Twenty

The gyre turns
Into a semipermeable void,
Fiction and Substance.
Longed-for Anarchy eludes us,
Too free for chaos,
The blessed inherit slavery

An empty throne
Before a semi-liberated people,
Power and guilt.
Rich fields absent shepherds,
Undone by charity
The people perish for lack of Knowledge.

A crumbling precipice
The inheritance of a drunkard,
Not hot or cold.
Falconer absent prey
Hero without quest
Laodicea slouching towards apotheosis.

~JS 5/5/2020

Why Covenant Theology?

   As is readily apparent, the majority of content on this blog to date has either been explicitly about covenant theology of all varieties, or touching on that theme in some respect.  For those who know me best, or read this blog the most zealously (two categories whose Venn diagram I suspect resembles a circle), the question why that is the case is probably settled.  In the interest of reaching out to those who may have only just happened across "Notes", or visit infrequently, I'd like to try to answer that question in my own words.  Why covenant theology?  In the whole wide world of theology and the Bible, let alone all other things, why devote time and energy to internet posts on God's covenants with man?
 
   The answer to that why is threefold in nature.  There is the hermeneutical significance of CT: how our reading the Bible influences our view of the covenants, and, in one of the feedback loops common to the Christian walk, how our view thereof influences our reading of the Bible.  There is also the historical-theological significance: the role CT plays in being Reformed, or, for those non-Calvinists or non-CT adherents in the audience, the self-identity and place in history (that is to say, among and in relation to our fellow men) lent to you by your place outside the CT camp.  Finally, we have what I will term the personal/practical significance (although if you ever walk away from this blog feeling that hermeneutics and history have no personal or practical meaning, I will close up shop now).  How does our view of God's covenants with man influence our day-to-day walk with God in terms of growth in holiness, spiritual maturity, the sacraments, or prayer?  How (if at all) does CT shape how we as individual Christians relate to God?

   Hermeneutics shape the Christian life as much or more as nearly all other theoretically "abstract" disciplines.  While there is much truth to the old saying Lex Orandi Lex Credendi (the rule of prayer is the rule of belief), in our literate age, it is just as true, if not more, that how one reads (specifically the Scriptures) shapes ones belief system.  Specifically, CT answers the following questions: 1) What is the law?  Does God has one law, or more than one?  How do Christians relate to the law today, and what parts of it, if any, are applicable as a canon for Christians?  2) What is the nature of progressive Revelation?  How does the Old Testament instruct the Christian today. and why?  How and why does the Bible abrogate or republish itself working from left to right?  3) To what degree does typology play a role in the grammatical-historical reading of Scripture?  What parts of the Bible have more than one application?  4) Perhaps most importantly, what story, or stories, is the Bible telling?  The first application for the answers to this question, or at least the most readily apparent, is eschatological, but there are other ramifications.  Simply put, without hermeneutics, the Christian walk is left as unshaped by Divine revelation as it would be if God remained silent.

   Covenant theology has been the underpinning of Reformed systematics at least since Witsius, and arguably dates all the way back to Calvin's Institutes.  The Reformed Confessions, particularly, but not exclusively the Westminster Standards, place CT at the heart not only of Reformed hermeneutics, but also, Reformed identity.  How one relates to the nature and place of the New Covenant in the historia salutis forms ones place in the often complex and turbulent denominational landscape of American Christianity, provides a link to one's historical forebears in theology, and in doing so, lends weight to one's standing as a member in the church Catholic, both living and historical.  At least in the Reformed camp, having, and being able to articulate, a position on CT is the most important part of being able to place oneself in history, feel truly connected to the history of the Church, avoid invention a personal hermeneutic at the price of lost consistency, and enables us to truly "stand on the shoulders of giants".

   Last but not least, CT, even apart from strictly heremeutical considerations, shapes how one lives and thinks and acts as a Christian.  It is worldview forming.  CT alters how we view the law, and therefore our approach to sanctification and holiness, how we view the OT, and thereby what parts of it we apply to our lives (and in what ways), how we view and practice the sacraments and their roles in the church, and can even shape how we deal with important issues like church and the family, apostasy, how we approach God in prayer, the role of elders and form of church government, and many other issues.  In other words, CT, as much as any discipline of systematic theology, touches the everyday walk and experience of the Christian and his local congregation in intimate, holistic ways.  This is no mere dry collection of rote facts to memorize, but part of growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord.  Few "abstract" theological fields will prove to touch as diverse elements of your life as you study them.

   Hopefully this brief survey has shed light on the emphases of this blog to date.  Hopefully posts will be coming with more regularity in the near future, many of them will be centered on, you guessed, studies and book reviews in comparative CT.  On the imminent docket: the next entry in my series on Federal Visionism, part one of a book review regarding the topic, and the beginning of may be a series introducing the issue of Republication of the Covenant of Works, and the ongoing controversy at Westminster West and East regarding that subject.  Prayer for diligence in writing would be appreciated, as I have much to do, and seemingly not enough time to accomplish it.

In Christ,

~JS

Institutionalized: Calvin on the differences between the Mosaic and New administrations.

