The Vossed World

DeYoung's Reformed survey on sanctification: Monergistic or synergistic?

2011-09-22T11:23:00.000-04:00

Over at the Gospel Coalition, Kevin DeYoung has posted some interesting and challenging thoughts on the question of monergism vs. synergism in sanctification. He sets the discussion up this way: "what should we say about sanctification? On the one hand, Reformed Christians are loathe to use the word synergistic. We certainly don’t want to suggest that God’s grace is somehow negligible in sanctification. Nor do we want to suggest that the hard work of growing in godliness is not a supernatural gift from God. On the other hand, we are on dangerous ground if we imply that we are passive in sanctification in the same way we are passive in regeneration. We don’t want to suggest God is the only active agent in our progressive sanctification. So which is it: is sanctification monergistic or synergistic?"

While DeYoung places the backdrop for this blog post within his church body, certainly he has in his purview the ongoing debate with Tullian Tchividjian over the gospel in sanctification. There are many places where the discussion of monergism/syngergism in sanctification intersects with the role of the gospel in sanctification. In both discussions, there are accusations from one side to the other emphasizing one aspect of sanctification (the gospel) over another aspect (the ethics of sanctification).

And DeYoung rightly says that Reformed Christians do not want to say that we are passive in the ongoing transformation of our lives into Christ's image by the Spirit. So how are we to think about monergism vs. syngergism?

I agree with DeYoung, in a sense. We can use the language of both in describing certain aspects of sanctification. While it is both, it's what he doesn't address that sets DeYoung apart from someone like Tchividjian (in the ongoing debate over the gospel in sanctification), who would find little to disagree with in the article. Three come to mind: 1. the relationship between justification and sanctification, 2. the place (if any) of sanctification in the ordo salutis, and 3. the relationship between definitive/positional sanctification and progressive sanctification (that discussion is more than time allows in this particular post).

IOW, per the second point, what is the place of sanctification in "I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved"? It's these kinds of questions that have some of us very loathe to use the word "co-operation" even as we affirm that we are not passive in our ongoing transformation into Christ's image... Because at some point, if the idea of progressive sanctification includes our ongoing salvation (we are being saved), even use of the term "cooperation" muddies the waters that DeYoung wants to clear up.

There's another way to describe the difference between DeYoung and those who emphasize monergism in sanctification. DeYoung (and Sproul... who is the classic "syngergist" in sanctification) would say: We work as He works. The mongergist would say: We work *because* He works (1 John 4:19). Again, I agree the terms can be confusing. But the question in sanctification is this: what or *who* is the causal agent in sanctification. Some syngergists talk as those we are equally *causal*. Even as DeYoung employs Reformed giants of the faith, I hear at least some of them saying that while we do work and are not passive, the causal agent is the Holy Spirit (just as he is in regeneration).

In the end DeYoung is helpful in showing us the drawbacks of using certain terminology to describe what the Bible teaches us about the role of the Spirit and our participation in our transformation into Christ's image. We are participants in salvation history. Language is not always precise in delineating the inner machinations of how that participation comes to be. It's easy to see the downward slopes off the deep end in both directions. And DeYoung, like others who may disagree on certain points, wants to avoid the deep ends.

Old: "If we are truly to understand Christian preaching, we must see Jesus Christ as its center."

2011-09-17T12:17:00.001-04:00

"If we are trulyto understand Christian preaching, we must see Jesus Christ as its center.First, we must see Jesus as the fulfillment of generations of preaching andteaching that went before him, and second, we must see Jesus as the type, orperhaps prototype, of generations of preaching that have followed him. He isboth the pattern of preaching and the gospel to be preached.

"We preachers makesense only when we are understood as continuing the ministry of our Master. Wehave done our job only when we have borne witness to Christ, when we havetaught all things that he has commanded us.

"It is the gospel of salvation inChrist that the preacher is commissioned to preach. Nothing the preacher doescan be understood except in relation to this, "Go into all the world andpreach the gospel. That is the touchstone of the preacher's ministry." --Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, p. 8

Tripp: "Every passage imparts to us insight that is vital for a proper understanding of the passages that directly address marriage..."

2011-08-06T11:43:00.004-04:00

The following is a window into how proper interpretation of Scripture impacts everything in life, including the way we think about our marriages. Remove marriage in the following paragraphs and plug in any other issue in life, and the way to rightly understand that issue through the lens of Scripture is helpfully explained by Tripp:

"We mistakenly treat the Bible as if it (was) arranged by topic-you know, the world's best compendium of human problems and divine solutions. So when we're thinking about marriage, we run to all the marriage passages. But the Bible isn't an encyclopedia; it is a story, the great origin-to-destiny story of redemption. In fact, it is more than a story. It is a theologically annotated story. It is a story with God's notes. This means that we cannot understand what the Bible has to say about marriage by looking only at the marriage passages, because there is a vast amount of biblical information about marriage not found in the marriage passages.

In fact, we could argue, to the degree that every portion of the Bible tells us things about God, about ourselves, about life in this present world, and about the nature of the human struggle and the divine solution, to that degree every passage in the Bible is a marriage passage. Every passage imparts to us insight that is vital for a proper understanding of the passages that directly address marriage, and every passage tells us what we should expect as we deal with the comprehensive relationship of marriage. One of our problems is that we have not used the Bible biblically, and this has set us up for surprises we shouldn’t have had (due to unrealistic expectations in the marriage; crb)." -- Paul Tripp, What Did You Expect?, pp. 16-17

I would add that every portion doesn't simply tell us things about God and ourselves, but more specifically is telling us something about Jesus and something related to his redemption of a people for himself. Tripp is dead on with the relationship between how we read our Bibles and life issues that confront us. And as Tripp is pointing out, few life issues are more "right here and right now" than marriage. Few life issues have been more "moralized" in the text than marriage, including those who've attempted to ground in the Bible what they teach about marriage. The Bible was never intended to be simply a handbook. Ephesians 5:21ff, as important as it is, isn't a bullet-pointed powerpoint presentation on the marriage. Ephesians 5:21ff (and other passages like it) is connected to the storyline of the Bible (and, in fact, is providing interpretation of that storyline).

We cannot rightly understand what the Bible says about marriage unless we understand marriage as part of the storyline of the Bible. Before it is a handbook, it is a story in which I find my own redemptive-historical drama played out in front of my eyes, interpreting my circumstances through an Event that placed me in the storyline. My sin, my epic fails in my marriage (and thus, its Christ-centered resolutions) are not simply explained to me and for me, but “storied” for me in the revelation of the Divine Drama. I’m in the story because I am in Christ, the Story Maker and Story Keeper. Christ is all over the text bringing my story (our story) to life, giving that story its fullest meaning.

Built into the NCT ThinkTank is a willingness to allow for the presenters views to be openly examined and respectfully critiqued

2011-08-04T23:22:00.005-04:00

Over at Grace in the Triad, Dustin Segers muses on the recently concluded NCT Think Tank 2011 in Canandaigua, New York: "This was hands-down, the best conference I've ever been to. The reasons were as follows:

1. Like-minded fellowship with people who obviously love Jesus.
2. Excellent theology.
3. Built into the NCT ThinkTank is a willingness to allow for the presenters views to be openly examined and respectfully critiqued by the other conference participants in light of Scripture. This promotes further refining of our views so that they conform to Scripture.

Our meeting was held from July 25-28, and we covered a variety of topics related to coming to a further understanding of biblical theology through the hermeneutic of the New Covenant – Jesus Christ our Lord, following the redemptive-historical view of Scripture." -- Dustin Segers, Grace in the Triad: NCT ThinkTank 2011 Conference Videos

It is so encouraging to see point #3. It cannot be understated how important #3 is to both a good think tank and the continued development of theology in the New Covenant Theology movement's participants. John Reisinger impressed on me a long time ago the importance of the necessary humility of not allowing one's personal theology to calcify. #3 as a habitual practice, both in the local church and like-minded gatherings such as the NCT Think Tank, fosters an environment of mutual growth in theology and hermeneutics. As a result, many communities of believers become the beneficiaries of mutual edification via "theology in the round". As one who has been a participant and has taken some stiff critique (even at this recent NCT Think Tank), there is so much comfort in the kind of a safe environment that allows one to put an idea or thought forward from the text, and have it affirmed or shot down by people who love you. Would that more churches and church groups foster such an environment.

The Incarnation of the Abstract: New Covenant Theology and the Enfleshment of the Law

2011-07-31T07:02:00.014-04:00

This week's Think Tank presentation is a work in progress....

At the center of what we hold to be true about the glory of the New Covenant as it is found in and revealed by Jesus Christ is the Incarnation. Without the Incarnation, Christ's death and resurrection and exaltation have no discernible and lasting impact on humanity. It is the Incarnation that makes Christ's death effective for His People. And it is inseparable from those great questions for which New Covenant Theology has been providing answers. The New Testament's interpretation of the Old, the Obsolescence of the Mosaic Covenant and its Law, the priority of Jesus in our orthodoxy and orthopraxy, the rhythm of promise and fulfillment in redemptive history, the temporarity and eternality of the great covenants of the Scriptures -- all those things that distinguish New Covenant theology -- are grounded in what we believe to be true about the Second Person of the Godhead robing himself in human flesh. The fountainhead of New Covenant Theology springs from an eschatological Christology which asserts the priority of the Promised Messiah who is God become Man. The question that arises from this seminal thought of NCT's is this: what does the Priority of Jesus have to do with New Covenant ethics?

5 implications:

1. That the Law is a Person means the Law of the New Covenant is not encoded in external imperatives or principles.

2. The Law Incarnate has placed a Person, the Holy Spirit, within the believer as the law written on the heart. That’s the upshot of 2 Corinthians 3’s understanding of Jeremiah 31. The law written on the heart should not be identified in its typical form, but its Antitypical… a Person, living and breathing life into and through the New Covenant member. The entire law “category”, as it moves from Old Testament to New, lands on a person. The trajectory of the fulfillment of the law does not land on a new set of rules or principles, or even a summarized list of the law of Christ. The Law as a type has its end in Christ. The law as a type fades away into oblivion because all types do… it has become a person

3. Abrogation of the law and a denial of third use is a given. The law, like any other type of the Old Testament, has fulfilled its prophetic and revelatory role and is gone and done now that the AntiType has filled up its intended meaning to the fullest.

4. Imperatives have a role to play in the New Covenant, but they cannot eclipse the Indicative, a Person, from whence they come. It’s not a matter of balance, as some have suggested. The New Testament doesn’t not speak of, explicitly or implicitly, a so-called balance between the Indicative and imperative. In fact, seeing the New Testament as having a heavy emphasis on the imperatives says more about the presuppositions of the interpreter than it does about proper hermeneutics.

5. An Incarnate Law does not mean that commands in the New Covenant are not important. It does not mean that obedience is not important. It simply means the grounds for the discussion have changed. Obedience to commands is the manifestation of the inward obedience-causing law written on the heart.

Taken from "The Incarnation of the Abstract: New Covenant Theology and the Enfleshment of the Law"

Beale: The so-called Great Commission is "a renewal of the Genesis 1:26-28 commission to Adam"

2011-07-29T07:56:00.011-04:00

"The New Testament pictures Christ and the church as finally having done what Adam, Noah, and Israel had failed to do in extending the temple of God's presence throughout the world. Luke 2:32 and Acts 26:23 picture Christ as fulfilling this commission to be a 'light' to the end of the earth (an allusion to the Servant Israel's commission in Isaiah 49:6). This is why Matthew 28:18 portrays Jesus as the Son of Man saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.' This is an allusion to the prophecy of daniel 7:13-14, where it is said of the the 'Son of Man', 'authority was given to him, and all the nations of the earth...were serving him' (so LXX). On the basis of this authority, Jesus then gives the well-known commission 'therefore, as you go, disciple all the nations, baptizing them....teaching them to keep all things whichsoever I commanded you; and behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the age'. Notice that Christ uses the same accompaniment formula as God used with the commissioning of his people in the Old Testament to subdue and rule over the earth. His presence will enable them to fulfill 'the great commission' to rule over and fill the earth with God's presence, which Adam, Noah, and Israel had failed to carry out...

"The reason that Jesus reflects both the Old Testament figures of Adam and Israel is because...Israel and her patriarchs were given the same commission as Adam in Genesis 1:26-28. Consequently, it is not an overstatement to understand Israel as a corporate Adam who had failed in their 'Garden of Eden', in much the same way as their primal father had failed in the first garden... Jesus' claim that 'all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth' (Matthew 28:18) alludes to Daniel 7:13-14, which prophesied that the 'son of man' would be 'given authority, glory, and sovereignty' for ever. Then...he immediately gives the disciples the so-called 'Great Commission': 'Go therefore and make disciples of all nations...teaching them...and lo, I am with you always' (Matt. 28:19-20). This edict not only continues the allusion to the Daniel 7 prophecy (v. 14, 'that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him'), but is itself a renewal of the Genesis 1:26-28 commission to Adam...

