant baptism teaching of [WCT] are interdependent (416).  This concept of interdependency will be important later in discussing Long's view of the Decalogue, but insofar as he exposits the confessions, Long's factual analysis is correct.   However, his analysis of the Covenant of Grace as a theological/Scriptural concept leaves much to be desired, and may even ride on standards he does not apply to other concepts from the confessional/historical position, as we will see.

2) Long's rejection of the Covenant of Grace

   Fundamentally, NCT, insofar as it can be said to be a common body of belief, is a Reformed Baptist perspective.  Therefore there will be a number of areas both of agreement and disagreement on the issue of the covenant of grace, and both will be fairly predictable (although NCT does, as Long affirms repeatedly, differ in certain ways from the typical LCBF position).  The predominant areas of disagreement relevant to the average covenant baptist are A) NCT's assertion (in common with the vast majority of Reformed Baptists) of the unmixed nature and substance of the New Covenant, that is, the identification of members of the New Covenant with the elect.  Particularly vital for this viewpoint (as for the Reformed Baptist stance at large) is the use of Hebrews 8:11 and following as a "chair passage" on the nature of the New Covenant, a use made very popular in Reformed apologetics by Dr. James White.  B) The "birth of the Church" at Pentecost and it's limitation to the post-Resurrection era.  C) The notion that water baptism is not a sign and seal of the New Covenant, in contradiction to the Westminster Standards and similar confessions.
   I remarked some time ago on social media that the use of Hebrews 8:11 etc to confirm the New Covenant as unmixed is deeply flawed because of passages elsewhere in Hebrews noting that apostasy from the New Covenant is possible, that one can experience it as an objective reality, and in fact that that very covenant has judgement stipulations directly paralled with those of the Mosaic administration.  Chief among these texts is Hebrews 10:26-30, although other passages, particularly in Hebrews and the gospels join that texts' witness.  There are a variety of possible interpretations of Paul's citation of OT prophecy in 8:11 then, but the use of it as a supreme text on an unmixed NC administration is not one of them.  To present two possibilities in brief, both of which could hypothetically be true together or separately, either 8:11 is addressing the specific effects of the New Covenant on its regenerate members, or there is an eschatological component to the promises of 8:11 that remains unfulfilled in totality to this day.  Leaving aside the fact that the universality of language in 8:11 dovetails nicely with a postmillenial eschatology (but I digress), this idea, despite being heavily criticized by Dr. White and others, fits in with the mixture of present reality and eschatological promise in the book of Hebrews, which is a very "already/not yet" book.  (See for example the contrast of our present possession of a kingdom which cannot be shaken [12:28] and the "coming short of entering the rest of the people of God" at 4:1 and following).  Unfortunately, for Long 8:11 overrides contexts like these and seemingly settles the debate, but I for one, would demur from that view. 
   I don't wish to spend too much time on the NCT doctrine of Pentecost and "spirit baptism", as I agree with Long's cessationism, his identification of the various "Spirit baptisms" of the book of Acts with in-grafting and confirmation of the gospel message with diverse groups of then-yet unreached people groups, and the greater measure of residence of the Spirit with believers in the post-resurrection age (931) (else, what did the Savior mean when he spoke of the Comforter "coming" to the apostles at Pentecost [John 16:7] when he allowed them to receive it for gospel binding and loosing prior to that event? [John 20:22])  I will comment, however, on the fact that Long does not make a strong positive presentation on the nature of the salvation and relationship to the Spirit of the saints of the Old Testament.  To what measure did David possess the Spirit?  What does it mean that John the Baptist was "filled with the Spirit from the womb"?  We are not told.  Perhaps other NCT adherents have relayed a more detailed position, but when the author has already allowed that Israel was "an ekklesia in the wilderness", it would behoove him to elaborate on the distinctions in the outworking of the spirit between Covenant dispensations, if in fact he intends to prove covenant discontinuity.
   In quoting John Murray on the union with Christ effected by baptism, Long accuses him of inserting confusion into the issue by calling water baptism a "sign and seal", when the Holy Spirit Himself is said to be the "guarantee of our inheritance" (Eph. 1:14), and Jesus explicitly calls the Eucharistic cup "the sign of the covenant in his blood."  These things are precious truths, but the actual passages on baptismal covenant efficacy were left untouched by Long.  One would like to think this was for the purposes of satisfying editors, but to be honest, I remain uncertain to this day what any Baptist does with the notion that Baptism clothes us with Christ (Gal. 3:27).  The fact that baptism is not called "THE sign or seal" of the New Covenant does not strip it of the New Testament terminology surrounding it.
   To conclude on NCT and the CoG, Long notes that OT saints were "in Christ by covenantal promise" awaiting their ultimate salvation by the promised New Covenant in the blood of Christ. (955)  This is consistent with the rest of Long's viewpoint, given that NCT teaches that OT saints were unified with God in heaven in the fullest sense at the event of Pentecost, but does prompt me to ask if it really benefits Long to affirm that men can be in Christ in more than one sense.  To do so would seem to leave the door open to my primary opposition to the NCT rejection of the overarching CoG hermeneutic, that is, the concept of the NC as unmixed.  Before moving on, however, there is much to appreciate both about Long's willingness to site WCT sources, and to affirm the essential position of the covenant hermeneutic in a Reformed reading of Scripture.