  "Let us now explain the apostle's contrast step by step.  The Old Testament is literal, because promulgated without the efficacy of the Spirit; the New spiritual, because the Lord has engraved it on the heart.  The second antithesis is a kind of exposition of the first.  The Old is deadly, because it can do nothing but involve the whole human race in a curse; the New is the instrument of life, because those who are freed from the curse it restores to favor with God.  The former is the ministry of condemnation, because it charges the whole sons of Adam with transgression; the latter the ministry of righteousness, because it unfolds the mercy of God, by which we are justified.  The last antithesis must be referred to the ceremonial Law.  Being a shadow of things to come, it behooved in time to perish and vanish away; whereas the Gospel, inasmuch as it exhibits the very body, is firmly established forever...When we consider the multitude of those whom, by the preaching of the Gospel, he has regenerated by his Spirit, and gathered out of all nations into the communion of his church, we may say that those of ancient Israel who, with sincere and heartfelt affections embraced the covenant of the Lord, were few or none, though the number is great when they are considered in themselves without comparison."~II.11.VIII

     Calvin having recently concluded his chapter on the similarities of the Old and New Testaments, in which he continues to lay what would later become the foundation for the WCF's "One Substance, Multiple Administrations" formula of CT, and establishes the Abrahamic as a promissorial administration of the Covenant of Grace, he goes on to write on the five "heads" of difference between the Testaments.  Whereas his chapter on similarity focused on the typical/promisssorial blessings on Abraham and the Patriarchs, his differences emphasize the Covenant of Law, e.g., the Mosaic administration, and that in the blood of Christ.  Specifically in section eight, Calvin outlines: 1) the contrast between the Mosaic Covenant as "literal" and the New as "spiritual".  Not that this is the juxtaposition the modern dispensationalist would have: there is no tension here for Calvin.  There is a spiritual reality in shadowy form in the Mosaic, and a "literal", in the sense of "real", element to the New (indeed, for Calvin, the New is more "real" than the shadowy/typological Old).  Rather, Calvin's emphasis is on the "do this and live" presentation of the Law, which does not, in itself, offer either unconditional promise, or gracious aid in seeking the reward (typologically represented in the Land promise, as Calvin explained earlier in the chapter).  This is contrasted with the pouring out and post-Pentecostal indwelling of the Spirit and it's writing of the moral law on the hearts of men.
2) The "deadly" element of the Mosaic administration is contrasted with the "life giving" promise of the Gospel.  Here we see the smallest germ, perhaps, of a republication concept long before Owen or Kline: the curse of the Law is a representation of the curse already borne by the descendant of Adam, the breaker of the Covenant of Works.
3) The eternality of the Gospel covenant in contrast with the temporary obsolescence of the Law.
4) The extent of the Gospel promise, not to one chosen nation, but in great numerical abundance to all the nations of the earth.

    Thus, Calvin sets the foundation to many of the arguments of Westminsterian CT long before the existence of the Standards, as the eternality, numerical superiority, Spiritual power, internalization, and life giving promise of the Gospel Covenant are set forward, contrary to the assertion that classical Covenant theology flattens the Covenant of Grace out into an undifferentiated admixture.

~JS

On Suicide, Culture, and Self

"Q. 135. What are the duties required in the sixth commandment?
A. The duties required in the sixth commandment are, all careful studies, and lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions, and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices, which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any.
Q. 136. What are the sins forbidden in the sixth commandment?
A. The sins forbidden in the sixth commandment are, all taking away the life of ourselves, or of others..."~Westminster Larger Catechism


   I wrestled for a significant period of time with mentioning that I have contemplated (not practiced) self-harm in the past.  Aside from the fact, which I should think obvious, that it is intrinsically something that is difficult to talk about for people who shun pity and embrace emotional privacy, there were a variety of reasons not to begin there.  The primary reason is that I personally consider it irrelevant.  Derivation of facts from personal experience is Gnostic, ergo, non-Christian.  Running parallel to this, a defining feature of post-modernity has been prefacing every commentary on a given topic by stating that one is privy to just such "personal truths", gained from experience, thereby filling the well with the concentrated arsenic of "don't you dare presume to tell me about (x), I have lived it."  As this is one of the many features of post-modernity I loathe with ever fiber of my being, please take my word at face value and accept that this is not a tactic I am employing.

   Reservations to the contrary aside, I decided to start there, because I do believe that while one does not need to be hit by a brick to know that it hurts, knowledge of the specific sort of pain we are discussing is, in fact, gained most readily from experience.  Therefore, I raise the issue to assure those who might read this who can't quite shake the impression that I am speaking to this issue from a place of pure and clinical detachment, that no, in fact, I am familiar with the experience of poor emotional health.

   Having thus presented my credentials at the threshold, I stride boldly into the room to announce to those within that the primary reason that I have never deliberately harmed myself (the adverb of volition playing an important role there) is that it is sinful.  There are many sinful things that I have done, including many heinous ones.  However, I believe that suicide, attempts thereunto, and physical self-harm exist on a moral plain that I shrink back from in fear.  This fear is nothing of me, and all of God: I would fear nothing in the realm of evil were it not for the hand of grace in my life, so do not think that I am looking to exalt myself over other people in this.   I have friends that have harmed themselves.  I have friends that have killed themselves.  I am no better than they.  I am no worse.  Sinners all, we are dependent on God for deliverance from the body of death.  Self-identifying as a sinner, however, even one touched by the struggles with depression, loneliness, or alienation that have affected countless others, is not going to stay my hand from speaking here as to why I believe that self-harm is wicked, to be repented of, and why it is a product of a dying culture.  For any who have stuck with me thus far who are offended, I do not demand you change your mind, only that you allow me to attempt to expose a fruitless deed of darkness without feeling that I am a hypocrite.

   Firstly, it must be said that self-harm is murderous, in the proper sense of the term, that is to say, a violation of the sixth commandment. The violation of the sixth commandment, when done pertinent to other people, is a derogation of God's right to be God, as all the Decalogue.  Specifically, it strikes at the precious gift of life that God has given to men, and it seeks to unmake what God has made in His own image.  In the case of self-harm and suicide, this impulse is wedded to a larger and more palpable expression of ingratitude, in that the gift and the image-marring are uniquely personal.  To harm oneself is to tell God that He was mistaken in making you, that His gifts are worthless, that His creative act is wrongheaded.  Like all violations of the law of God, it echoes the Garden impulse to believe that one knows better.

   Like all sin, this means that self-harm and suicide are acts of the ego, in other words, fundamentally selfish.  However, because these sins are viewed from the outside as negations or assaults on self, the selfishness is wrapped in a far greater degree of paradox than other categories of sin.  In order for one to violate God's law, to attempt to sit on His throne and say that it is our will that will be done, one must believe in the moment, however wrong-headed it may be, that one stands to gain from it.  How is selfishness visible in an attack on self?  Simply put, the person who commits suicide has already located self somewhere other than God's decree has.   The final act of rebellion may be an act of despair in that the person does not believe the act itself is gain per se, but the origin of the despair has been a transfer of one's self-worth, how what defines oneself, and what one lives for to something other than what God wants.