"Even the divine accompaniment formula ('I am with you') occurs in Matthew 28:20 to indicate how the disciples will be empowered to carry out the commission, just as..in the later applications of Adam's commission to the patriarchs and Israel. In fact, the reference to 'all the nations' (panta ta ethne) is an echo of Genesis 22:18 (likewise, Genesis 18:18), which is one of the inchoate sanctuary-building narratives. The reminiscence of the Abrahamic promise returns to the theme found in the first verse of Matthew's Gospel (1:1): 'that the blessing promised to Abraham and through him to all peoples of the earth (Gen. 12:3) are now to be fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah'. Thus, Christ is the Son of Adam, or 'the Son of Man', who has begun to do what the first Adam should have done and to inherit what the first Adam should have, including the glory reflected in God's image." G.K. Beale, "The Temple and the Church's Mission" pp.169, 174, 175

NCT Think Tank 2011, Canandaigua, NY

2011-07-25T21:29:00.003-04:00

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What is New Covenant Theology?

2011-05-06T12:04:00.000-04:00

Here's an update to an ongoing work in progress. The recently concluded 2011 John Bunyan Conference in Lewisburg, PA was a good place to think about these things, and an update to this project was a necessary outcome. Again, I am indebted to John Reisinger, Gary Long, Fred Zaspel, Steve West, and Blake White for some of the verbiage contained herein.

What is New Covenant Theology?

Friday, May 06, 2011

11:38 AM

Interpretation of the Bible

New Covenant Theology insists on the priority of Jesus Christ over all things, including history, revelation, and redemption. New Covenant Theology presumes a Christocentricity to the understanding and meaning of all reality.
Jesus Christ, who reigns in heaven, has not only reached the goal of history and its reality, he Himself is the goal of history and reality, giving meaning to all that has occurred in human history and will occur in human history. Since it is Christ who gives meaning to human history, he is the One who interprets all of the deeds and acts of God in history.
Special revelation, comprised of the 66 books that we call the Sacred Scriptures, not only informs us about God, but redeems us and makes God present to us, focusing on the person and work of Jesus.
New Covenant Theology interprets Scripture after the manner of Christ's and the New Testament writers' use of the Old Testament. Jesus and the inspired New Testament writers, by their use of the Old Testament Scriptures, have left us a pattern by which to interpret not only the Old Testament prophecies, but its history and poetry.
The way that Jesus, the Apostles, and the prophets used the Old Testament is normative for this age.
All of the Old Testament scriptures are inherently prophetic in that the entire Old Testament, the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, point forward to and anticipate the WORD Incarnate, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1-2). New Covenant Theology presumes that Jesus Christ, in his person and his saving acts, is the hermeneutic center of the Bible.
A careful study of the way Jesus and the New Testament writers understand and write about the Old Testament shows that the Old Testament's anticipated Messiah (and His work) is revealed in the types and shadows of the revelation of the Old Testament, both in God's speech-revelation and God's acts.
The Old Testament Scriptures are God’s revelation of Himself as the eventual Messiah in Word and Deed, or in Speech and Act. In the Old Testament, divine activity accompanies divine speech, and vise versa, prophetically foreshadowing the activity and work of the coming Messiah. In the revelation of God’s word and deeds, the Old Testament provides the eschatological and salvation context for the person and work of Jesus.
Because the Word and its accompanying events are anticipating the coming of the seed of the Woman, Messiah, the Old Testament is thoroughly typological. Old Testament events, persons, and institutions have a typological relationship to Jesus, the antitype. Jesus Christ, the antitype, is the final, climactic expression of all God ideally intended through the types in the Old Testament.
The Old Testament, including its types, Israel’s history, and revelation, betrays an organic progress of history moving toward its end in Christ. Old Testament history is God’s revelation of the history of salvation proceeding toward its full realization in Jesus Christ. Each era of the Old Testament is both interconnected with and builds on the era preceding it, with all of the eras and their metanarrative finding their culmination in the Christ era, the end of days, the age to come. As history and revelation progress through the Old Testament toward their goal in Christ, there is increasing intensity in the types and increasing illumination of the nature and work of the Messiah.
All of the Old Testament authors are writing from a Messianic consciousness. The Old Testament Scriptures are thoroughly Messianic, and therefore interpretation of the Old Testament is comprehensively Christocentric and Christological. Jesus provides the fullest and final meaning to the Old Testament scriptures because all of the Old Testament Scriptures are about Jesus. Christ is the endpoint for the types and the shadows because those types and shadows in their original form were ultimately about Him. All of God’s activities and works recorded in the Old Testament revelation are ultimately saying something about the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. This does not mean every verse is about Jesus, but it does mean that Christ and the Christ event are the context for every passage in the Old Testament.
The Old Covenant scriptures, what we call The Old Testament, are to be interpreted in the light of their new covenant fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Jesus is not only the interpretive key to understanding the Old Testament, the terminology of the Old Testament must be understood through and defined in light of Christ's fulfillment. The New Testament scriptures bear witness to the Christ event (Christ’s life, death, resurrection, exaltation) and interpret the Old Testament through the lens of that Christ event.
The Old Testament scriptures, its words, and its deeds are thoroughly and intentionally eschatological. The end of all things in Christ is always imposing itself into the present, and this is true of the Old Testament age and its revelation.
The New Testament scriptures provide a definitive interpretation of the Old Testament. The end and goal of all things in Christ gives meaning to and provides interpretation for all that precedes it. The New Testament use of the Old Testament presumes the hermeneutical and eschatological priority of the Christ event in interpreting the Old Testament. The New Testament use of the Old Testament shows that the New Testament authors are interpreting the Old Testament in a way that the Old Testament events, persons, institutions, and Scriptures have found their fulfillment and final goal in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ.
New Covenant Theology is based upon a redemptive-historical approach to interpreting the Bible, understanding the fulfillment of all of God's promises in Jesus Christ as they are progressively unfolding from Genesis to Revelation.
The rhythm of the redemptive history and revelation of the Old Testament scriptures occurs in the form of Promise and Fulfillment. Just as the Word accompanies and interprets God’s salvific events in the Old Testament, so too Promise is consistently and faithfully followed by fulfillment. This divinely orchestrated pattern that threads together the events and revelation of the Old Testament becomes, for the New Testament authors, the pattern by which he has interpreted the Person and Work and Word of Jesus Christ, the Promised Messiah – the Yes and Amen -- who fulfills, or fills up, the meaning of all of the Old Testament promises.
The New Covenant, Jesus Christ, has inaugurated the New Covenant age which is the hermeneutical context for the New Testament scriptures. The New Testament authors are operating with a presumption that they are living in the New Covenant age. New Testament writers bear witness to the Christ and the Christ event with a belief that the old covenants of the Old Testament have given way to a new and better Covenant, Who fulfills (fills up) their meaning to its fullest.
Obsolescence is a fundamental hermeneutical principle in interpreting the Old Testament through the New Covenant lens of the New Testament. The obsolescence of the Old Testament types and shadows, including the covenants, is grounded in the emergence and inauguration of the New Covenant in Christ.
New Covenant Theology presumes that the “now-not yet” principle of interpretation is essential to understand the teaching of the NT.
The organic historical connection, and the Christocentric unity that exists between the Old and New Covenants, guarantees the usefulness of the Old Testament for the church.
In the term New Covenant Theology we declare that God, for his own delight, has revealed himself and manifested his glory ultimately in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and his complete and perfect work on the Cross through which he has established a New Covenant in his blood. (Heb. 7:22; 8:6; 9:11; 10:14)
The pinnacle of God’s unfolding revelation comes to us in the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ himself, by the New Testament Scriptures.
The two testaments proclaim the same Christocentric message, but from differing standpoints.
The New Covenant documents, interpretive of and informed by the Old Covenant documents, are binding for the new people of God until the end of this age.

Covenants

God’s plan to glorify himself in Jesus Christ through the redemption of his people is revealed and administered through the unfolding of biblical covenants in the flow of redemptive history.
God's promise of the New Covenant was that the Messiah would be Himself the embodiment of an everlasting covenant with His people. This promise, typified in the covenants, is fulfilled in Christ. (Is. 42:6-9; 43:19; 45:21-25; 46:9-13).
The Old and New Covenants are two different covenants in terms of both form and function. The one is an administration of death, and the other is an administration of life (2 Cor. 3:6-8).
The New Covenant is distinct from, while typified by, previous covenants in the Old Testament. The New Covenant, personified by and having put on flesh and blood in Christ, fulfills all previous covenants making them obsolete, including the Abrahamic and Sinaitic Covenants.
Christ has fulfilled the Adamic, Noaic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants in his life, death, resurrection, and exaltation. While he has completely fulfilled them, they yet will be consummated in him in the New Heavens and New Earth.
The New Covenant is a new covenant in its own right. The New Covenant is not the Abrahamic Covenant or a recapitulation of the Abrahamic Covenant. The New Covenant is not a new administration of the Mosaic Covenant.
The New Covenant is not like the covenant made with the people through Moses. Embodied and personified in Christ, the New Covenant brought into existence through the life and cross work of Christ is made with his redeemed people through grace. God's people do not enter the New Covenant by works, but by grace through faith; it is radically internal, not external; everlasting, not temporary.
The tearing in two of the veil in the temple was a decisive, supernatural act that visibly demonstrated the end of the Old Covenant and the establishment of the New. This end of the Old Covenant was consummated in the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.
As the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises of a New Covenant, Jesus Christ personifies, embodies, and incarnates the New Covenant. Thus, he Himself is the New Covenant (Isaiah 42:6, 49:8, Luke 22:20).
All of Scripture is to be read, understood, and interpreted in light of the New Covenant, established in Jesus Christ (Matt. 5:17; Luke 10:23-24; 24:27, 44; John 5:46; 8:56; Heb. 10:7). The New Covenant has become the interpretive paradigm for understanding the church's existence in temporal and redemptive history.
True biblical theology of the New Covenant is the recognition of God’s purpose, unfolding and weaving its way from Genesis to Revelation on the timeline of redemptive history, culminating in Jesus Christ.
Christ’s inauguration of the New Covenant brings in things that are both qualitatively and quantatively “newer,” expressed in developing the theological significance of such basic concepts as new wineskins, new teaching, new commandment, new creation, new man, new name, new song, new Jerusalem and all things new (Rev. 21:5).

