Doctrine of the Gospel: Learning Christ

"Doctrine has an influence upon practice, especially evangelical doctrine, spiritually understood, affectionately embraced, and powerfully and feelingly experienced; so true is what the Apostle asserts, that the “Grace of God”, that is, the Doctrine of the Grace of God, “that bringeth Salvation”, the good news, the glad tidings of salvation by Christ, which is peculiar to Gospel Doctrine, “hath appeared to all men”, Gentiles as well as Jews, in the external ministry of the word; teaching us, to whom it comes with power and efficacy in the demonstration of the Spirit, “that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world”, Titus 2:11,12.

"Where there is not the doctrine of faith, the obedience of faith cannot be
expected. Where there is not the doctrine of the Gospel, and men have not
learned Christ, they live for the most part as if there was no God in the
world, and give themselves up to work all sin with greediness. And on the
other hand, doctrine without practice, or a mere theory and speculative
knowledge of things, unless reduced to practice, is of no avail; such are
only “vainly puffed up in their fleshly minds, profess to know God in
word, but in works deny him, have a form of godliness without the
power of it, a name to live but are dead.”

"Doctrine and practice should go together; and in order both to know and
do the will of God, instruction in doctrine and practice is necessary; and
the one being first taught will lead on to the other. This method of
instruction the Apostle Paul has pointed out to us in some of his Epistles,
especially in the Epistle to the Ephesians; in which he first treats of
Election, Predestination, Adoption, Acceptance in Christ, Redemption and
Pardon of Sin, Regeneration and other doctrines of grace, and of the
Privileges of the Saints under the Gospel dispensation; and then enforces
the several duties incumbent on them as men and Christians, respecting
them in their several stations, in the church, in their families, and in the
world. So the Apostle instructed Timothy, first to “teach” the wholesome
words of our Lord Jesus, the doctrine that is according to godliness and
productive of it, and then to “exhort” and press men to the duties of
religion from evangelical motives and principles. And he also enjoined
Titus to affirm the doctrines of the Gospel with constancy and certainty, to
this end, “that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain
good works.” 1 Timothy 6:2,3; Titus 3:8." -- John Gill, A Body of Doctrinal Divinity, pp. 11, 12

(crb: not to one up Gill here, but that Gospel Doctrine that "appeared to all men" in Titus is first and foremost a Person; then, it is the external ministry of the Word).

True wisdom places itself in a position of disadvantage

In understanding the relationship between the greatest commandment and "trust in the Lord" of Proverbs 3:5, we must understand the context that Solomon gives verse 5 in verses 1 and 3:

• Heart – commandments (vs. 1)
• Steadfast love – faithfulness (vs. 3)
• Trust – lean not (vs. 5)

Solomon is using the commission given to Israel in Deuteronomy 6 as a commission of instructions for his son regarding wisdom. "Loving the Lord with all the heart, soul, and might" (Prov. 3:1 via Deut. 6:2,5) translates into a response of trusting faithfulness (Prov. 3:3).

It is in this way that the fear of the Lord becomes real in the life. The impact of wisdom on the life in the wholehearted pursuit of God is to take God’s wisdom and understanding as the starting point for all wisdom.

Verse 5 and verse 7 are parallels. “Trust in the Lord” is synonymous with the “fear the Lord” and is equivalent to “turning away from evil”. The second parallel is between “do not lean on your own understanding” and “be not wise in your own eyes”.

Further, given this pursuit of God and His wisdom with the whole heart, His wisdom as it is lived out in our lives places itself in a position of disadvantage.

Proverbs 3:5-7 represents Solomon’s radical upside-down kind of thinking more reminscent of what we find in the Sermon on the Mount. If one is to pursue God with the entire being, one will not lean on his or her own understanding. This isn’t just a kind of “let go and let God” in which one is not required to think. In fact, all of these chapters in Proverbs are expressing precisely the opposite. The heart and the mind are engaged in the aggressive pursuit of wisdom even when there is danger present. This danger, as Solomon understands it, doesn't first come from without, which is how we might be tempted to think of Madame Folly. Solomon, instead, exposes a much more sinister and depraved danger: ourselves. THE danger that threatens to swallow his son and indeed Israel into death itself (Prov. 2:18,19) comes from "our own understanding”.