   One can see this pattern in the increasing number of tragic deaths in the West of recipients of "gender reassignment surgery", a process which is named for an impossibility from the decretal perspective of God.  Who and what God created a person to be has been exchanged, as in the first chapter of Romans, for a lie.  However, such a dramatic, and perhaps therefore, more obvious, example is merely a greater trend writ large.

   My generation is said to be the most anxious, most depressed, most medicated, and most suicidal generation of Americans to date.  While we did not unlock some secret category of sin, or transgress in some quantitatively different degree than our parents or ancestors, the worldview in which America, and the West generally is deluged has brought us to this.  Despite being more obsessed than any past people on Earth with "self-esteem" and "self-realization", objective metrics can demonstrate that Americans hate themselves more than ever.  And this is because the subjectivity of moral relativism has detached the anchor of self from the sea floor of objective truth.  Americans run hither and yon seeking identity in people, places and things.  Social media floods with stories of teenage girls who pop pills and slash wrists over social slights, and men who risk their lives with steroids to appear attractive to people they barely know.  For myself, it took a great deal of effort in high school to reconcile myself to not fitting in with peers, and another great deal of effort to transition to a single life after college.  Neither period was without temptations in the arena of self-destructive behavior.  Neither period was without outright sin in that regard either.  As fresh millions of adults embark on what are supposed to be the most stable years of their lives, they have left educational and recreational institutions fully sold out to the idea that there is no Creator God who values them and has a plan for them individually, and increasingly, self-conception becomes attached to money, sex, or, in my opinion most insidiously, the approval of others.

  It is there that I want to conclude, because the thing that grieves me most about the selfishness of self-harm, and the thing that I think needs to be impressed upon people who struggle with despair, is that it sets a terrible example.  This is leaving aside the already extreme impact that suicide or self-harm will have on a person's friends, family members, and significant others (and I have never met a person who was not loved by someone, if you are reading this, that includes you).  No matter what you are dealing with, to hurt yourself over it is to tell other people who may go through the same thing, including people who may be younger and weaker, that it is acceptable to give up.  In a world with an increasingly demagnetized moral compass, suicide is to tell someone else that their idols of prestige, insecurity or circumstances are worth giving up God's gift of life.  Other people do not define you.  Your faults and unfulfilled aspirations do not define you.  Your Creator defines you, and if you are a Christian, that definition cost more than you can know.  Repent.

   To those who read this all the way through, thank you.  I appreciate if it was less than fun to do so.  It was less than fun to write.  The "usual schedule" of Notes will resume tomorrow, God willing, with the scheduled Institutes column that was supposed to run today.  God bless.

~JS

Institutionalized: The Resurrection and Cross indivisible.

   "Our salvation may be thus divided between the death and the resurrection of Christ: by the former sin was abolished and death annihilated; by the latter righteousness was restored and life revived, the power and efficacy of the former being still bestowed upon us by means of the latter...Let us remember therefore, that when death only is mentioned, everything peculiar to the resurrection is at the same time included, and that there is a like snecdoche in the term resurrection, as often as it is used apart from death, everything peculiar to death being included.  But as, by rising again, he obtained the victory and became the resurrection and the life, Paul justly argues, 'If Christ be not raised your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins"(1 Cor 15:17)...Then, as we have already explained that the mortification of our flesh depends on communion with the cross, so we must also understand, that a corresponding benefit is derived from his resurrection."~Institutes II.16.XIII
   Here, Calvin points out that it is impossible for the victory over sin and death to be accomplished without either the death of Christ, or His resurrection.  To such degree does Calvin believe these to be two sides of the same coin that he states that each could be said to be fully concealed in the mention of the other in the text of Scripture.  Why this is, Calvin outlines: the destruction of death and the power of sin can properly be said to belong to the domain of the Cross, as in Owen's famous "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ", while righteousness and newness of life can be said to be consequent to resurrection (Calvin goes on to note in this passage that Christ is the forerunner of resurrection on behalf of the redeemed).  This is not a pure split, however, and Calvin cites Paul to the Corinthians to remind us that the final triumph is not possible without the resurrection.

   The Christian faith in the work of Jesus cannot be divided piecemeal, so as to make him only the final and perfect sacrifice, or only the resurrected Lord of life.  While no groups I am aware of claim to do so to an exhaustive degree, there have been times when the emphasis in Rome has been too greatly on the Cross (as witnessed by the continued and widespread use of the crucifix), whereas the various emergent groups denying penal substitution appear to want, as best as they can manage, a bloodless gospel.  The irony in the former case is that the eucharistic theology of Rome empties the Cross of its power by making it a repetitious, non-perfecting work incongruent with a Savior who is ascendant and seated; the failure of the latter is an emergent unwillingness to deal with the reality of harsh realities of sin and the law brought to us by the Cross.  Calvin reminds us, on this Holy Saturday, that Jesus has offered a complete Gospel and a finished work.  As Paul said to the Corinthians before his proclamation of the resurrection's necessity, Christ is not divided, and neither is the atonement by His blood.

~JS

Internet Roundup: Politicized Evangelicalism, Gay Christianity, and more resources

In today's Roundup, we feature two databases of "free stuff", as well as a few specific pieces on topics of interest.

1) The Heidelblog wrote an article recently on infant baptism in the Reformed tradition and the notion that all baptism of very young children is Romanist in origin and theology.  I link to it less because I believe that my current readership believes this, but pretty much every American knows someone who does.