The Law

The Law of Moses (as a totality) was connected to a particular covenant people. It was codified after a specific act of redemption, the Exodus.
In the ultimate purpose of God, this Mosaic economy was temporary, destined to exist "until the time of reformation" (Heb.9:10) when God would speak in a final way in His Son in the last days (Heb.1:1-2).
Everything going on in Israel, including the covenants and the law, was of a typical nature, and was fulfilled in the person and work of Christ (Heb.3:5; 8:5; 9:8-9) who is the New Israel of God (Matthew 2:15).
The Ten Commandments are not “eternal moral law” first written in the heart of man at creation and forever binding upon all mankind.
The Decalogue is not "transcovenantal".
The Decalogue is specifically tied to the Mosaic covenant and is a covenantal expression of the two greatest commandments, loving God and loving neighbor (Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:37-40).
The church no longer has to do with the law in any other way than in Christ, being onnomos Christou (in-lawed to Christ). The Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue, has been completely fulfilled in Jesus Christ which it typified in shadow and stone.
New Covenant believers are in-lawed to Christ through their union with Christ, and in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; they are not under the OC law of Moses.
Because the Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue, has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, New Covenant Theology denies that the Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue and its so-called “moral law”, is binding on New Covenant believers today. Yet, as the special revelation of God as fulfilled in Christ, the Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue, continues to inform behavior in the New Covenant.
New Covenant believers, no longer under the law but in-lawed to Christ, are under the grace personified by, expressed in, and given through Jesus Christ. This means that New Covenant believers are no longer under the covenant of Moses and its terms. Since New Covenant believers are no longer under the covenant of Moses, they are no longer under its covenantal law.
All behavioral norms, including those detailed in the Decalogue, are ultimately defined by and expressed in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
While at times it may be helpful to distinguish between the ceremonial, civil, and moral aspects of Old Testament law, all laws of the Old Covenant were moral since right relationship with the God of the covenant was at stake in the keeping or breaking of those laws.
While at times it may be helpful to distinguish between the ceremonial, civil, and moral aspects of Old Testament law, the New Testament treats the law as a singular unit and does not distinguish between these aspects.
Just as the law cannot justify, the law cannot sanctify. Just as it is impossible to be justified by the law, one cannot be sanctified by the law. The background problem being addressed by Paul in 2 Corinthians 3, Galatians 3-5, and Romans 7 (albeit in 3 different church situations) is the attempt to be sanctified by the law.
Regeneration does not change the inability of the law to transform. "Walking" in or by the law is the antithesis of "walking" in or by the Spirit (Galatians 5).
God's Old Covenant law is fulfilled in Christ Himself and obeyed by those who, in Christ, fulfill the greatest commandments to love God and their neighbor.
New Covenant Theology insists that the law of Christ is not to be equated with the Decalogue, nor is it to be equated with that work of the law which was on the heart of Adam and all natural men. The work of the law on all men (Romans 2:14-16) causes all men to perceive God’s power and divine nature (Romans 1:20) so that the natural man’s conscience does what the law requires (Romans 2:14) and he is without excuse.
The New Covenant law is called the law of Christ which is distinguished -- both in substance and in form -- from the Mosaic law.
Christ is the Law of the New Covenant, incarnating the new standard of judgment as to what "has had its day" in the law and what has abiding validity (Col. 2:17). The Holy Spirit is the indwelling Law of Christ, causing New Covenant members to obey Christ the Law in conformity to His image.
God also promised that each New Covenant member would have His law written on their hearts. This promise, typified by circumcision, is fulfilled by the Holy Spirit who dwells in believers to guide their steps and conform them to Christ.
Just as the Old Covenant community was structured by written revelation which centered in Moses, so the New Covenant community is ordered by the "law of Christ" as personified and incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ, applied by the Holy Spirit, and given in the writing of the Apostles and prophets (Eph.2:20).
The indwelling Holy Spirit, the law written on the heart, is the norm for Christian living.
New Covenant Theology emphasizes that it is the Spirit, the indwelling "law" who both causes (Ezekiel 36:27) and enables the Christian to be conformed to and transformed into Christ's image, Who is the Imago Dei, the perfect image of God.
“Do this and live” (Leviticus 18:5, Ezekiel 20:11,13,21, Luke 10:28, Romans 10:5, and Galatians 3:12; also Matthew 5:48 via Leviticus 19:2) is the fundamental principle of obedience to the law, expressing both Israel’s obligation to the law of God as well as all men (Romans 3:19-23). Because his people could not fulfill the fundamental principle of obedience to the law, Christ obeyed the law on behalf of his people in order to fulfill the obligations of the law and release his people from the condemnation of the law (Romans 5:1, Romans 8:1-2).
Christ’s perfect obedience to the law and fulfillment of the obligations is the necessary grounds for the righteousness imputed to his people, without which there is no right standing with God.
Because Christ has obeyed the law on behalf of his people and has become a law for his people, unlike the external Mosaic law, the Law of Christ as the Spirit applied to the redeemed is able to effect and enable the obedience and love that is in accord with Christ's obedience and love.
For the New Covenant church, the law of God is no longer an external standard that demands compliance with the will of God. The Law of Christ as the indwelling Spirit is now an internal person who causes and inclines us to obey God from the heart.
The New Commandment of the New Covenant, the Law of Christ, expresses the indwelling of the Spirit through belief in Christ and love for one another (John 13:34, Galatians 6:2, 1 John 3:23). The work of the Spirit as the new covenant law applied to the heart of the believer (Jeremiah 31:31-34, Ezekiel 36:27) is manifest in love for God and one another, in following the examples set by Christ and his apostles, and in living out an ethic informed by the whole of the canon. Love is central to the law of Christ.
The New Testament and New Covenant Theology do not teach that the Ten Commandments are the objective standard for evaluating the Christian life. Christ is now the objective standard by which all holiness in the Christian life is measured.
The progression of history to a final New Covenant guarantees the "law of Christ", as personified and incarnated by Jesus Christ, and applied by the Spirit who is written on the heart, to be sufficient for the church.

The Sabbath

The Old Covenant Sabbath day was the divinely ordained sign of the Mosaic Covenant. With the rest of the Mosaic Covenant, the Old Covenant Sabbath commandment has passed into obsolescence in the inauguration of the New Covenant in Christ. The Old Covenant Sabbath has been typologically and eschatologically fulfilled by Christ for the people of God who rest in Him by faith (Romans 14:5; Colossians 2:16,17; Heb. 4:9-10).
New Covenant Theology denies that Sunday is a Christian Sabbath after the manner of the Old Covenant. New Covenant Theology denies that the Sabbath principle of physical rest in the Old Testament has been transferred to the first day of the week. New Covenant Theology also denies the so-called “floating day” principle, or one day in seven, since the Sabbath principle has passed into obsolescence with the rest of the Mosaic Covenant and its so-called “moral law”. New Covenant Theology denies that the physical principle of Sabbath-keeping can be transferred to the first day of the week, or any other day, without doing violence to the so-called moral aspect of the Sinaitic Covenant’s Sabbath commandment.
New Covenant Theology affirms that every Christian is a Sabbath-keeper because every Christian has entered in a rest from works in Christ the Sabbath Rest (Hebrews 4). Sabbath Rest for the New Covenant believer consists of resting or ceasing from works of the law or works of sin and resting by faith in Christ. Christ is our Sabbath Rest because having finished his work on our behalf he now sits at the right hand of the Father. Because Jesus Christ has become Sabbath Rest for his people, every moment of every day is Sabbath for the New Covenant believer.

The church

The dominion of Christ over His Kingdom (the church, Matt. 16:19, 18:17,18), typified and foreshadowed in Israel's Old Testament theocracy, has been inaugurated in the New Covenant, is expressed in the New Testament, and is effectively carried out in the life of the local assembly, the visible New Covenant church.
The visible and local New Covenant church is the primary means by which the invisible church is expressed and manifested in the New Covenant.
The church on earth is located in the local church. New Covenant Theology recognizes that Christ exercises his Lordship in and through the local church.
The New Covenant church is a local, visible colony of the universal gathering in heaven. The universal gathering of God's redeemed people has begun on earth in the form and expression of the local church. Thus by intent and design, the local church as a gathering of New Covenant people who participate in faith, mirrors the universal gathering of the redeemed.
It is through the New Covenant church that God's wisdom for the ages and his purposes throughout revelation and history -- having been fulfilled in Jesus -- are most visibly expressed.
New Covenant Theology posits that the Church, which is the body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:18), first came into visible existence in history when the Spirit descended and was poured out at Pentecost, not in past history under the Old Covenant. There is only one redemptive purpose for the people of God, which is the Church, the good olive tree (Rom. 11), the body of Christ (Eph. 2:13-22; 3:1-12), the visible expression of which is the local church.

Israel

The New Covenant is now in force and finds its fulfillment in Jesus, the antitypical New Israel.
New Covenant Theology sees in Christ a fulfillment of promises that, in their Old Testament context, seemed to be addressed to Israel as a nation. It is in Christ, the New Israel, that the church enjoys the blessings of the promises that seemed to be addressed to Israel as a nation in the Old Testament Scriptures.
New Covenant Theology denies that there is a one to one correlation between Israel and the New Covenant church. Israel was not the church in the Old Covenant, which consisted of an admixture of those who participated in faith and those who did not. In Christ, the New Israel, the church is not an admixture of believer and unbeliever, but is entirely by faith.
Under the Old Covenant, Israel was the people of God. Under the New Covenant, the church is the people of God anticipated in and foreshadowed by national Israel in the Old Testament scriptures.
In the Old Covenant, Israel, the second Adam, was a demonstration and proclamation of Jesus as a type. Israel typified the New Israel and His redeemed New Covenant people of God. That which was true of Israel, in type, is now true of Jesus as the federal head of His new covenant people in fulfillment. Thus, the supreme covenantal formula promised to Israel is now true of the church: Jehovah is our God, and we are His people. Christ, the New Covenant, now dwells among His people.

Fazekas: "A gospel theme runs like a silver thread throughout the Bible"

2011-04-30T10:20:00.000-04:00

"The story of mankind's redemption is 'monergistic'; that is, it beings with God alone as the 'Prime Mover.' Genesis 3:15 gives the first prophetic promise, an account of the coming struggle between 'the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent,' whose outcome is never in question. Couched within the conflict is the divine declaration of promise and fulfillment. God pledges to send 'The Coming One,' a Savior, who would crush the head of Satan to redeem a fallen race. Then he fulfills His promise when Christ appears in the flesh.

"The Old Testament is filled with types and shadows, prophetic indicators announcing through the ancient nation of Israel a Redeemer who would come to deliver His people. Unmistakably, a gospel theme runs like a silver thread throughout the Bible, joining promise to fulfillment." -- Steve Fazekas, "Salvation Before the Cross", Answers Magazine, April-June 2011, p. 29

Goldsworthy: "The gospel achieves noetic salvation for us through the perfect mind of Christ our Savior."

2011-04-02T07:07:00.000-04:00

"It stands to reason that, if the fall involved an epistemological disaster, then salvation must include epistemological redemption. Sinful thinking is 'snake-think', the kind of noetic rebellion proposed by the serpent in Eden. It is diametrically opposed to the mind renewed by the gospel. The godless presuppositions underlying the temptation and fall in Genesis 3 include the following:

If God is there, he does not communicate the truth.
We do not need God to reveal the rational framework for understanding reality.
Human reason is autonomous, and the ultimate arbiter of truth and falsity, right and wrong.

"...This noetic fall must be addressed by the gospel if the salvation of fallen humans is to be complete. The gospel achieves noetic salvation for us through the perfect mind of Christ our Savior. This is part of his righteous make-up as the perfect human being. His is the human mind in perfect relationship with the mind of God. To be justified includes our noetic justification. In this sense all believers have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). Our noetic sanctification is the fruit of our justification in Christ. It is the gradual formation within us of what we have in Christ through faith. the renewal of the mind is an ongoing process by which our thinking is conformed more and more to the truth as it is in Jesus."

"...Christ is designated as the 'wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians 1:24) and also 'our wisdom' (1 Cor. 1:30). He is the difference between the world's wisdom, which in reality is foolishness, and the wisdom of God, which the world perversely assesses as foolishness. The epistemological framework that corresponds with reality is the gospel itself." - Graham Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, pp. 60-61

Goldsworthy: "Jesus' mediatorial role is the guarantee of real communication between God and people"

2011-03-20T23:03:00.000-04:00

The Derived Presuppositions of Christian Theism

God has revealed himself as rational, and as communicator, as well as sovereign Lord and Creator
Human beings are rational receivers of God's communication, because that is how he has made us.
Sin consists in, among other things, a willful refusal of truth and the substitution of human reason as autonomous in the place of God's self-attesting revelation.
Redemptive revelation and the work of the Holy Spirit are necessary to restore humans to a state where they can receive ultimate, but not exhaustive, truth.
The mediatorial role of Jesus of Nazareth is the guarantee of real communication between God and people. The gospel of Jesus Christ reveals him as the Word of God who is the truth. Jesus as the divine communicator, the saving message and the human receiver demonstrates where the heart of true hermeneutics lies. The gospel is the power of God for salvation, which includes hermeneutical salvation.

"...we must resist all attempts to remove the sovereignty of the Creator-Word from our thinking about meaning and communication. Consistent evangelical hermeneutics must begin with God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ." -- Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, pp. 53-54

Goldsworthy: "Jesus' mediatorial role is the guarantee of real communication between God and people"

2011-03-20T23:02:00.000-04:00

The Derived Presuppositions of Christian Theism

God has revealed himself as rational, and as communicator, as well as sovereign Lord and Creator
Human beings are rational receivers of God's communication, because that is how he has made us.
Sin consists in, among other things, a willful refusal of truth and the substitution of human reason as autonomous in the place of God's self-attesting revelation.
Redemptive revelation and the work of the Holy Spirit are necessary to restore humans to a state where they can receive ultimate, but not exhaustive, truth.
The mediatorial role of Jesus of Nazareth is the guarantee of real communication between God and people. The gospel of Jesus Christ reveals him as the Word of God who is the truth. Jesus as the divine communicator, the saving message and the human receiver demonstrates where the heart of true hermeneutics lies. The gospel is the power of God for salvation, which includes hermeneutical salvation.

Goldsworthy: "Christ interprets all facts"

2011-03-19T06:30:00.001-04:00

"(The biblical) story tells of events from creation to new creation in a narrative that takes us throught the fall, the call of Abraham, the Redemption of Israel, the fortunes of the nation and the prophetic promises and expectations for the fulfillment of the original covenant promises. At the climax of the story is the event of the incarnation of the Christ, his life, death, resurrection and ascension to glory. The purposes of God in this story are expressed in such a way as to show that the destiny of all the peoples of the world and of the whole universe is tied to the work of God in Christ...