3) Long's new take on the Covenant of Works concept, and the rejection of the Covenant of Redemption.



   Less ink need be spilled on the Covenants of Works and Redemption, as the disagreement with the WCT position is more moderated in Long's work.  A few points of interest do exist, however.  Richard Barcellos has noted that Long's acceptance of a pre-fall covenant with Adam so as to preserve the federal union of fallen man with Adam (and thereby the justice of the grounds of redemption in federal union with Christ) is a relatively new development within NCT, and a welcome one. (1096) However, Long's primary issue with the CoW as traditionally understood (and his ground for calling his conception of the pre-fall covenant something other than "the Covenant of Works" is that reference to a hypothetical promise of eternal life for Adam is inconsistent with the infallible foreknowledge and plan of God and the notion that the free gift is not like the trespass (Rom. 5:15) (1050).  This, it must be said, is odd coming from a self-described Calvinist, as the notion of hypothetical promises of life upholds the typical Calvinist understanding of the universal offer of the gospel.  Additionally, the idea of eternal life for Adam contingent upon obedience to the pre-fall covenant stipulations (mirrored in the "do this and live" statements of the Mosaic administration) does not contradict the sovereign plan for better things in Christ, as God's infallible knowledge does guarantee that the Fall will come to pass in God's decretal will, but it would seem unjust to me to presume that eternal life was not offered to Adam in his already deathless pre-fall state, as death comes by the violation of the law of God.
  Meanwhile, it is not my intention here to defend the existence of a Covenant of Redemption as understood by Michael Horton as vital to the system of WCT.  It has long struck me that while the language of a covenant among the persons of the Godhead remains consistent with the overall hermeneutic of Covenant as the Reformed position, that many elements of the principle beyond that extend into the realm of needless extra-Scriptural speculation.  This is particularly notable because the idea of a Covenant of Redemption is left untouched in the WCF itself.  However, it must be said that both of Long's specific arguments against the CoR are faulty.  A) The idea that the CoR constitutes a "sovereign administration" of persons of the Godhead over each other, and therefore an introduction of disunity into the Trinity, (1306) is a misreading of a specific definition Long assigns here to the term "covenant".  In fact, I would prefer the definition Long identifies as older which includes the concept of an agreement between two parties.  This preserves not only the equality of the persons in the Godhead in a CoR, were we to assume one exists, but also the concept I laid out early of stipulations of judgment in the New Testament administration of the CoG.  B) The citation of the CoR as a violation of Biblicism (1306, end of section) smacks of inconsistency.  The standards identify both the explicit text of Scripture, and that which may be derived by "good and necessary consequence" therefrom, as the foundation of valid Christian doctrine, and it is the very principle of good and necessary consequence that Long has, at this point in the text, just finished using to demonstrate the validity of the CoW in light of Romans 5!  What is good therefore, for one, should have at least some bearing on the validity of the other.

4) NCT and the law of God.