2) An old professor of mine linked to a very interesting article on the faiths of Republican presidential contestants this year, and what the demographics in American "evangelicalism" indicate about their support base.  While I hardly agree with all the conclusions drawn by the article (at the end, it strays into "pro-Rubio editorial" territory), my primary concern is to highlight a conclusion I think most practicing Christians could have drawn on their own, but has poll data to support it: the overwhelming burden of "evangelicals for Trump" can't be bothered to do things like regularly attend local churches.

3) Already linked on the Facebook page of my life group, I re-post here a thirty-minute sermon by Dr. John Piper on the abiding nature of the Sabbath.  Particularly relevant to the earlier post here on the Sabbath in the Reformed confessions, I was surprised, given Piper's Bapist and post-Pentecostal leanings, to have agreed with the content of Dr. Piper's message as much as I did.  While he did not use the words "single in substance, multiple in administration", his conclusions largely align with application of that principle to the cross-covenantal validity of the Sabbath.

4) Covenant Theological Seminary has a bunch of free resources that they want just an email address for (and they don't send a bunch of spam).  The majority of lectures for several of their courses are available on audio free of charge.

5) Monergism.com remains one of the most useful, and still updating, data-mines for Reformed reading online.  If you haven't visited already, now's your prompt.

6) Finally, we have a link to the (lengthy, no visuals) audio of Dr. James White's response to a talk given by pro-"Gay Christianity" presenter Matthew Vines.  As this may be the issue confronting the American church today, and Vines is representative of a wide swath of readings in the "non-traditional" camp, I highly recommend this audio response as a place to start for the bemused, confused, befuddled, or those running low on ammunition.

Hope you have a blessed Resurrection Sunday.  In addition to today's post, stay tuned for a minor glut of additional content presently in the works.

~JS

Internet round-up: Rushdoony, Racism, and Romans.

   Time for another of Notes' internet round-ups, in which I share things that interest me from across the web.  In no particular order, then...

1) I may have already linked to R. Scott Clark's monthly webcast, the Heidelcast, before, but it's full archive is located here.  I started listening to episode 58 and following yesterday, on the topic of Nomism (legalism) and Antinomianism (the belief that the abiding validity of the moral law of God for the Christian today), and think that that series will be of great practical impact to believers (particularly as episode 58 contains a fairly comprehensive presentation of the Gospel in Romans), and also has a lot of tie-ins with material previously covered on this blog.  Check it out.

2) There has been a dust-up over accusations of racism in the wake of a (now-deleted) tweet and accompanying facebook post by James White on a particular millennial of minority descent that Dr. White observed in public.  Like moths to a flame, Joel McDurmon's involvement in the matter drew counter-accusations on the part of Pulpit and Pen including a firestorm of tweets and at least one blog post on racially charged statements made by the primary forefather of Reconstruction, RJ Rushdoony.  I would like to relink the statements cited by P and P here so as to demonstrate the source of the controversy, but I would also like to link to at least one piece by Rushdoony from the American Vision to attempt to demonstrate that the issue is not as clear-cut as either side, perhaps, would like it to be.  I'm going to stay out of the issue, at least for the time being, except to say that it is brutally damaging to the Reformed community to allow the rhetoric around race and racism typically harnessed by secular interests to divide brother against brother in the church.  I would also encourage folks who haven't actually read anything by Rushdoony to do so before jumping into Reconstruction-related issues.

3) Princeton has a multi-lingual library of the writings of Abraham Kuyper available online for free.  While the bulk of this material will be obscured from folks who don't speak Dutch or Latin, there is a wealth of English material available also, including several lecture series and his entire book "The Work of the Holy Spirit". 

Have a restful and holy Lord's Day.

~JS

Wednesday feature column: "Institutionalized"

   Not only has post frequency dropped off recently, but I completely missed Saturday's installment of the round-up.  Which may be for the best, as I hadn't really happened upon anything fascinating that week anyway.  However, making up for this somewhat, I am launching a Wednesday evening tradition here at Notes that I will be calling "Institutionalized", wherein I will go over a passage from Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, and talk a little bit about it.  With no further introduction necessary, today's passage comes from the second book, "Of Christ the Redeemer".

"The saying of John was always true, 'whosoever denieth the Son, the same has not the Father' (1 John 2:23).  For though in old time, there were many who boasted that they worshiped the Supreme Deity, the Maker of heaven and earth, yet as they had no mediator, it was impossible for them to truly enjoy the mercy of God, so as to feel persuaded that He was their Father.  Not holding the Head, that is, Christ, their knowledge of God was evanescent; and hence they at length fell away to gross and foul superstitions, betraying their ignorance, just as the Turks in the present day who, though proclaiming, with full throat, that the Creator of heaven and earth is their God, yet by their rejection of Christ, substitute an idol in his place."  II.6.IV


   It has often been said that the Institutes are a book in which the ink appears not yet dry, and the number of times one can find things relevant to our day and time continually astonishes.  In chapter Six of the second book, Calvin has just given a brief overview of the various administrations of the Covenant of Grace, including Abrahamic, Mosaic and Davidic, and illustrated the need for the people of God for a Mediator, whether in the types and shadows of the sacrificial system, or the prophesied reign of the future seed of David.  Calvin states that this need of a Mediator was so central to the understanding of Israel, that although it was obscured by the machinations of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus assumed its importance.
    Calvin concludes that this centrality of the Mediator, and Christ's exclusive claim to that office of Mediation, is the background to 1 John 2:23.  He ends chapter Six with the Biblical death blow to two common intellectual ailments of postmodernity: firstly, the idea that Christ is one acceptable path to God among many, and secondly, the idea that Rabbinical Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, worship the same God.  Wheaton faculty protestation and Vatican II posturing to the contrary notwithstanding, to seek the Father without the Son is, for Calvin, the substitution of an idol in the Father's place.

~JS

Internet Round-Up: Of Presidents and Popes

  A few items from the web for your weekend perusal.  A few were already on my Facebook, so apologies for any redundancies.

1) James KA Smith, philosophy professor at Calvin College, wrote a solid piece on the potential Democratic nominees and student debt, which can be found here.  I would suggest that you pair it with some American Vision pieces on the costs (financial/material and otherwise) of higher education today.