"If the biblical story is true, Christ is the only savior for humankind and there is room for no other way to God. If the story is true, Jesus Christ is the interpretative key to every fact in the universe and, of course, the Bible is one such fact. He is thus the hermeneutic principle that applies first to the Bible as the ground for understanding, and also to the whole of reality. Interpreting reality correctly is a by-product of salvation. Thus, we must assert that the person and work of Jesus Christ are foundational for evangelical hermeneutics...Christ interprets all facts, since all things were created in him, through him, and for him (Col. 1:16). As the one mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5), Christ mediates the ultimate truth of God about all things and thus about the meaning of the Bible.

The principle of Christ alone points us to the soteriological and hermeneutical priority of the gospel of Christ." - Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel-centered Hermeneutics, p. 48

Horton: We are in a better position than Moses in redemptive history

2011-02-11T23:56:00.000-05:00

"...the communication of divine action (is) divinely authorized analogical discourse within the context of a covenant that plays itself out in a world-historical drama... the sensus plenior relates not only to the biblical writers, for whom the ultimate fulfillment of their prophecies was not necessarily comprehended fully, but to us as contemporary readers.

"We are in a better position than Moses in redemptive history, viewing the future from a higher vista in that progress of salvation, but we are still in a less direct line of sight than those who have passed from the theology of pilgrims to the theology of glorified saints, or those who will be witnesses of 'the end of the age'." Michael Horton, Covenant and Eschatology, p. 103

Vos on Biblical exegetes and hermeneuticizers: "dependent and receptive"

2011-02-07T20:59:00.004-05:00

"...The beginning of our Theology consists in the appropriation of that supernatural process by which God has made Himself the object of our knowledge. We are not left to our own choice here, as to where we shall begin our theological study. The very nature of Theology requires us to begin with those branches which relate to the revelation-basis of our science.

"Our attitude from the outset must be a dependent and receptive one. To let the image of God's self-revelation in the Scriptures mirror itself as fully and clearly as possible in his mind, is the first and most important duty of every theologian." Biblical Theology, by Geerhardus Vos

Greg Beale on New Testament Biblical Theology - audio

2011-02-07T10:22:00.001-05:00

Dr. Greg Beale provides an audio preview of his upcoming "New Testament Biblical Theology" to be published by Baker later this year. See 11-2-10 and 11-3-10 from the Sizemore Lectures at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary - Audio Resource Podcast - powered by FeedBurner

Vos: "In his sinful condition...man... is absolutely dependent on the self-disclosure of God"

2011-02-05T23:40:00.000-05:00

"In his sinful condition, while retaining some knowledge of God, man for all pure and adequate information in divine things is absolutely dependent on that new self-disclosure of God which we call supernatural revelation.

1. By the new birth and the illumination of the mind darkened through sin, a new subject is created.

2. By the objective self-manifestation of God as the Redeemer, a new order of things is called into being.

3. And by the depositing of the truth concerning this new order of things in the Holy Scriptures, the human mind is enabled to obtain that new knowledge which is but the reflection in the regenerate consciousness of an objective world of divine acts and words." -- Geerhardus Vos, Inaugural Address, The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline

Vos: "In theology... the living God proceeds to impart to this subject that to which of itself it would have no access."

2011-02-04T23:12:00.008-05:00

"Theology is not merely distinguished from the other sciences by its object, but that it also sustains an altogether unique relation to this object, for which no strict analogy can be found elsewhere. In all the other sciences man is the one who of himself takes the first step in approaching the objective world, in subjecting it to his scrutiny, in compelling it to submit to his experiments — in a word, man is the one who proceeds actively to make nature reveal her facts and her laws.

"In Theology this relation between the subject and object is reversed. Here it is God who takes the first step to approach man for the purpose of disclosing His nature, nay, who creates man in order that He may have a finite mind able to receive the knowledge of His infinite perfections. In Theology the object, far from being passive, by the act of creation first posits the subject over against itself, and then as the living God proceeds to impart to this subject that to which of itself it would have no access.

"For 'the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God.' Strictly speaking, therefore, we should say that not God in and for Himself, but God in so far as He has revealed Himself, is the object of Theology." -- Geerhardus Vos, Inaugural Address

Hasel: biblical theology as a "reciprocal relationship" between the Testaments

2011-01-22T07:39:00.003-05:00

"Biblical theology...must maintain its place as the crown of biblical studies. It must maintain its intimate connection with OT and NT theology...

"Biblical Theology must integrate OT and NT theology in a dynamic way that overcomes the present juxtaposition of OT and NT theology. This can be creatively accomplished once biblical theology recognizes as its boundaries the full biblical canon and deals with the biblical texts in the final form in which they meet the eye. Since the two testaments produce *one* Bible, it is difficult to look at OT theology in a totally isolated way 'as if the New Testament did not exist'. Likewise, a NT theology can hardly be produced as if the OT did not exist.

"W. Eichrodt has observed correctly that there is a 'historical movement from the Old Testament to the New [and] there is a current of life flowing in reverse direction from the New Testament to the Old. This reverse relationship also elucidates the full significance of the realm of OT thought.' Only where this reciprocal relationship between the testaments is understood and reflected do we find the correct place and definition of biblical theology. Biblical theology must be open to the full biblical context..." -- Gerhard Hasel, "The Future of Biblical Theology" in "Perspectives on Evangelical Theology", ed. Kantzer and Gundry

Goldsworthy: the Incarnation is "the substitution of God's righteous history in Christ for our fallen and condemned histories of rebellion."

2010-12-24T08:08:00.003-05:00

"The movement from creation to new creation is inevitable. The incarnation as historical event is the focus of God's rule in world history...the incarnate Word of God brings history to its goal and interprets it." In the gospel, the "Incarnate God as the Word becomes flesh. This historic Word-event is God's fullest and final word to mankind."

But it's not simply revelation. The Incarnation is a "redemptive word-event that has the power to break through our self-imposed, sinful darkness... Redemption is in the event by which God reconstructs an acceptable human history while judging the unacceptable." We must have the Incarnation for our Redemption... it is "the substitution of God's righteous history in Christ for our fallen and condemned histories of rebellion....to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ is to be redefined, not by our own failed histories, but by his perfect history." The message of the Incarnation proclaims "a message of hope which sees both the end to the history of fallenness and the new beginning of a history that merges with eternity." -- Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel Centered Hermeneutics, pp. 222-228

Vos: "In the resurrection, therefore, we have the assurance that we ourselves also shall be made fit in our entire nature for our habitation in heaven."

2010-11-06T05:21:00.001-04:00

“Ours is a religion whose center of gravity lies beyond the grave in the world to come… the gospel is primarily intended to prepare man for a future life and that consequently neither its true nature can be understood nor its full glory appreciated unless it be placed in the light of eternity…Christianity does many things for the present life, but if we wish to apprehend how much it can do, we must direct our gaze to the life beyond.

“…the Christian's main thinking and feeling and striving revolve around the future state; and that, if this goal should prove to have no objective reality, the absoluteness with which the believer has staked everything in its attainment must make him appear in his delusion the most pitiable of all creatures. What a gulf then lies between this statement of the apostle (‘if in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied’ – 1 Corinthians 15:19) and the sentiment we sometimes meet with–that Christianity had better disencumber itself of all idle speculation about an uncertain future state and concentrate its energies upon the improvement of the present world.

“Paul could not have entertained such a sentiment for a moment because the thirst for the world to come was of the very substance of the religion of his heart. He felt deeply that the believer's destiny and God's purposes with reference to him transcend all limits of what this earthly life can possibly bring or possibly contain.

“Christ's work for us extends even farther than the restoration of what sin has destroyed. If Christ placed us back there where Adam stood in his rectitude, without sins and without death, this would be unspeakable grace indeed, more than enough to make the gospel a blessed word. But grace exceeds sin far more abundantly than all this: besides wiping out the last vestige of sin and its consequences, it opens up for us that higher world to whose threshold even the first Adam had not yet apprehended. And this is not a mere matter of degrees in blessedness, it is a difference between two modes of life; as heaven is high above the earth, by so much the condition of our future state will transcend those of the paradise of old.

“It is for this reason that we know so little, and that even in the moments of greatest clearness of our spiritual vision we form such inadequate ideas of what awaits us hereafter. But, thanks be to God, in the resurrection of Christ for once the veil has been lifted. When Christ rose from the grave he rose as one whose human nature had been transformed into harmony with heavenly conditions. This was true not merely of his body, but of all the faculties and powers of his humanity hitherto exercised in humiliation and now set free and made fit for their perfect use in heavenly glory.

“In this respect the resurrection of Christ is prophetic of that of all believers. As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man (I Cor. 15:49). In the resurrection, therefore, we have the assurance that we ourselves also shall be made fit in our entire nature for our habitation in heaven. It is only by understanding this that we can understand the true significance of the resurrection of the body. Not that our bodies as such shall be restored to us is the great hope of the Christian, but that they shall be restored to us in such a state as to resemble the resurrection-body of Christ; that through them our spirits may dwell in perfect accord with their heavenly surroundings and may lead in its consummate form the life that knows no end.” – Geerhardus Vos, A Sermon on I Corinthians 15:14, Preached in Princeton Chapel on Easter, April 23, 1905

What is New Covenant Theology?

2010-11-03T08:10:00.002-04:00

This is a repost from Christ My Covenant, which published a list I have drafted over time to answer questions put to me about New Covenant Theology. It is a work in progress, and to be honest, isn't simply a reflection of my thought, but others...especially those in the Earth Stove Society. I'm also indebted to Gary Long, who drafted his own set of NCT tenets some time ago.... some may even see this as an expansion of his work.

What is New Covenant Theology?

Chad Richard Bresson

Interpretation of the Bible

1. New Covenant Theology insists on the priority of Jesus Christ over all things, including history, revelation, and redemption. New Covenant Theology presumes a Christocentricity to the understanding and meaning of all reality.

2. Christ in heaven has not only reached the goal of history and its reality, he Himself is the goal of history and reality, giving meaning to all that has occurred in human history and will occur in human history. Since it is Christ who gives meaning to human history, he is the One who interprets all of the deeds and acts of God in history.

3. Special revelation, comprised of the 66 books that we call the Sacred Scriptures, not only informs us about God, but redeems us and makes God present to us, focusing on the person and work of Jesus.

4. New Covenant Theology interprets Scripture after the manner of Christ's and the New Testament writers' use of the Old Testament. Jesus and the inspired New Testament writers, by their use of the Old Testament Scriptures, have left us a pattern by which to interpret not only the Old Testament prophecies, but its history and poetry.

5. The way that Jesus, the Apostles, and the prophets used the Old Testament is normative for this age.

6. The entire Old Testament, the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, point forward to and anticipate the WORD Incarnate, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1-2). New Covenant Theology presumes that Jesus Christ, in his person and his saving acts, is the hermeneutic center of the Bible.

7. A careful study of the way Jesus and the New Testament writers understand and write about the Old Testament shows that the Old Testament's anticipated Messiah (and His work) is revealed in the types and shadows of the revelation of the Old Testament, both in God's speech-revelation and God's acts. The Old Testament provides the salvation context for the person and work of Jesus.

8. The Old Covenant scriptures, what we call The Old Testament, are to be interpreted in the light of their new covenant fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Jesus is not only the interpretive key to understanding the Old Testament, the terminology of the Old Testament must be understood through and defined in light of Christ's fulfillment.

9. New Covenant Theology is based upon a redemptive-historical approach to interpreting the Bible, understanding the fulfillment of all of God's promises in Jesus Christ as they are progressively unfolding from Genesis to Revelation.

10. New Covenant Theology presumes that the “now-not yet” principle of interpretation is essential to understand the teaching of the NT.

11. The organic historical connection, and the Christocentric unity that exists between the Old and New Covenants, guarantees the usefulness of the Old Testament for the church.

12. In the term New Covenant Theology we declare that God, for his own delight, has revealed himself and manifested his glory ultimately in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and his complete and perfect work on the Cross through which he has established a New Covenant in his blood. (Heb. 7:22; 8:6; 9:11; 10:14)

13. The pinnacle of God’s unfolding revelation comes to us in the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ himself, by the New Testament Scriptures.

14. The two testaments proclaim the same Christocentric message, but from differing standpoints.

15. The New Covenant documents, interpretive of and informed by the Old Covenant documents, are binding for the new people of God until the end of this age.