   It seems fitting to continue the response to Long on the nature of God's law given the prior posts have dealt with the position of Theonomy as known by Bahnsen et. all, but where Theonomy stumbles over the stumbling stone in one direction, NCT (which I will not repeat Theonomy's error by calling "antinomian") decidedly lapses in the other.  Specifically, NCTs position on the law of God diverges from WCT in the categories which follow.  A) A denial of the three-fold division of the law. B) The introduction of covenant disunity not present in the confessional standards vis a vis the abrogation of the Old Testament law to be replaced with "the law of Christ".  C) The rejection of the Decalogue as a summary reflection of the eternal and unchanging moral standards of God, referred to by Calvin and the Divines as "the moral law".  Long's section here, despite being both the most radical departure from confessional Reformed theology as a whole and a wholesale acceptance of certain assumptions of traditional Dispensationalism, is hardly exhaustive, and in fact to my mind appears brief, given the complexity of the subject material.  I would like to presume this brevity of coverage is not a result of the topic having nothing to do with the spine-tingling error of infant baptism, but that may be too much benefit of the doubt for me to extend.
   Following a historical examination of the exposition of the threefold distinction concept in the WCF, Long lays forth the exegetical case that Romans 2 (reflecting the idea that Gentiles "as a law unto themselves" acknowledge the righteousness, at least in part, of the unchanging Divine moral standard) and Genesis 1 demonstrate that Jesus' "two greatest commandments" (love God and love neighbor) are themselves that unchanging standard. (1416)  He then cites various statements by Calvin and the standards regarding the Decalogue's dependence on love of God and neighbor, and the summary containment of the moral law (not it's exhaustive exposition) in the Decalogue, concluding with the literary throwing up of the hands marked by the phrase "what confusion!". (1460)  Regrettably, it must be said that here I feel that Long is straining at gnats.  The idea that this is an either/or proposition (Decalogue=moral law or "two greatest"=moral law) is deeply flawed for the simple reason that both can be true.  Long's confident assertion that Christ's statement that "the Law and the Prophets hang on" the "two greatest" make a direct equivalence between the eternal moral standard and the "two greatest" is seeking to bear a burden of proof it cannot support.  As cited later in the chapter, Calvin would have agreed that the summary content of the moral law is reflected in love of God and love of neighbor, (1588) but this does not mean that the same is not done in the Decalogue, nor does it invalidate the fact that Jesus, who said he came not to abolish but to fulfill, affirmed repeatedly the great and abiding realization of those two loves in the Decalogue, or for that matter, Israel's civil code. Here might be a good place to pause in order for prospective Theonomic readers to heave a sigh of relief that I don't disagree with them on everything.
   Long goes on to discuss the concepts of "absolute" and "covenantal" law, with the established NCT claim being that all law-codes in the OT, including the decalogue, were administered for a time but no longer abide, while God's "absolute law" as reflected in "the two greatest" continues in perpetuity.  The primary defense of this hermeneutic is then mounted by a fascinating exegesis of another "chair passage": 1 Corinthians 9:20-21, which Long calls "NCT's central passage on the law of God". (1522)  Long asserts that the word "Mosaic" could be reasonably inserted as a controlling adjective for each occurrence of the word "law" in the passage up until Paul's reference to "the law of Christ", which Long annotates as "the NC law of Christ".  Several claims are made here.  Perhaps the most odd to me is that while Long is demonstrably aware of the typical threefold division reading of this passage, up to and include the contextual clue that the surrounding verses of 1 Corinthians have to do with eating and drinking (e.g., the ceremonial dietary laws previously confirmed as no long binding consciences in the book of Acts), he argues that verse twenty makes sense if "Mosaic" is inserted, but not "ceremonial".  I have followed his admonition to insert ceremonial into the verse several times since initially reading the book, and for the life of me, I cannot say I come to the same conclusion.