2) This piece on the idea of "shadowbanning" should demonstrate why I believe there is reason to fear the end of the era of free speech in the West.  It would behoove all of us to keep an eye on who is being appointed to regulate what in the arena of social media.

3) CNN ran a story on the Pope and his waffling on the "lesser evil" of contraceptives in the face of (yet another) thing that makes it uncomfortable to be both a humanist (and a humanist Bergoglio certainly is) and an opponent of contraceptives, namely the Zika virus.  Irrespective of my views either of artificial contraception or the Pope, this is both fresh evidence of his worldview inconsistency, and the fact that said inconsistency is not entirely self-generated.  The post Vatican II milieu, and the oddly discordant hardline stance on artificial contraception occurring at the same time have increased the number of objects kept in the air by the papal jugglers more than once.

4) For those interested in the history and background of traditional dispensationalism, or for John MacArthur fans interested to find evidence that his views are not generated by a life of isolation in the theological woods, Louis Sperry Chafer's tract on dispensationalism is available at Amazon for 99 cents.  It is not a pretty edition, in fact it defines the expression "no frills", but at that price, who can complain?
I conclude with two pieces from "The American Conservative" relevant to the (increasingly disastrous-looking) Presidential election cycle, one of which reflects statements I made a number of weeks ago in regards to the "Rise of Trump".

5) The first describes the element of American politics behind the Donald (and other aspects and personalities of this election) that can be described, in some sense, as "fascistic".  One of the things appreciable about this piece is that it is at least partially clinical/analytical.  Winners, writing the history as they do, "fascism" has been relegated to the domain of ad hominem, such that a logical fallacy has been created to designate "an appeal to Hitler", whereas "socialism" is not only a term with a meaningful dictionary definition in the American political consciousness, but a badge certain holders of public office wear with pride.  Ironically, the American unwillingness to analyze the fascist boogeyman (which stems allegedly from abhorring it), has made some Americans unable to identify it.  (This may be a theme deserving of stand-alone posts).

6) The second is a political tactics post about the Rubio campaign.  I'm mostly linking to it because it combines two of my favorite things: in-depth discussion of Presidential campaign strategy, and Napoleonic metaphor. 

Until next time, may we all continue to grow up in the Head, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

~JS

Visions, Federal and Otherwise, or "dry Baptists, secret Lutherans and other oddities" (1)

   As addressed in other entries here, the modern Reformed and Paedobaptist (I dislike the habit of leaving the second term off and simply letting Baptists figure out what you mean) community has been riven by a specific set of issues for quite a while, and as the advocates of what is typically viewed as the novel position refuse to go away, that rift has widened.  I refer of course to what has been known, depending on who you are asking, as the Federal Vision (or federal vision "movement", hereafter FV), Auburn Avenue theology, "monocovenantalism", or Shepherdism.  Apart from hopefully shining greater light on the origin of that array of nicknames for the perspective, I am embarking on a mission with several diverse goals regarding it.  Firstly, I hope to give a broad outline of what unifies the perspective (and what diversifies it), and how it is delineated from what I will at this point call the "traditional/confessional" perspective (hereafter TC).  Secondly, I want to get into the meat and potatoes by reviewing and examining some key portions (or at least portions I found particularly interesting) of the book of essays published by some of the key figures of the movement itself, aptly entitled "The Federal Vision".  Third, or rather intermingled with these, I want to provide commentary and concerns on the movement as a whole as the work progresses.  I don't know how long this project will take, how many pages it will cover, or how many posts it will occupy.  With that utter lack of confidence instilled in my beleaguered readership, I begin with some basics and background.

   One name given to FV, which typically has been assigned by it's foes rather than it's friends is "Shepherdism", and this is due to the fact that in order to give background to the FV controversy, and why people outside the perspective criticize it, I have to begin with earlier controversy which resulted in the expulsion of Norman Shepherd from Westminster Seminary Philadelphia (WSP).  Shepherd was the heir of John Murray's post at WSP, and after almost a decade of controversy over various issues, was dismissed in 1981, left his presbytery (where he was facing disciplinary review as well) and joined the Christian Reformed Church in North America for the remainder of his pastoral career.  While issues surrounding his dismissal were varied, the two that stood out most in the Westminster community and the OPC as a whole were: 1) Shepherds insistence on rejection of the Standards formulation of the CoW, replacing it with a system wherein Adam and the rest of man were all in the CoG, 2) a formulation of justification by faith which taught that "only obedient faith" perseveres or justifies.  This second view may seem in the brief space I have allotted to it to be mere biblical truism to the Reformed reader abreast of the distinction between sanctification and justification, but as I hope to show in controversy surrounding modern FV proponents, similar views present greater difficulty than can be resolved by harmonizing Romans 5 and James 2.  Additionally, point one above, the denial of the Covenant of Works as understood by the WCF, will be a feature common to, (but not universally accepted by all promoters of) FV, which explains the accusation noted at the outset of "monocovenantalism".  Several FV men participated in the publication and authorship of a Festschrift for Norman Shepherd provocatively titled Obedient Faith, so while I cannot spend further time (and have no expert opinions to offer) on the influence of Shepherd on FV generally, his career and ideas will be relevant to consider in this post and those that follow.  On a related note before moving on, overreaction to Shepherd's (and Murray's) positions on the Covenants resulted in much of the dustup at Westminster West over "Klinean Republication"...but that's a story for another time.

Moving from there, the key element to what is now known as FV began with the presentations and papers resulting from the pastors conference at Auburn Avenue PCA in Monroe Louisiana, 2002.  The four conference speakers at this, the first "Federal Vision conference" were Steve Schlissel, Steve Wilkins, John Barach and Douglas Wilson, and the topics addressed were primarily those of covenant theology.  The controversy that brewed over the papers presented at the conference was partially summarized in the positions affirmed and denied in a joint statement on the "Federal Vision" signed in 2007 by eleven minsters of the PCA and the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC).  At the end of this statement, under "Some Points of Intramual Disagreement", was a paragraph stating:
 "Some of these areas [of disagreement, JS] would include, but not be limited to, whether or not the imputation of the active obedience of Christ (as traditionally understood) is to be affirmed in its classic form. Some of us affirm this and some do not. Another difference is whether or not personal regeneration represents a change of nature in the person so regenerated."