Covenants

16. God’s redemption of his people is revealed and administered through the unfolding of biblical covenants in the flow of redemptive history.

17. God's promise of the New Covenant was that the Messiah would be Himself the embodiment of an everlasting covenant with His people. This promise, typified in the covenants, is fulfilled in Christ. (Is. 42:6-9; 43:19; 45:21-25; 46:9-13).

18. The Old and New Covenants are two different covenants in terms of both form and function. The one is an administration of death, and the other is an administration of life (2 Cor. 3:6-8).

19. The New Covenant is distinct from, while typified by, previous covenants in the Old Testament. The New Covenant, personified by and incarnated in Christ, fulfills all previous covenants making them obsolete, including the Abrahamic and Sinaitic Covenants.

20. Christ has fulfilled the Adamic, Noaic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants in his life, death, resurrection, and exaltation. While he has completely fulfilled them, they yet will be consummated in him in the New Heavens and New Earth.

21. The New Covenant is a new covenant in its own right. The New Covenant is not the Abrahamic Covenant or a recapitulation of the Abrahamic Covenant. The New Covenant is not a new administration of the Mosaic Covenant.

22. The New Covenant is not like the covenant made with the people through Moses. Embodied and personified in Christ, the New Covenant brought into existence through the life and cross work of Christ is made with his redeemed people through grace. God's people do not enter the New Covenant by works, but by grace through faith; it is radically internal, not external; everlasting, not temporary.

23. The tearing in two of the veil in the temple was a decisive, supernatural act that visibly demonstrated the end of the Old Covenant and the establishment of the New. This end of the Old Covenant was consummated in the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.

24. As the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises of a New Covenant, Jesus Christ personifies, embodies, and incarnates the New Covenant. Thus, he Himself is the New Covenant (Isaiah 42:6, 49:8, Luke 22:20).

25. All of Scripture is to be read, understood, and interpreted in light of the New Covenant, established in Jesus Christ (Matt. 5:17; Luke 10:23-24; 24:27, 44; John 5:46; 8:56; Heb. 10:7). The New Covenant has become the interpretive paradigm for understanding the church's existence in temporal and redemptive history.

26. True biblical theology of the New Covenant is the recognition of God’s purpose, unfolding and weaving its way from Genesis to Revelation on the timeline of redemptive history, culminating in Jesus Christ.

27. Christ’s inauguration of the New Covenant brings in things that are both qualitatively and quantatively “newer,” expressed in developing the theological significance of such basic concepts as new wineskins, new teaching, new commandment, new creation, new man, new name, new song, new Jerusalem and all things new (Rev. 21:5).

The Law

28. The Law of Moses (as a totality) was connected to a particular covenant people. It was codified after a specific act of redemption, the Exodus.

29. In the ultimate purpose of God, this Mosaic economy was temporary, destined to exist "until the time of reformation" (Heb.9:10) when God would speak in a final way in His Son in the last days (Heb.1:1-2).

30. Everything going on in Israel, including the covenants and the law, was of a typical nature, and was fulfilled in the person and work of Christ (Heb.3:5; 8:5; 9:8-9) who is the New Israel of God (Matthew 2:15).

31. The Ten Commandments are not eternal moral law first written in the heart of man at creation and forever binding upon all mankind.

32. The Decalogue is not "transcovenantal".

33. The church no longer has to do with the law in any other way than in Christ, being onnomos Christou (in-lawed to Christ). The Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue, has been completely fulfilled in Jesus Christ which it typified (foreshadowed) in shadow and stone.

34. New Covenant believers are in-lawed to Christ through their union with Christ, and in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; they are not under the Old Covenant law of Moses.

35. Because the Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue, has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, New Covenant Theology denies that the Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue, is binding on New Covenant believers today. Yet, as the special revelation of God as fulfilled in Christ, the Old Covenant law, including the Decalogue, continues to inform behavior in the New Covenant.

36. All behavioral norms, including those detailed in the Decalogue, are ultimately defined by and expressed in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

37. Just as the law cannot justify, the law cannot sanctify. Just as it is impossible to be justified by the law, one cannot be sanctified by the law. The background problem being addressed by Paul in 2 Corinthians 3, Galatians 3-5, and Romans 7 (albeit in 3 different church situations) is the attempt to be sanctified by the law.

38. Regeneration does not change the inability of the law to transform. "Walking" in or by the law is the antithesis of "walking" in or by the Spirit (Galatians 5).

39. The New Covenant law is called the law of Christ which is distinguished -- both in substance and in form -- from the Mosaic law.

40. God's Old Covenant law is fulfilled in Christ Himself and obeyed by those in Christ who love God and their neighbor.

41. New Covenant Theology insists that the law of Christ is not to be equated with the Decalogue, nor, is it to be equated with that work of the law which was on the heart of Adam and all natural men.

42. The Old Covenant Sabbath commandment is typologically fulfilled by Christ for the people of God who rest in Him by faith (Romans 14:5; Colossians 2:16,17; Heb. 4:9-10). New Covenant Theology denies that Sunday is a Christian Sabbath after the manner of the Old Covenant.

43. Christ is the Law of the New Covenant, incarnating the new standard of judgment as to what "has had its day" in the law and what has abiding validity (Col. 2:17). The Holy Spirit is the indwelling Law of Christ, causing New Covenant members to obey Christ the Law in conformity to His image.

44. God also promised that each New Covenant member would have His law written on their hearts. This promise, typified by circumcision, is fulfilled by the Holy Spirit who dwells in believers to guide their steps and conform them to Christ.

45. Just as the Old Covenant community was structured by written revelation which centered in Moses, so the New Covenant community is ordered by the "law of Christ" as personified and incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ, applied by the Holy Spirit, and given in the writing of the Apostles and prophets (Eph.2:20).

46. The indwelling Holy Spirit, the law written on the heart, is the norm for Christian living.

47. New Covenant Theology emphasizes that it is the Spirit, the indwelling "law", who both causes (Ezekiel 36:27) and enables the Christian to be conformed to and transformed into Christ's image, Who is the Imago Dei, the perfect image of God.

48. Because Christ has obeyed the law on behalf of his people and has become a law for his people, unlike the external Mosaic law, the Law of Christ as the Spirit applied to the redeemed is able to effect and enable the obedience and love that is in accord with Christ's obedience and love.

49. For the New Covenant church, the law of God is no longer an external standard that demands compliance with the will of God. The Law of Christ as the indwelling Spirit is now an internal person who causes and inclines us to obey God from the heart.

50. The New Commandment of the New Covenant, the Law of Christ, expresses the indwelling of the Spirit through belief in Christ and love for one another (John 13:34, Galatians 6:2, 1 John 3:23) .

51. NCT does not teach that the Ten Commandments are the objective standard for evaluating the Christian life. Christ is now the objective standard by which all holiness in the Christian life is measured.

52. The progression of history to a final New Covenant guarantees the "law of Christ", as personified and incarnated by Jesus Christ, and applied by the Spirit who is written on the heart, to be sufficient for the church.

The Church

53. The dominion of Christ over His Kingdom (the church, Matt. 16:19, 18:17,18), typified and foreshadowed in Israel's Old Testament theocracy, has been inaugurated in the New Covenant, is expressed in the New Testament, and is effectively carried out in the life of the local assembly, the visible New Covenant church.

54. The visible and local New Covenant church is the primary means by which the invisible church is expressed and manifested in the New Covenant.

55. The church on earth is located in the local church. New Covenant Theology recognizes that Christ exercises his Lordship in and through the local church.

56. The New Covenant church is a local, visible colony of the universal gathering in heaven. The universal gathering of God's redeemed people has begun on earth in the form and expression of the local church. Thus by intent and design, the local church as a gathering of New Covenant people who participate in faith, mirrors the universal gathering of the redeemed.

57. It is through the New Covenant church that God's wisdom for the ages and his purposes throughout revelation and history -- having been fulfilled in Jesus -- are most visibly expressed.

58. New Covenant Theology posits that the Church, which is the body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:18), first came into visible existence in history when the Spirit descended and was poured out at Pentecost, not in past history under the Old Covenant. There is only one redemptive purpose for the people of God, which is the Church, the good olive tree (Rom. 11), the body of Christ (Eph. 2:13-22; 3:1-12), the visible expression of which is the local church.

Israel

59. The New Covenant is now in force and finds its fulfillment in Jesus, the antitypical Israel.

60. New Covenant Theology sees, in the church, a fulfillment of promises that, in their Old Testament context, seem to be addressed to Israel as a nation.

61. New Covenant Theology denies that there is a one to one correlation between Israel and the New Covenant church. Israel was not the church in the Old Covenant, which consisted of an admixture of those who participated in faith and those who did not.

62. Under the Old Covenant, Israel was the people of God. Under the New Covenant, the church is the people of God.

63. In the Old Covenant, Israel, the second Adam, was a demonstration and proclamation of Jesus as a type. Israel typified the New Israel and His redeemed new covenant people of God. That which was true of Israel, in type, is now true of Jesus as the Federal Head of his people and God's new covenant people in fulfillment. Thus, the supreme covenantal formula promised to Israel is now true of the church: Jehovah is our God, and we are His people.

The New Interprets the Old

2010-10-02T11:47:00.003-04:00

Notes from today's class in the Biblical Theology Study Center (and tomorrow's Adult Bible Education, coincidentally). Some of this is from Beale & Carson's "Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament", some is from Goldsworthy's "Gospel-centered hermeneutics", some is from Beynon and Sach's "Dig Deeper", and some is simply Bressonification of things that have been heard and assimilated in the past. :-)

The New Testament use of the Old Testament shows fulfillment of the Old Testament types, shadows, and promises in Christ.
Old Testament passages are interpreted in light of Jesus, his life, death, resurrection, and exaltation.
The New Testament uses the Old Testament as support for its various conclusions.
New Testament use of the Old Testament is contextual, making it important to read and even understand the entire context of the Old Testament passage to get the full impact of its use.
The Old Testament quote provides backdrop for the New Testament passage and moves along the thesis/theme of the NT author’s book, even as the New Testament passage interprets the Old Testament passage from which the quote is taken.
Use of the Old Testament by the NT authors grounds Jesus' story in the story of Old Testament Israel.
Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament provides continuity between the testaments in telling the one grand story of Jesus.
Use of the Old Testament draws similarities between Jesus and the Old Testament and highlights dissimilarities.
Often the quotation is merely a memory-marker for the larger Old Testament unit.

Forman via Leithart: "it is the people of God, consisting now of believing Jews and Gentiles, who have been promised the inheritance of the earth."

2010-08-21T10:28:00.005-04:00

From Peter Leithart's blog: "Where does Paul get the notion that Abraham is “heir of the world”? Mark Forman argues in a 2009JSNT article that it arises from Paul’s seeing the story of Abraham through the lens of Isaiah 54. Applying Richard Hays’s criteria for identifying echoes, Forman concludes that “there is good evidence that Paul is intentionally echoing this passage from Isa. 54 in Romans 4: the passage explicitly occurs in Galatians; there is a degree of verbal and conceptual correspondence between the two passages, and the use of the passage in this way is plausible in the context of the first-century Graeco-Roman world."

"How how does a quotation from Isaiah 54 fit into Romans 4, which is often understood as a passage about Abraham’s personal faith? Forman shows that the promises of seed and land go together in Genesis, and argues that Paul has not spiritualized away the concern with territory. He thinks Paul applies this promise specifically to the Christians at Rome, consisting mainly of the poor and marginalized, and concludes: “it seems likely that in Rom. 4.19-21 Paul deliberately alludes to Isa. 54.1-3, a passage originally used to provide hope in the midst of exile. The artists, poets and sculptors of first-century Rome were covering their ‘canvas’ with colours they perceived would or should be (or already were) the colours ofthe future. Paul appropriates Isa. 54.1-3 and the interpretive tradition associated with it in order to remind his audience that, although they are currently in the midst of a world fraught with inequality and injustice, and dwelling in the shadows of an empire which claims otherwise, it is the people of God, consisting now of believing Jews and Gentiles, who have been promised the inheritance of the earth.”

Stephen Wellum: "Eschatology, properly understood, is nothing more than a thorough study of God’s great act of redemption in Jesus the Christ."

2010-08-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

“...we must guard against the temptation to divorce biblical eschatology from the gospel and thus our Lord Jesus Christ. After all, the purpose of biblical eschatology is always redemptive, ethical, and Christological. It is redemptive and ethical in the sense that, in the simplest of terms, biblical eschatology attempts to unfold God’s eternal plan in history, beginning with creation and ending in the new creation, and as such, it always calls us to live in the present as God’s obedient children in light of God’s great redemptive work. In this way, eschatology exhorts us to faithfulness to Christ and the gospel, and it warns us of its opposite.