   Long also notes that being "under the law" (hupo nomon) is descriptive of unsaved Jews that Paul is seeking to win, while "under the law of Christ" is not not speaking of unsaved Christians, and that therefore "the law of Christ" in context cannot be synonymous with "the law of God" taken as a general category.  This is very true, and I don't know any adherent to WCT that would take a position otherwise.  Rather, the "law of Christ" in my understanding is synonymous with that very eternal and unchanging moral standard reflected both in the Decalogue and in "the two greatest".  Long concludes his exegesis with the statement (in bold, no less) "the law of God and the law of Christ in this verse: intimately related, yes!totally equated, no!" (1568)  But this is straw-manning.  Westminster did not "totally equate" the "law of Christ" with the entirety of Mosaic law in the sense of perpetuity, but rather equates the law of Christ, the Decalogue, the "two greatest" and the pre-Abrahamic moral will of God, e.g., his eternal moral purpose written on the heart of the regenerate.  Therefore, I would have 1 Cor. 9:20-21 read "to those under the ceremonial law, I became as one under the [ceremonial] law (though not myself being under the [ceremonial] law, that I might win those under the [ceremonial] law.  To those outside the [ceremonial] law, I became as one outside the [ceremonial] law, not being outside (anomos, lawless) the law of God [that is, without the broader category of God's moral standards generally], but under the [moral] law of Christ [which he came to fulfill and not abolish] that I might win those outside the [ceremonial] law."  Do you see the flow in the context of the threefold division?  Paul abides by the standards of the ceremonial law so as not be a stumbling block for unsaved Jews he seeks to bring to faith and repentance, but by virtue of the new and better, glorious covenant administration in Christ's blood, he is not himself under those strictures of diet etc. as a rule of life.  Meanwhile, he does not demonstrate rigorous adherence to ceremonial law which is no longer necessary in order to win Gentiles, but this does not make him lawless!  On the contrary, he is in-lawed to Christ, who fulfilled all the law on Paul's behalf and wrote God's moral law (here the law of Christ, that is the law still proper and binding to the New Covenant) on Paul's heart.  Long's exegesis fails, because it is dependent on the presupposition outlined above: that the "two greatest" are a distinct entity from, and abrogate, the principles of the Decalogue.




   Long concludes his section on law by asking a variety of leading questions designed to allow people to question and wrestle with the notion of the threefold division.  In reply, I have a few questions of my own for NCT.  A) Does the law of Christ include specifics on how one loves God and loves neighbor?  More importantly, does it necessitate specifics?  B) Given that Long appears to believe that specifics are included, up to and including a republication of nine of the ten commandments and "fulfillment of the fourth in Sabbath rest for the people of God", why is it that it is so vital to abrogate the Decalogue and how does this support the idea that the law of Christ is not the same entity as the Mosaic law?  C) What about commands in the Mosaic code that are not reissued in the NT?  D) As a narrowing of the range of c), can NCT with confidence say that the term "sexual immorality" in the New Testament allows God to forbid the full range of sexual sin forbidden in the Old?  Why or why not? 
 
   A final note on the law issue, I feel, would edify before wrapping up with Long.  Long quite purposefully seems to omit the issue of the Sabbath from his discussion of the Decalogue, minus a fleeting reference, (1605) and I find this odd.  In fact, the Sabbath issue would seem to be the major area where NCT could "score points" on the issue of the law, at least with other Reformed Baptists, which appear to be the primary audience of the book.  (Presbyterians on the other hand, have far more rigorous Sabbatarian language to wrestle with confessionally, which brings its own difficulties but at least consistently preserves the single covenant, multiple administrations conception of the 16th and 17th century confessions.)  For those Calvinists without a specific doctrine of the Sabbath, it would behoove you to look at the issues and questions raised by NCT and ask if your position is sufficiently consistent to allow you to say why you disagree.

5) Wrapping up.

   Despite the rather rough treatment it might appear to have gotten from me, Long's book raises valid and timely questions and challenges adherents to traditional understandings of the covenants, credobaptist and paedobaptist, to reexamine some notions they may have held uncritically.  As theology, it remains  unconvincing to me, as exegesis it suffers from unwarranted assumption in places, but as comparative systematics it is fascinating and as writing it is approachable and refreshingly easy to grasp in the sense of avoiding unnecessary technicality.  It's rating for me was greatly enhanced for a rather ironic reason: the book mounts the best short and simple Biblical defense of the Covenant of Works I have seen so far (minus the terminological quibbling around ("hypothetical" and "works".)  Despite the efforts of the Barcellos bunch, I predict NCT to be a rising force as the new generations of Calvinists feel their oats, not least because it offers a view of the law that will appeal greatly to many American Christians from Baptist and nondenominational backgrounds, and this will make it an important book as well as an entertaining read.

3.5/5.

In Christ,
~JS