The idolatry of self-wisdom tantalized and then devastated Adam and Eve in the garden (Gen. 3:6: "the tree was desired to make one wise"). It is our "own understanding" that sets itself up, over, and against "trust in the Lord with all of our hearts" and "the fear of the Lord". Our wisdom, at the expense of God's glory, has our own advantage as its chief end. Rather than a pithy phrase to nail on the office wall, this verse paints a stark reality of what ills us as human beings even as Solomon seeks to point our gaze upward and forward.

We are not to lean on our own understanding because our wisdom is foolishness with God. What looks wise to us isn’t. Wisdom places itself in a position of being disadvantaged. Wisdom does not seek to gain the upper hand. That is what our own understanding would do.

Conventional wisdom, even the conventional wisdom of our American evangelicalism that makes use of these Proverbs in all sorts of seemingly helpful ways, is wisdom that is derived by leaning on our own understanding. It is no small thing to "lean on our own understanding". Rather than hold fast to the tree of life (Prov. 3:18), Adam & Eve chose their "own understanding" and in doing so, led their human posterity into "evil" (Prov. 3:7).

1 Cor. 1-3 is quite explicit in its rejection of conventional wisdom. Too often we defer to proverbs in the book of Proverbs that seemingly back up our conventional wisdom and too often we are interpreting these Proverbs through “our own understanding.” The fact that our "evangelical" conventional wisdom seemingly comes from the Bible does not make us immune to the charge that we are placing ourselves in positions of advantage in our use of Proverbs on a daily basis.

I have heard Christians who say “I am going to win” in this personal situation or that situation. We enter into conversation (many times unwittingly) with a bent to give no ground in whatever issue faces us. And our evangelicalism helps us justify it. We have books based on Proverbs that tell how to be “successful” and “victorious”. Those who employ Proverbs this way are expressing a worldview that always makes sure that they are on top of things, rather than placing themselves at a disadvantage to the very worldview they claim to espouse in allowing others “to win”, even if it defies conventional wisdom. The way of the cross may not always seem like the wisest way, as far as conventional wisdom is concerned. But because Solomon has a negative view of the heart’s disposition -- a running theme in Proverbs is that one cannot trust one’s own worldview -- conventional wisdom must always be measured by the objective standard we have in Christ and his Word.

Solomon's appeal to his son and Israel is nothing other than the denial of self that Christ referred to. This is what is meant by "trust in the Lord with all your heart". Loving the Lord with all of our heart, soul, and might involves making God’s Wisdom as revealed by Christ and by His Word the starting point for all of our lives. That kind of starting point comes with a cost because it demands that we place ourselves in positions of disadvantage. When our knowledge of God permeates all of our behavior as he says in verse 6, we incarnate Christ the wisdom of God in all of our affairs.

What God has revealed about himself in his saving acts and word and our response in what we believe about God will have direct bearing on our actions. Further, we shouldn’t see Solomon as having a conflict between the idea that God makes our paths straight and Solomon’s insistence on our task of learning to make decisions. The two ideas work in tandem. God straightens the path. We trust in him for His wisdom in decision-making.

Progress of Redemption "holds type and antitype together"

“They (symbols and types) are in reality the same things, only different in this respect that they come first on a lower stage of development in redemption, and then again, in a later period, on a higher stage. Thus, what is symbolical with regard to the already existing edition of the fact or truth becomes typical, prophetic, of the later, final edition of that same fact or truth. From this it will be perceived that a type can never be a type independently of its being first a symbol. The gateway to the house of typology is at the farther end of the house of symbolism.