While this phrasing highlights that there are differences on key doctrines within the FV "stream", there were also many key affirmations, including shared postmillennialism, denial of Christian neutrality in "secular" politics, and a denial that
"...Adam had to earn or merit righteousness, life, glorification, or anything else."  1

  The significance of this to disagreement between some confessional Presbyterian thinkers and the FV men will become more clear, but should already have more light placed on it by the above mention of Shepherd's elimination of the WCF's formulation of the CoW.  The linked FV joint statement should be read by anyone looking to grasp the related issue.

I'd like to wrap up this post with a list some basic elements of agreement and disagreement within FV, and also a few key disagreements between FV and more "traditional/confessional" or "TR" perspectives.  However, it should be remembered that the existence of the first list precludes the universality of the second, in other words, not all attacks launched from the TR camp can be said to be equally directed against all FV men, even within the eleven signatories of the joint statement.

   To begin, a few areas of mutual agreement among all FV men, briefly summarized.

1) Baptism, including of infants, truly makes all those to whom it is applied, truly united to Christ (in some sense, although which sense varies depending on which FV man you ask), truly part of his Church and truly a participant in the New Covenant.  To the extent that the New Covenant is the covenant of Regeneration, all persons partaking of Triune Baptism can be said to participate in "regeneration" in some sense, although not necessarily unto eternal life.

2) Justification and Regeneration, while bearing the traditional/confessional reformed definitions, are multi-faceted, and can occur in different senses for different persons. 

3) God's decree comes unequivocally to pass, and includes all things in time, including justification unto eternal life, individually declared in eternity past.  However, this justification is not the only human experience of justification in the sight of God.

4) It is impossible to please God through covenant membership alone, and the faith men are called to in Word and Sacrament must be the living and active faith of James 2.

5) Denial that "law" and "gospel" are, or should be used as, hermeneutics, accompanied by affirmation that saved persons can hear all parts of Scripture as good news, while unregenerate persons hear all parts of the Scripture as "the savor of death".

6) A real, but spiritual and non-local, presence of Christ in the Supper, and participation therein in confirmation of New Covenant membership.

7) It is possible to apostatize from the New Covenant, and breakers of the NC receive greater condemnation than pagans.  However, it is not possible for the decretally elect to fall away from Christ.

  However, there are likely as many differences as there are unifying elements, including in no particular order:

1) Paedocommunion.  While the "joint statement" affirms the administration of the supper to "children", adherence to paedocommunion as practice (or definition of the term) varies among FV theologians.

2) The exact emphasis of the biblical term "justification".  Some within in the movement see the predominant biblical use as eschatological (vis a vis the "final declaration" of N.T. Wright), others as partially synonymous with sanctification-in-process (which would be their typical reading of dikaioo in James 2), yet others emphasize very strongly the element of justification which is in the union of both Jews and Gentiles in Christ (another theme shared with N.T. Wright and "New Perspectivism").  On top of all of these, there remains individual salvific justification by faith, and the emphases and terminology used will differ widely among which FV writer you are reading on the subject.

3) The degree to which FV men can be said to affirm "baptismal regeneration", and in which sense.

4) Some FV men will say they adhere to the entirety of the Westminster Standards, but read them differently in places than the TR community.  Others will openly deny portions of the confession and suggest alternate doctrinal language at these places.

5) Some FV men have a strong monocovenantal bent (particularly those who deny the traditional formulation of the CoW) while others affirm a two-covenant scheme but deny that Adam could have earned anything, or was expected to.  Still others affirm most of the confessional position on the CoW, but don't focus on it as their main emphasis.

6) The imputation of the active obedience of Christ is, as will be seen, affirmed by Douglas Wilson (known by many to be "FV light"), while it is mitigated or outright denied by others.  The "joint statement" repudiates the necessity of use of the language formula "imputation of active obedience", but not precisely belief in it.

   In highlighting the above lists, fault lines between traditional/confessional Reformed thinkers and the FV movement become more clear, and to complete this post, I will list what I believe to be the four most important.  In the weeks and months to come, an ongoing project will be to expand this post as a series, with reviews of at least two books.  In doing so, I will leave the descriptive/expositional material here to enter the fray myself, and in doing so, I trust will expose myself as in neither TR nor FV camp, agreeing and disagreeing at times with both.  The four items below, which I encourage the reader to mull over, should demonstrate, at least partially, why I believe these are important issues.

1) Is the language of the WCF on the Covenants deficient?  Why and how?  How should it be "fixed"?
2) Can the sacraments be said to regenerate us, and in what sense?  Does Baptism make someone a member of the New Covenant by itself?  Are all Baptized persons, in some sense, "Christians" and what does that mean?

3) Does Justification accomplish active obedience and sanctification for the believer, or merely encourage it?  Is there overlap between justification and sanctification, and if so, how much?  What, if anything, did Christ merit for the believer by law-keeping?

4) Justification by faith: is Justification by Faith unto eternal life the Gospel?  Is it the primary emphasis of the New Testament?  Is it the primary biblical definition of "justification"?

~JS


1.  All quotes and material from the "joint statement" were taken from this copy of the original located here. 

 

Internet round-up: Napoleon and nukes.

A brief edition today, as work has interfered with a lot of time to dig up interesting links.  Some things to look into from this week, though.

1) A debate on the greatness (or not) of Napoleon I (a historical pet issue of mine) is here.

2) The Gospel Coalition published a piece on fear of dirty bombs in the age of ISIS here.  Gives some science on nuclear weapons that is historically interesting, and also shows the hysteria in some circles over nuclear power to be somewhat overblown.