“In addition and most important, biblical eschatology is also Christological and thus gospel-centered. In truth, eschatology, properly understood, is nothing more than a thorough study of God’s great act of redemption in Jesus the Christ. Eschatology, then, not only presents us with the Bible’s metanarrative, it also unpacks how that grand story is centered in Jesus. How our Lord was not only anticipated and predicted in the OT, but how, in our Lord’s coming he has literally ushered in and inaugurated the “last days.” By his incarnation and life, supremely his death, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost, God’s promised plan of salvation has been accomplished, and now we await and anticipate the consummation of that plan in the glorious appearing of the King of kings and the Lord of lords (see Eph 1:9-10; Phil 2:6-11; Rev 4-5; 19:1-21).

“When eschatology is presented in this way, not only is it true to the Scripture, it is also able to move us to action, obedience, worship, and service. Such eschatology will never leave us merely satisfied with this world, but it will orient us towards the future where the church will rightly learn to cry afresh with the church of all ages, “Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev 22:20).” -- Stephen Wellum, “Thinking Biblically and Theologically about Eschatology”

Jew and Gentile: What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

2010-07-30T23:59:00.005-04:00

What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. That simple statement from Christ about marriage in Matthew 19 is recounted for us in every Christian wedding. It is a statement Christ gave in the context of divorce, yet speaks beyond the matter to the "foreverness" of matrimony. It is a statement joining heaven and earth. What has been bound in heaven is to be bound on earth, an idea that is also part of the Matthew 19 context regarding the church (see Matthew 18:18). There are many parallels between the church discipline passage of Matthew 18 and the divorce passage of Matthew 19. Those parallels speak to a larger symbolism and typology going on between marriage and the church. The parallel that appears in Matthew is more explicitly stated in Ephesians, where Paul says marriage is an earthly copy of the heavenly reality of the marriage between Christ and the bride, the church.

Just this past week, for the first time, I heard the simple declaration we hear at weddings used in the context of Ephesians 2. And for the first time, I perceived the marriage language being employed in a larger "Jew and Gentile" argument being made. The language appears in Ephesians 2:21. While the immediate context is certainly speaking to Jew and Gentile being joined together as a "building", i.e. the temple, Paul, as is his habit, pushes the temple language into the arena of marriage as well, with a simple use of the phrase. So tightly bound up are Jew and Gentile in the building of this new structure, a New Covenant temple, the binding is cast in terms of that call to mind the joining in marriage. And given the larger argument being made in Ephesians 2, Paul's use of the phrase calls to mind Christ's simple statement: The Jew and Gentile whom God has joined together as one new man, being built as one new building, let not man separate.

This "joining" speaks to a broader, overarching reality being brought to bear on the Jew-Gentile question. Paul's point, in using the marriage language, is that there is common identity, not simply common salvation, between Jew and Gentile. Just as a husband and wife no longer are identified separately, so too Jew and Gentile. Just as husband and wife have been united as one person, so too Jew and Gentile. Just as there is "foreverness" in the joining of husband and wife (my wife Emily, though a Baird by birth, will leave this life a Bresson), so too Jew and Gentile. The anthropological and sociological nature of the husband and wife union speaks to the new reality of Jew and Gentile united as one Person in Jesus.

Elsewhere in Paul's writings, Paul speaks in the same breath with "Jews" and "Gentiles" as "male" and "female" (Galatians 3:28), appearing in a list of those things which have undergone transformation as a result of Christ's life, death, resurrection, and exaltation. While there remain some unique differences between the husband and wife, both as to gender and role, the union of the two produces a new identity. The male and the female, the husband and wife who are in Christ share more than simply a common sinner's prayer or a common regeneration in salvation. Contra both extreme complementarian and egalitarian positions... the male and female "identity" have been united in Christ. In fact, Christ becomes the primary source for identification in salvation. So much so, there's no "marriage" in heaven. My spouse is, first and foremost, my sister in Christ. That's an identity reality. There's still a difference in role, but not identity.

Men and women enjoy all the same eschatological and soteriological benefits. Peter speaks of men and women as "joint heirs" (1 Peter 3:7), not simply employing the anthropological language, but the socio-politico and eschatological language. This is the same kind of new identity found in union with Christ which is being applied to Jew and Gentile in Ephesians 2. The one new man of Ephesians 2 is a new person, a new temple, "joined together" (notice the marriage language). Just as there will never be any "union in Christ" benefits men and women enjoy separately, so too Jew and Gentile are sharing and will share the same benefits in Christ.

It's precisely these kinds of eschatological/soteriological benefits are precisely that are promised Israel in the OT. Israel will enjoy no advantage in the reception of any union in Christ blessings in the future. Both Jew and Gentile are "one new man" (notice Paul uses anthropological language, when he just as easily could have said "Jews and Gentiles are saved the same way"; he didn't, and he didn't because that's not his point). "Man" or "person" is an allusion to the original creation; in Christ, Jew and Gentile have been made a new creation, a new humanity. This new humanity, transforming Jew and Gentile, is what some have called "the third race" (notice it isn't simply "one new man", but "one new man *in place of the two*").

Jew and Gentile, the makeup of the Ephesians church (see Acts 18:18-23, Acts 19:10,17,) are joined permanently with the gentlest into one temple, one building of God, one church (eph.3 is the same argument), one body (language that invokes the "body" that was crucified to make peace between Jew and Gentile and to bring them together in a new identity)... Their identity in Christ, the point of eph.1-3, is never again separate (the marriage meaning behind "joined together" language). Andrew Lincoln, from his commentary on Ephesians: "They have not just been brought into a mutual relationship, but have been made one in a unity where both are no longer what they previously were." The one new body and one new man point to one new identity. In fact, further along in the argument (3:7), Paul suggests that the Gentiles are the recipients of the same promise given to the Jews regarding their inclusion in the "wisdom" for the ages (3:10).

Yes, like male and female enjoying the same benefits, Gentiles now enjoy the same privileges which were once exclusive to the Jews, based on the same promises that had been given to Israel. In fact, the argument here in Ephesians is that whatever privilege Israel enjoyed before the Christ event is no longer exclusive of the Gentiles. The Gentiles have been "brought near", i.e. they now enter the same holy of holies as the Jew (see the temple language continued in 2:20-21). Further, the Gentiles have been included in a term which was once reserved for Israel, "the household of God", a term now applied to both Jew and Gentile in 2:19.

As "one new man", both Jew and Gentile belong to the same "commonwealth" (2:19), the same socio-politico state, along with every other believer. "One new man" now constitutes "one new citizenry" or "one new commonwealth", an idea that is picked up again in Eph. 3:6 and 3:10. (One interesting and subtle point from Paul is that even with the Jews being "near", having access to the one true God through the tabernacle, temple, covenant, and the sacrificial system, they were not reconciled to God until being made part of the "one new man" -- see 2:16).

So, it's not simply imposing an alien idea to suggest that this "one new man" moves far beyond the simply "one way of salvation" view that some have proposed. It simply won't do. In Ephesians 2:11-3:13, Paul hits on every major facet of Jewish life: family, tabernacle/temple, law, nation-state, covenant, posterity, religion. All of these facets are brought to bear on the "one new man", the new humanity with Jew and Gentile united to each other in being united to the death of Christ. What God has united together in the death and resurrection of Christ, let not man separate.

Church as "letter"

2010-07-29T23:48:00.000-04:00

Rather than “letters”, Paul boasts in his “letter”. Paul points to the *church* at Corinth as a corporate letter “from Christ”. This collective letter (notice the lack of plural here; a singular letter made up by the church unit) is not a commendation from men, but from The WORD, Christ himself. This letter is of divine authorship. This letter has its origins in the heavenlies. It is flows from the “pen” of Christ who resides in the heavenlies. Such a letter could not or ever be produced by men. Paul’s validation of his New Covenant ministry cannot and does not originate on earth, but in heaven with the One who has dispatched His Spirit to earth in order to bring to life the new creation. And Paul, Christ’s ambassador, has been commissioned to “deliver” this letter authored by Christ as Paul’s own vindication of his ministry. -- crb

Jerry Bridges: "God doesn’t just call us to freedom, he actually exhorts us to stand firm in our freedom."

2010-07-06T05:32:00.001-04:00

“Paul’s call to stand firm in our freedom in Christ and not let ourselves be burdened by a yoke of slavery is just as valid today with our rules as it was in the Galatians’ day with the Mosaic law… God gave us our spiritual Magna Charta. Through Paul, He called us to be free: “You, my brothers, were called to be free.” In fact, God doesn’t just call us to freedom, he actually exhorts us to stand firm in our freedom – to resist all efforts to abridge or destroy it.

“Despite God’s call to be free and His earnest admonition to resist all efforts to curtail it, there is very little emphasis in Christian circles today on the importance of Christian freedom. Just the opposite seems to be true. Instead of promoting freedom, we stress our rules of conformity. Instead of preaching living by grace, we preach living by performance. Instead of encouraging new believers to be conformed to Christ, we subtly insist that they be conformed to our particular style of Christian culture. Yet, that’s the bottom line effect of most of our emphases in Christian circles today.

“For example, many people would react negatively to my quoting only part of Galatians 5:12, “You, my brothers, were called to be free.” Despite the fact that this statement is a complete sentence, they would say, “But that’s not all of the verse. Go on to quote the remainder: ‘But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.’”…

“The person who reacts this way has made my point. We are much more concerned about someone abusing his freedom than we are about his guarding it. We are more afraid of indulging the sinful nature than we are of falling into legalism. Yet legalism does indulge the sinful nature because it fosters self-righteousness and religious pride. It also diverts us from the real issues of the Christian life by focusing on external and sometimes trivial rules.” – Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace, pp. 121-122

Platt: "Give up everything you have, carry a cross, and hate your family"...sounds a lot different than "Admit, believe, confess, and pray a prayer after me."

2010-06-26T22:44:00.003-04:00

“At the end of Luke 9, we find a story about three men who approached Jesus, eager to follow him. In surprising fashion, though, Jesus seems to have tried to talk them out of doing so. The first guy said, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus responded, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." In other words, Jesus told this man that he could expect homelessness on the journey ahead. Followers of Christ are not guaranteed that even their basic need of shelter will be met.

“The second man told Jesus that his father had just died. The man wanted to go back, bury his father, and then follow Jesus. Jesus replied, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

“I remember distinctly the moment when my own dad died unexpectedly of a heart attack. Amid the immense heaviness of the days that followed and the deep desire of my heart to honor my dad at his funeral, I cannot imagine hearing these words from Jesus: "Don't even go to your dad's funeral.There aremore important things to do."

“A third man approached Jesus and told him that he wanted to follow him, but before he did, he wanted to say good-bye to his family. Jesus wouldn't let him. He told the man, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." Plainly put, a relationship with Jesus requires total, superior, and exclusive devotion.

“Become homeless. Let someone else bury your dad. Don't even say good-bye to your family. Is it surprising that, from all we can tell in Luke 9, Jesus was successful in persuading these men not to follow him?

“…Jesus was not using a gimmick to get more followers. He was simply and boldly making it clear from the start that if you follow him, you abandon everything—your needs, your desires, even your family.

“The events of Luke 9 were not isolated incidents in the life of Jesus, either. On another occasion, when surrounded by a crowd of eager followers, Jesus turned to themand remarked, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple." Imagine hearing those words from an obscure Jewish teacher in the first century. He just lost most of us at hello.

“But then he continued: "Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." Now this is taking it to another level. Pick up an instrument of torture and follow me. This is getting plain weird… and kind of creepy. Imagine a leader coming on the scene today and inviting all who would come after him to pick up an electric chair and become his disciple. Any takers?

“As if this were not enough, Jesus finished his seeker-sensitive plea with a pull-at-your-heartstrings conclusion. "Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." Give up everything you have, carry a cross, and hate your family. This sounds a lot different than "Admit, believe, confess, and pray a prayer after me."

“And that's still not all. Consider Mark 10, another time a potential follower showed up. Here was a guy who was young, rich, intelligent, and influential. He was a prime prospect, to say the least. Not only that, but he was eager and ready to go. He came running up to Jesus, bowed at his feet, and said, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"

“If we were in Jesus' shoes, we probably would be thinking this is our chance. A simple "Pray this prayer, sign this card, bow your head, and repeat after me," and this guy is in. Then think about what a guy like this with all his influence and prestige can do. We can get him on the circuit. He can start sharing his testimony, signing books, raising money for the cause. This one is a no brainer—we have to get him in.