“...This is the fundamental rule to be observed in ascertaining what elements in the Old Testament are typical, and wherein the things corresponding to them as antitypes consist. Only after having discovered what a things symbolizes, can we legitimately proceed to put the question what it typifies, for the latter can never be aught else than the former lifted to a higher plane. The bond that holds type and antitype together must be a bond of vital continuity in the progress of redemption.”

“...In order to weed out the worst (abuse of typology), it was proposed to deal only with such types as were recognized to be types in the New Testament. These were called typi innati, ‘inborn types’. The others whose typical significance had to be discovered by research were called typi illtati…This would discredit our Lord and His Apostles as fanciful exegetes. But even the distinction between typi innati and typi illati cannot be upheld. The mere fact that no writer in the New testament refers to a certain trait as typical, affords no proof of its lacking typical significance. Types in this respect stand on a line with prophecies. The New Testament in numerous cases calls our attention to the fulfillment of certain prophecies, sometimes of such a nature that perhaps we might not have discerned them to be prophecies.

"And yet we are not restrained by this from searching the field of prophecy and looking in the New Testament for other cases of fulfillment. The instances of typology vouched for by the New Testament writers have nothing peculiar to themselves. To recognize only them would lead to serious incompleteness and incoherency in the result. A system of types is something rational, the shaping of which we may expect from a God of wisdom, but the insertion here and there of a few isolated allusions would be out of harmony with the evidence of design in revelation.”

“...We have… the direct encouragement of the New Testament to heed the typical import of the Old Testament Scriptures. On the way to Emmaus, our Lord, beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, interpreted to the disciples in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Since the law of Moses is included, some of these things must have been of a typical nature. He rebuked his companions, because they were slow of heart to understand and believe the prefigurations concerning His work and career.

"The author of Hebrews intimates that about the tabernacle there was much more of typical significance than he was able to work out [Heb. 9:5]. After the same manner he speaks of Melchizedek as a typical figure whom his readers had failed to appreciate [Heb. 5:11ff]. Of course, it is inevitable that into this kind of interpretation of Old Testament figures an element of uncertainty must enter. But after all this is an element that enters into all exegesis.”

“...We must not infer from our comparatively easy reading of the types that Israelites of old felt the same ease in interpreting them. It is unhistorical to carry back into the Old Testament mind our developed doctrinal consciousness of these matters. The failure to understand, however, does not detract from the objective significance these types had in the intent of God.” Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (p. 145-148).

Typology as exegesis

“…the conclusions of all biblical exegesis are a matter of degrees of possibility and probability, and the conclusions of typology must be viewed in the same way.

“...Some dispute that typology should be referred to as a method of ex­egesis since exegesis is concerned with deriving a human author’s orig­inal intention and meaning from a text. But this question is also bound up with the prior question of whether or not typology is pro­phetic. If typology is classified as partially prophetic, then it can be viewed as an exegetical method since the New Testament correspon­dence would be drawing out retrospectively the fuller prophetic mean­ing of the Old Testament type which was originally included by the di­vine author.

“…if we concede that God is also the author of Old Testament Scripture, then we are not concerned only with discerning the intention of the human author but also the ultimate divine intent of what was written in the Old Testament, which could well transcend that of the immediate consciousness of the writer. The attempt to draw out the divine intention of a text is certainly part of the exegetical task. And above all, if we assume the legitimacy of an inspired canon, then we should seek to interpret any part of that canon within its overall canon­ical context (given that one divine mind stands behind it all and ex­presses its thoughts in logical fashion).

“…typology can be called contextual exegesis within the framework of the canon, since it primarily involves the interpretation and elucidation of the meaning of earlier parts of Scripture by latter parts…Rather than exegeting a text only in the light of its immediate literary context within a book, we are now merely exegeting the passage in view of the wider canonical context. The canonical extension of the context of a passage being exegeted does not by itself transform the exegetical procedure into a non-exegetical one. Put another way, the extension of the data base being exegeted does not mean we are no longer exegeting but only that we are doing so with a larger block of material.” (G. K. Beale, The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts: Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New, pp. 400,401)