3) The Heidelblog has embarked on a series of posts about Dispensationalism (after wrapping up a series of citations on the Covenant of Works).  The first is here, and begins three short pieces on dispensational fallacies, punctuated with other posts on the same topic.  The series has been notable for bringing in sources on both sides of the debate for easy reference.

4) American Vision did some pieces recently on the history of "Christian Socialism".  This one is particularly notable for it's discussion of the theological and ideological backgrounds of the men involved in the John Brown incident.

That's all for the this week, will hopefully have a richer trove next Saturday.  Working on several longer pieces here as well.

~JS

Internet round-up: Psalmody, the Qur'an and more!

   It's time for another edition of Internet Round-up, the column with fun stuff on the internet in the realm of theology!  Without further fuss:

1) A blogger posted a brief interview/Q and A with Doug Wilson recently, which I think gives some insight into where his head and heart are at, ministry-wise. 

2) Daily Dose of Greek is a good place to start if you are looking to get into the biblical source languages but aren't officially enrolled anywhere.  Hopefully posting this link here will motivate me to actually sit down and invest time in this arena.

3) Calvin's complete commentaries are available in English online.  If you want to get deeply into Calvin's thoughts on just about any passage of Scripture, (no Revelation, sorry) look no further.

4) Phil Johnson has a series of articles (they've been standing for some time) on the potential sinfulness of gambling.  Good stuff to bear in mind with the popularity of going to casino as a birthday celebration etc.

5) Peter Leithart caused quite a stir lately with articles on "why Protestants can't write".  The rejoinder by TCI, with links to the originals, can be found here.

6) If you can surmount the thick Scottish accent, a presentation on the importance of Klinean Republication relevant to the historical theology of the Westminster Standards is available here.

7) For those who missed the recent Facebook link, the Arabic corpus of the Qur'an, with grammar and morphology, is free online here.

8) In a landmark moment of the Obama presidency (more's the pity) Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has passed away today.  The Gospel Coalition has published an article with nine basics about the late justice.

9) Adam 4d is a web comic about the travails and experiences of Christians in the world.  It demonstrates an element of "kidding on the square" that we can all appreciate.

10) A group known as "My Soul Among Lions" has released a Kickstarter-funded album of "contemporary psalmody".  While this album encompasses Psalms 1-10, they are hoping to eventually get to the entire Psalter.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend and there's at least one thing of interest here for everybody.  Have a restful and Christ-centered Sabbath.

~JS

Feature columns, and the first weekly "Internet roundup"

   In an effort to spur greater volume here, I will be attempting to generate larger amounts of shorter pieces (as spellbound as I'm sure you all are by multi-page book reviews and feature-length analysis of debates on the Mosaic law).  To that end, I introduce Saturday's installment, "internet roundup", which will be a brief breakdown of amusing, alarming, awesome (and alliterative) miscellany I found interesting on the 'web.  Not all of this (or even most of it, depending) is guaranteed to be relevant to theology.  Some of it may just be nonsense.  Amount of stuff will vary based on how boring (or busy) the week goes.  Without further ado, Notes from the Shore brings you it's first ever "Internet Roundup", which will focus on sites (many of which I have already linked to here) from which I draw material and read every day.

1) Sermon audio is a vast database of sermon material from just about every English-speaking location and theological perspective under the sun.  It has the added benefit of hosting many of the world's best theology podcasts.  The website is no frills, and the content is free.  Lets you never go a day without hearing the word of God preached, should you so choose.

2) Amazon has blessed the world with the free Kindle app, which turns any laptop or smartphone into a Kindle for reading e-books for free (although on phones, the multi-MB book files will eat up a lot of storage).  With one-click purchasing at shipping-free, vastly reduced prices, anyone looking for a specific title, or general category of reading material should look at Amazon before trying to order a paper copy (with all apologies to "traditional readers".)

3) Doug Wilson's blog, aka Blog and Mablog, features not only great puns like the one it's title, but due to the controversy associated with the author (if you google his name, you will get bonus hate blogs galore), will fulfill your duty to annoy a liberal every day you read it.  He is, as they say, my spirit animal.

4) The Heidelblog, by R. Scott Clark, and it's accompanying podcast, will give you the daily dose of historical theology from the "TR" perspective.  Despite my disagreements with Dr. Clark, don't neglect this blog, especially if you're a postie, as it will give a fair and balanced Amil slant on the Reformed universe.

5) Pulpit and Pen, a ministry of Montana pastor JD Hall and his friends, is a "watchblog" predominantly concerned with issues relevant to the SBC.  That being said, my grave concerns about the upstream waters feeding the 'casts eschatological pool (to say nothing of my...lack of affinity for the Baptist tradition) have cut me out of the loop of the Pulpit and Pen Program for a while now.  Still relevant for those who have an ear to the ground on the goings on in American Baptist life.  Also a great source of JD Hall audio sermons, which are typically stellar, and often more balanced than his podcast material.  Trigger warning attached for continuationists.

6) Christ the Center is a podcast (one among several) of Reformed Forum, and my pick for general Reformed podcast to listen to on a weekly basis.  It covers a wide variety of topics, and doesn't come from an apologetic bent (for that, see item 7), but rather deals with theology generally.  For personal edification in the way of Reformed theological education across a broad spectrum, this can't be beat.

7) Alpha and Omega Ministries, aka Dr. James White and his friend Rich Pierce, were instrumental to my journey back over the Tiber.  This is to my mind, the number one Reformed apologetics ministry and podcast on the web.  If you are in the trenches defending the faith in your home and work life, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

8) Bible Gateway is my go-to for online Bibles.  It has almost every relevant English Translation, and foreign language translations, and lets you view them in parallel commentary.

9) The American Vision is the blog of Joel McDurmon and company, and therefore the heir in the blogosphere to the work of Rushdoony and North, with occasional contributions from Gary DeMar.  Essential to an understanding of the goings-on in contemporary Theonomic/Dominionist thought.