“Unfortunately, Jesus didn't have the personal evangelism books we have today that tell us how to draw the net and close the sale. Instead Jesus told him one thing: "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

“What was he thinking? Jesus had committed the classic blunder of letting the big fish get away. The cost was too high. Yet the kind of abandonment Jesus asked of the rich young man is at the core of Jesus' invitation throughout the Gospels. Even his simple call in Matthew 4 to his disciples—"Follow me"—contained radical implications for their lives. Jesus was calling them to abandon their comforts, all that was familiar to them and natural for them.

“He was calling them to abandon their careers. They were reorienting their entire life's work around discipleship to Jesus. Their plans and dreams were now being swallowed up in his.

Jesus was calling them to abandon their possessions. "Drop your nets and your trades as successful fishermen," he was saying in effect. Jesus was calling them to abandon their family and their friends. When James and John left their father, we see Jesus' words in Luke 14 coming alive.

“Ultimately, Jesus was calling them to abandon themselves. They were leaving certainty for uncertainty, safety for danger, self-preservation for self-denunciation. In a world that prizes promoting oneself, they were following a teacher who told them to crucify themselves. And history tells us the result. Almost all of them would lose their lives because they responded to his invitation.” – David Platt, “Radical” pp. 7-12

Leeman: "Submitting to the local church is how we submit to Christ's lordship."

2010-06-13T07:38:00.000-04:00

"Submitting to the local church is how we submit to Christ's lordship. It's the fruit of repentance. It's obedience to the one whom we profess as 'the Christ the Son of the living God.' It's *where* the believer submits. It's the place on earth that this happens. Those with missional and communio impulses are correct to affirm the church as a people, but both groups seem to have lost the ability to distinguish between the church and a collection of Christians; between the church of God in Corinth and three Christian mothers meeting at the park or working in a homeless shelter...we must maintain the distinction between a local church and a group of Christians. The differences lies precisely in the fact that Christ has handed a charter of authority to the church, not to Christians generically. One might say that the whole (the local church) is more than the sum of its parts (the individual members) because of this charter…

"...Is the distinction between a church and a group of Christians vague and academic? I don't think so. Every employee of an organization who has access to a company credit card understands that a difference exists between using company money for business and for personal pleasure... The local church is the place where a gathering of Christians can responsibly and meaningfully carry out the charter given in Matthew 16, especially as it's further clarified in chapters 18 and 28, and in 26 in the episode of the Lord's Supper...Christ established an organization, and its members don't have the authority to use the company credit card whenever and however they please. Christians can use it whenever they have formally gathered together in Christ's name and the Spirit of Christ is present through Word and ordinance (Acts 4:31, 6:2, 14:27, 15:30, 20:7)...it's this gathering of Christians to exercise the power of the keys that constitutes the local church on earth.

"...Christians do comprise 'the church,' but Paul and Jesus both speak is if it's the gathering that constitutes us as a church, just like a basketball team must gather in order to be considered a 'team.' This formal gathering has an existence and an authority that none of us has separately. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because Christ has given the whole an organizational charter...The church on earth is located in the local church. If Christ calls us to submit to him by submitting to the apostolic church, he intends for us to do this through the local church. To refuse his lordship by refusing to submit to a true local church, if one exists where one geographically abides, calls into question whether we have truly been converted. It's true that we must choose to join, and it's true - in some places in this world - that we have to choose which church to join. But not joining, if a local church exists, is not really an option. Membership in the local church is voluntary, and it's not voluntary.

"Apparently, some in the early church failed to recognize this fact, which is why the author to the Hebrews warned his readers about 'neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some' (Hebrews 10:25). Such sinful neglect, he said, leads to a 'fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries' (Hebrews 10:27)." -- Jonathan Leeman, "The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline", pp. 203-206

Jonathan Leeman: "the local church is where the church on earth is"

2010-05-23T14:28:00.000-04:00

"Must a Christian join - or submit to - a local church? Can't Christians simply submit to the universal, apostolic church? 'Being in a right relationship with God and His people is what matters," says George Barna (in "Revolution"; crb); "the core issue isn't whether or not one is involved in a local church, but whether or not one is connected to the body of believers in the pursuit of godliness and worship." The bottom line: "You see, it's not about church. It's about the Church - that is, the people who actively participate in the intentional advancement of God's Kingdom in partnership with the Holy Spirit and other believers'….

"Writing to the Corinthians, Paul refers to them as 'the church of God that is in Corinth' and the describes them as 'called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours' (1 Corinthians 1:2). As long as two Christians call upon the name of Christ, therefore, what does it matter if they belong to separate local churches, or any local church at all?

"The short answer is that the local church is where the church on earth is. Not only that, it's where the church in heaven is. Notice that Paul refers to the church in Corinth as 'the church of God that is in Corinth.' He doesn't say a church. Christ's eschatological (end-time) heavenly assembly is represented there, among those people. The assembled Christian in Corinth are, in Ed Clowney's phrase, "a colony of heaven"… the church on earth is those embassies of ambassadors gathered together in the name of Christ. What that means is that an individual cannot meaningfully, truly, or authentically submit one's life and discipleship to both Christ and his earthly proxy in something other than the local church. If submitting to Christ means submitting to the authority of inclusion, the authority of oversight, and the authority of discipline of his apostolic representative on earth, then how can getting baptized at youth camp (or encouraging friends on facebook; crb) accomplish this? How can the conference circuit discipline its groupies, or how can Christian golf buddies help to protect the apostolic gospel from generation to generation?” – Jonathan Leeman, The Church and the Surprising Offense of God’s Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline, pp. 200-201, Crossway, 2010

Christ as Context

2010-04-10T08:49:00.003-04:00

A conflicted Kaiser writes, "When we speak of the context, we are talking about the necessary connection of thought that runs through a passage, those links that weave it into one piece. The exegete must feel that his primary obligation is to find this thread of thought which runs like a life stream through the smaller and larger parts of every passage." (Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Toward an Exegetical Theology, p. 71) He's right. Context is necessary to get the text right.

Unfortunately, Kaiser then denies that this principle is true for interpreting any text via the whole of the canon. Kaiser writes, "the whole canon must not be used as the context for every exegesis, claiming "the Church at large...is in error when she uses the analogy of faith as an exegetical device for extricating meaning from or importing meaning to texts that appeared earlier than the passage where the teaching is set forth most clearly or perhaps even for the first time." (Toward an Exegetical Theology, pp. 81-82) IOW, there's no "thread of thought running like a life stream" connecting Genesis to Joshua to Psalms to Malachi to Luke to Philippians to Revelation (Ironically, even though he does not see a common thread running through all of the text, Kaiser seemingly does believe that there is a common "context" for what he calls "Biblical Metaphors" (what I would suggest are really "types" in the typology of Christ). This common context is "historic Israel", and it becomes increasingly apparent that this is a presupposition coloring Kaiser's heremeneutics.)

Vos would emphatically counter that the Church is in error when she *doesn't* use the analogy of faith, i.e. Scripture interprets Scripture, to interpret earlier revelation with later revelation. There is a common thread to all of revelation because revelation constantly interprets itself. It is organically connected, increasing and unfolding from within itself from Genesis to (the book of) Revelation. Vos says, "Revelation is not an isolated act of God. It constitutes a part of the formation of the new world of redemption, and this new world does not come into being suddenly and all at once, but is realized in a long historical process. This could not be otherwise, since at every point its formation proceeds on the basis of, and in contact with, the natural development of this world in the form of history. It is simply owing to our habit of unduly separating revelation from this comprehensive background of the total redeeming work of God that we fail to appreciate its historic, progressive nature." (Geerhardus Vos, "The Nature and Aims of Biblical Theology")

Further, Vos says, "The historic progress thus ascribed to supernatural revelation may be more closely defined as a species of organic development. Although the knowledge of God has received material increase through the ages, this increase nowhere shows the features of external accretion, but appears throughout as an organic unfolding from within. The elements of truth are seen to grow out of each other. The gospel of paradise is a germ in which the gospel of Paul is potentially present. Dispensation grows out of dispensation, and the newest is but the fully expanded flower of the oldest. The result of this organic character of revelation we witness, in its progressive delivery, an ever-increasing multiformity." (Geerhardus Vos, "The Nature and Aims of Biblical Theology"

Kaiser claims that seeing a common thread through the whole of the canon is "eisogesis" or reading into the text: "It is a mark of eisogesis, not exegesis, to borrow freight that appears chronologically later in the text and to transport it back and unload it on an earlier passage simply because both or all the passages involved share the same canon... canonical context must only appear as part of our summation and not as part of our exegesis." (Toward an Exegetical Theology, pp. 82-83)

But it's precisely "because both or all the passages involved share the same canon" that the process of seeing a common thread through all of the texts is *exegesis* not *eisogesis*. The reasons for this are numerous... we have many, many posts on this blog showing how this method of interpreting the scriptures is patterned after Christ's and the apostles' own methods (i.e. they were interpreting with a common thread running through the whole of the OT, a common thread that was messianic in its orientation).

Again, it's the common thread running like a life stream through the whole of the canon and that thread's impact on exegesis that prompts Vos to place the discipline of Biblical Theology within the framework of Exegetical Theology: "Exegetical Theology deals with God under the aspect of Revealer of Himself and Author of the Scriptures...the formation of the Scriptures serves no other purpose than to perpetuate and transmit the record of God’s self-disclosure to the human race as a whole...Biblical Theology is that part of Exegetical Theology which deals with the revelation of God." (Vos's Inaugural Address)

But it's not simply "revelation of God" with which Biblical Theology has to do. Vos points out that because that revelation is tied to history and was given progressively throughout history, that "(Biblical Theology) is that part of Exegetical Theology which deals with the revelation of God in its historic continuity." Further, "Biblical Theology...undertakes to show how the truth has been gradually set forth in greater fullness and clearness, these two facts can be reconciled in no other way than by assuming that the advance in revelation resembles the organic process, through which out of the perfect germ the perfect plant and flower and fruit are successively produced." (Geerhardus Vos, "The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline")

Vos sees the gospel inherent to this common thread running through the whole of the canon, a thread that involves ever-increasing information through revelation. Repeating what he had written years earlier, Vos says in his Inaugural Address at Princeton, "The Gospel of Paradise is such a germ in which the Gospel of Paul is potentially present; and the Gospel of Abraham, of Moses, of David, of Isaiah and Jeremiah, are all expansions of this original message of salvation, each pointing forward to the next stage of growth, and bringing the Gospel idea one step nearer to its full realization." (Geerhardus Vos, "The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline")

And at the center of this common thread coursing through the veins of revelation is Christ himself. Since revelation and redemption have been inseparably woven together, Vos says, "from the beginning all redeeming acts of God aim at the creation and introduction of this new organic principle, which is none other than Christ. All Old Testament redemption is but the saving activity of God working toward the realization of this goal, the great supernatural prelude to the Incarnation and the Atonement." (Geerhardus Vos, "The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline")

Just as there was progress from the Garden forward in the development of redemption (meaning all the redemptive acts by God are themselves connected to one another), so too there is progress in revelation, all connected to the progressive revelation of Jesus throughout the ages. If revelation is tied to redemption, then "we cannot escape from the conclusion that revelation itself must exhibit a similar organic progress. In point of fact, we find that the actual working of Old Testament redemption toward the coming of Christ in the flesh, and the advance of revealed knowledge concerning Christ, keep equal pace everywhere. The various stages in the gradual concentration of Messianic prophecy, as when the humane nature of our Saviour is successively designated as the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of Judah, the seed of David, His figure assuming more distinct features at each narrowing of the circle---what are they but disclosures of the divine counsel corresponding in each case to new realities and new conditions created by His redeeming power?" (Geerhardus Vos, "The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline")

And for Vos, this organic development lands in the New Testament and finds its goal in Christ: "Because the New Testament times brought the final realization of the divine counsel of redemption as to its objective and central facts, therefore New Testament revelation brought the full-grown Word of God, in which the new-born world, which is complete in Christ, mirrors itself...We feel at every point that the last veil is drawn aside and that we stand face to face with the disclosure of the great mystery which was hidden in the divine purpose through the ages...All the separate lines along which through the ages revelation was carried, have converged and are met at a single point. The seed of the woman and the Angel of Jehovah are become one in the Incarnate Word."

Given the "advance of revealed knowledge concerning Christ" "keeps equal pace everywhere" with the unfolding of redemption (and indeed, all of history), every text is organically connected to preceding texts via the common thread (Christ and his redemption of His people). And because every text is organically connected to preceding texts, finding the common thread in the earlier texts with information given in succeeding texts is not eisogesis, it is exegesis. That common thread is no simple abstract or theological idea; it is not simply "redemption", as grand a theme as it is unfolding from Genesis 3:15 onward. That Common Thread is a Person, the WORD revealing Himself progressively and successively down through the ages through The Word. Ironically, contra Kaiser, if we fail to trace the Common Thread weaving itself through all of the Scriptures, we will not be engaging in exegesis, but eisogesis, with our interpretational presuppositions imposing themselves on a text that would (otherwise) show us Christ.