10) White Horse Inn is the podcast of Michael Horton, and I would describe as the "Westminster West" podcast.  Makes a good companion to the Heidelblog, particularly regarding theology of the two Kingdoms, and eschatology.

11) Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is a webcomic I often link to on Facebook.  Depending on your workplace, it may not be professionally appropriate.  On top of tickling my funny bone, I link it here because it occasionally stumbles onto deep insight (from the Theistic perspective) into the mind of the anti-theist Westerner.

12) The Calvinist International is a website purporting to promote "Reformed catholicity", and is from a far more philosophical bent than some of the other links in this list.  Also worthy of checking out is Wedgewords, by a contributor to this site, has some secular history articles and updates infrequently, but is worth a look through.

That's all for now, check in next Saturday for more good stuff from the 'net.

In Christ,

~JS

Brief thoughts and bold predictions on Iowa.

1) Nothing is over regarding the top five across both parties, and really I didn't expect anything to be.  Proportional representation in Iowa means that in real delegate numbers, no one really got out to a meaningful "lead".  In terms of "momentum", that may have more to do with self-fulfilling media prophecy than something intrinsic to the raw numbers.

2) Steven Wedgeworth from Wedgewords issued the bold prediction yesterday that these results make Marco Rubio "the next President".  I hardly think things are as clear-cut as all that, but given a top-three showing in New Hampshire, Rubio, barring any gaffes in the short-term, has positioned himself for a deep run, especially when primaries and caucuses shift to the South.

3) My personal bold prediction: Bernie Sanders will be the Democratic nominee.  His numbers among young people mean more than the media is letting on, and in addition to possible...legal obstructions to the Hillary campaign, the CNN theory concretizing today that Sanders is only leading in New Hampshire because of it's proximity to Vermont ignore Bernie's appeal to a real and ideologically committed faction of the American left in blue states.

4) Trump is far from finished, but not coming in first in Iowa is a big deal.    The particular importance for me is that the poll numbers before real voting have been demonstrated to be "not real", which I predicted, which makes the 19 point leads in New Hampshire and South Carolina that Trump is showing far more superfluous than the networks would presently like.

5) Iowa is not racially or ideologically diverse enough to give us the surprises I think are yet to come.  And this is also bad for Trump.  While there will be adequate numbers of what Wilson winningly called "the Trumpenproletariat" for Trump to put in showings for the forseeable future, states with larger numbers of Black, Hispanic and upper-class GOP voters will be telling.

~JS

Notes from the Shore's ten books of 2015.

   Ten of the literary treasures from the world of theology (and one not) I consumed in 2015 and recommend to you.

1) The Theology of the Westminster Standards, JV Fesko.

   While not one hundred percent comprehensive, gives great background to contemporary issues in American Presbyterian and Reformed theology, and will be an approachable primer to the historical and political world of the Standards.  My book of the year.

2) The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism, Ed. Gregg Strawbridge.

   Reviewed here earlier in the year.  If you read one paedobaptism polemics book in your life (hah), read this one.

3) The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology, Guy Prentiss Waters.

   I wouldn't read this by itself if you're doing in-depth study on FV, as it is unabashedly proposing that FV "as a movement" is un-confessional, and it would behoove those interested to read the men in question in a full, contextual way.  To that end...

4) The Federal Vision, Ed. Steve Wilkins and Duane Garner.

   As was mentioned to me recently, there is no "FV handbook", but this is as close as we're going to get right now.  If you want to understand where the "movement", if movement it can be called (more on that later) is coming from, you should read this.  Stands out for having one of the more...interesting articles on the theology of Genesis I've ever read.

5) The Lord's Service, Jeffery J. Meyers.

   Otherwise known as "that Federal Vision Worship Book."  Puts forward the thesis that the structure of Protestant/Reformed liturgy can be governed by a "New Covenant rendition" of the tripartite sacrificial structure of Leviticus, with the Supper constituting the thanks offering.  While not converted in totality to it's claims, anyone who is interested in "how should we then worship" should read this book, particularly if you don't share the TR camps fixation of exclusive Psalmody, non-instrumental worship, low-church decor, and other aspects of that particular conservative interpretation of the RPW.  Particularly valuable for an essay on that principle, arguing that it should be understood more like the Normative Principle typically has been, and for a lengthy exegetical piece in favor of paedocommunion.

6) NCT: time for a more accurate way, Gary D. Long.
 
   Also reviewed here.  Similar to the FV book (although not a collection of essays), important for understanding contemporary issues in American Covenant theology.  This may be of greater interest to Reformed Baptists than all the FV stuff on this list, because closer to home.  As mentioned in my review, has the benefit of being willing to consider a pre-fall covenant with Adam, in some sense.

7) The Great Boer War, Byron Falwell

   A conflict that most Americans don't know and don't care about, but largely responsible for the modern and postmodern history of South Africa, and formative to the nature and allegiances of World War I and the unfolding of British Imperialism during and after Victoria.  Aptly walks the line between engaging and scholarly.  Perhaps a little overeager to exonerate British miscues and ethical lapses.

8) Five views on Law and Gospel, Ed. Stanley N. Gundry.

   Out of several books in this series that I read this year, this one was the most valuable for it's interplay between Douglas Moo, William VanGemeren and Dr. Bahnsen on the three most common "Reformed" views of the law.  Succint, approachable, and actually lets you look at the nuts and bolts of the views "cross-examining" each other.

9) Covenant Theology, Michael Horton.

   Not making the list because I think it's the best short-book length introduction to Covenant Theology I've read.  In fact, in that regard I found it disappointing.  Rather, important for understanding the distinctives of the position most common at WTS West, namely form-critical analysis of Covenant history of the OT, and a form of Klinean Republication.  And on that note...

10) Merit and Moses, Elam, Van Kooten and Bergquist.

Demonstrates concerns about the doctrinal ramifications, and confessional relevance of the Klinean Republication view.  Brief, but covers all (or most) of the bases.  Hopefully "The Law is Not of Faith" will make the list next year.

~JS

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