Goldsworthy: "The resurrection is the ultimate demonstration of Christology and of God's hermeneutical reference point."

2010-04-01T22:38:00.004-04:00

"When we speak of the risen Christ, we are referring not only to the historical event of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth but also to its theological interpretation. The resurrection is the ultimate demonstration of Christology and of God's hermeneutical reference point. Thus the resurrection of Christ confronted his disciples with a radical change of perspective and challenge to their hermeneutics.

"Although this new perspective had already been foreshadowed in the prophets and declared by Jesus, the disciples proved to be rather impervious to the truths involved. Partly this was due to their inability to grasp that the Messiah would suffer before entering his glory (Matthew 16:21-23; Luke 24:26). They needed instruction in how the Old Testament is about the Christ (Luke 24:27, 44-45).

"...Christ's kingdom would come through the preaching of the gospel in the entire world. This view of reality, based as it is on the events of Christ culminating in his resurrection and ascension, affects all the dimensions of hermeneutics.

"What, then, did happen in this climax to the earthly presence of Jesus? The New Testament testifies to the great importance placed on the bodily resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Among the perspectives of the various New Testament documents, we note the following:

"Jesus' human life is shown by the resurrection to be completely acceptable to God, and he is justified by his life of perfect obedience.

"The union in Christ of his divine and human natures is shown to endure, not only through death, but also as an indissoluble union for ever. In Christ believers now have the representative in the heavenly sanctuary and, because of their faith union with him, they are accounted as already having reached that goal. The resurrection of Jesus is the means of our new birth in him.

"Christ in heaven has not only reached the goal, he is himself the goal, the eschatos, the last one. As such, he gives meaning to all that has transpired or will transpire in human history and, therefore he interprets all the words and deeds of God. The union of God and humanity is the union of God and the created order, of which humans are the pinnacle. The resurrection shows that Jesus is the first expression of the new creation.

"The perfect and enduring union of the two natures of Christ provides the paradigm for relationships that reflect the creative hand of the triune God. The relationship of the one to the many -- that is, of singularity to plurality, of the particular to the general -- is established as one of both unity and distinction. This perspective is essential to Christ-centered hermeneutics." -- Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, pp. 64-65

The image of God, from its very inception, anticipates Jesus

2010-04-01T09:42:00.000-04:00

"In Colossians 1:15–20, Paul is convinced that the creation of the world and its inhabitants was a foretaste of the coming of Jesus. Paul understands that the image of God, from its very inception, anticipates Jesus and His perfect imaging of the invisible God. While Adam was created in the image of God, it was not Adam who expressed that image in its fullness. In fact, Adam blew it, as did all of the Old Testament characters—in one way or another. Christ, the Last Adam, fulfilled the image of God in man, and in doing so, became the image of God in man beyond anything Adam could have been as an image-bearer. Christ became the prototype for what it means for man to be made in God’s image.

Further, Paul understands Christ’s relationship to creation, and the account of Creation’s origin in Genesis 1 and 2 as central to the gospel. The life-saving, life-transforming gospel has its source in the One who first spoke the world into existence and gave life-breath to the original Adam. The firstborn of every creature, Christ, is not only the image of the invisible God, He is Head of a new creation, the Church. Thus, the glory of the last Adam is greater than the first.

Paul wants us to see that Christ is the purpose of all of history, including creation. The Last Adam Theater isn’t simply an addendum attached to a multi-sensory apologetic for the origins for the earth—no more than Christ is an addendum to the account of Creation and the fall in Genesis 1–3. No, the Last Adam Theater is a straightforward reminder that one cannot read the creation account in Genesis without consideration of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The former presupposes the latter. Christ must be placed at the end of the museum’s “walk through biblical history” if that walk is to have any definitive meaning at all. Just as the pages of the Old Testament have a sense of anticipation as history unfolds, so too the museum’s walk anticipates and unpacks what’s coming at the end. crb "A Necessary Conclusion"

Goldsworthy: "If something is not what God did in and through the historical Jesus two thousand years ago, it is not the gospel."

2010-03-21T08:03:00.001-04:00

"The gospel is the event (or the proclamation of that event) of Jesus Christ that begins with his incarnation and earthly life, and concludes with his death, resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father. This historical event is interpreted by God as his preordained program for the salvation of the world.

"The gospel centers on what God did for us in the incarnate Christ in order to save us from sin, the devil and death. Its goal is the new creation where the people of God redeemed by Christ will enjoy the presence of God for eternity. The gospel is what we must believe in order to be saved. To believe the gospel is to put one's trust and confidence in the person and work of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. To preach the gospel is faithfully to proclaim that historical event, along with the God-given interpretation of that event.

"It cannot be stressed too much that to confuse the gospel with certain important things that go hand in hand with it is to invite theological, hermeneutical and spiritual confusion. Such ingredients of preaching and teaching that we might want to link with the gospel would include the need for the gospel (sin and judgment), the means of receiving the benefits of the gospel (faith and repentance), the results or fruit of the gospel (regeneration, conversion, sanctification, glorification) and the results of rejecting it (wrath, judgment, hell). These, however we define and proclaim them, are not in themselves the gospel. If something is not what God did in and through the historical Jesus two thousand years ago, it is not the gospel.

"Thus, Christians cannot 'live the gospel', as they are often exhorted to do. they can only believe it, proclaim it and seek to live consistently with it. Only Jesus lived (and died) the gospel. It is a once-for-all finished and perfect event done for us by another.

"When we confuse the fruit of the gospel in the Christian life for the gospel itself, hermeneutical confusion is introduced. The focus easily turns to the life of the believer and the experience of the Christian life. These can then become the norms by which Scripture is interpreted. Instead of interpreting our experience by the word, we start to interpret the word by our experience." -- Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, pp. 58-59

Iconic Images

2010-03-08T11:53:00.002-05:00

After seeing some of these pictures time and again over the years, it was hard not to notice a picture posted on a favorite website (last one):

Van Til: " I understand no fact aright unless I see it in its proper relation to Christ as Creator- Redeemer"

2010-03-06T05:21:00.001-05:00

"Christ has, by his word and by his Spirit, identified himself with us and thereby, at the same time, told us who and what we are. As a Christian I believe first of all in the testimony that Jesus gives of himself and his work. He says he was sent into the world to save his people from their sins. Jesus asks me to do what he asked the Pharisees to do, namely, read the Scriptures in light of this testimony about himself.

"He has sent his Spirit to dwell in my heart so that I might believe and therefore understand all things to be what he says they are. I have by his Spirit learned to understand something of what Jesus meant when he said: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. I have learned something of what it means to make my every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, being converted anew every day to the realization that I understand no fact aright unless I see it in its proper relation to Christ as Creator- Redeemer of me and my world. I seek his kingdom and its righteousness above all things else.

"I now know by the testimony of his Spirit with my spirit that my labor is not in vain in the Lord. "I know whom I have believed and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day" (II Tim. 1:12, NASB). All of my life, my life in my family, my life in my church, my life in society, and my life in my vocation as a minister of the gospel and a teacher of Christian apologetics is unified under the banner Pro Rege! I am not a hero, but in Christ I am not afraid of what man may do to me. The gates of hell cannot prevail against the ongoing march of victory of the Christ to whom all power in heaven and on earth is given." -- Cornelius Van Til, My Credo

Chester and Timmis: "To fail to live out our corporate identity in Christ is analogous to the act of adultery..."

2010-02-20T12:39:00.000-05:00

"...the Bible shows that we are communal creatures, made to be lovers of God and of others. When it comes to humanity, God does not simply speak a word of command; he engages in conversation. "Let us make man in our image" (Genesis 1:26). This conversation shows that God himself is a social rather than a solitary being. And so his image cannot be borne by an individual, but by man and woman together (Genesis 1:27). Genesis 2 underlines this as the writer tells us that the only thing in all creation that is not good is the man on his own (vs. 18). Divine personhood is defined in relational terms. The Father is the Father because he has a Son. God is persons-in-community. Human personhood, too, is defined in relational terms. you can no more have a relationless person than you can have a childless mother or a parentless son.

"The trinitarian understanding of our humanity suggests we should define ourselves by the network of relationships in which we live; I am a father, husband, church member, child of God. This makes me unique (no one else shares the same matrix of relationships), but it also defines me in relation to other people. I am not autonomous. I am a person-in-community. I cannot be who I am without regard to other people. Into our pervasively individualistic worldview, we speak the gospel message of reconciliation, unity, and identity as the people of God. This is perhaps the most significant 'culture gap' that the church has to bridge.

"By becoming a Christian, I belong to God and I belong to my brothers and sisters. It is not that I belong to God and then make a decision to join a local church. My being in Christ means being in Christ with those others who are in Christ. This is my identity. This is our identity. To fail to live out our corporate identity in Christ is analogous to the act of adultery: we can be Christian and do it, but it is not what Christians should do. The loyalties of the new community supersede even the loyalties of biology (Matthew 10:34-37; Mark 3:31-35; Luke 11:27-28). If the church is the body of Christ, then we should ot live as disembodied Christians." -- Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, "Total Church", pp. 40-41

Hear, Here, Sproul Jr.... "One can no more defect from the Lord’s army than one can be disowned after being adopted into the family of God."

2010-02-16T12:38:00.003-05:00

In a very public way, Junior has chosen to distance himself from the Federal Vision. Good for him. And good for those of us who had wondered where R.C. Jr. would eventually land regarding the FV. And indeed he takes aim at some of us when he says, "we must not err when confronting the error. If we would have sound and accurate thinking in the church, we must be sound and accurate in what we denounce. We are not serving well the kingdom of God when we fight carnally, using gossip, innuendo, and aiming our fire at our allies."

R.C. Jr. calls out the FV for its implicit (and sometimes explicit) denial of the Reformed understanding of the perseverance of the saints: "The doctrine of perseverance has never merely affirmed that those whom God foreknew would persevere but rather affirmed that all those who trust in the finished work of Christ will persevere, will so trust until their death...Reformed orthodoxy affirms both that people do change, and that people do stay the same. That is, we become soldiers of the King only after God changes our hearts, blessing us with the gift of faith. Before we are drafted into the army of the Lord we are soldiers in the army of the serpent. We are by nature children of wrath. His Spirit changes us. This supernatural work of the Spirit is, of course, irresistible. Once we have been drafted into God’s army, once we have been given a heart of flesh, we can never go back. Our Captain, our King, our L ord, has promised that we shall never again serve the lord of darkness. Jesus has promised that nothing can take us from His hand. We are reminded that those who appear to leave us were ultimately never with us (1 John 2:19). One can no more defect from the Lord’s army than one can be disowned after being adopted into the family of God."

It's just a blog post for Tabletalk... some of us would probably go a bit further in pointing out that the FV's view of perseverance has direct (and fatal) bearing on its view of justification. But kudos to R.C. Jr... this will suffice.

HT: rsc

Two Birds, One Stone
by R.C. Sproul Jr. | Ligonier Ministries Blog

Horton: "The emphasis (of church gathering) is on God's work for us - the Father's gracious plan, the Son's saving life, death, and resurrection, and the spirit's work of bringing life to the valley of dry bones through the proclamation of Christ."

2010-02-12T21:18:00.001-05:00

Church life according to Horton: In the first scenario, "God gathers his people together in a covenantal event to judge and to justify, to kill and to make alive. The emphasis is on God's work for us - the Father's gracious plan, the Son's saving life, death, and resurrection, and the spirit's work of bringing life to the valley of dry bones through the proclamation of Christ. The preaching focuses on God's work in the history of redemption from genesis through Revelation, and sinners are swept into this unfolding drama. Trained and ordained to mine the riches of Scripture for the benefit of God's people, ministers try to push their own agendas, opinions, and personalities to the background so that God's Word will be clearly proclaimed. In this preaching the people once again are simply receivers, recipients of grace. Similarly, in baptism, they do not baptize themselves; they are baptized. In the Lord's Supper, they do not prepare and cook the meal; they do not contribute to the fare; but they are guests who simply enjoy the bread of heaven. As this gospel creates, deepens, and inflames faith, a profound sense of praise and thanksgiving fills hearts, leading to good works among the saints and in the world throughout the week. having been served by God in the public assembly, the people are then servants of each other and their neighbors in the world."

In the second scenario, "the people assume that they come to church primarily to do something. The emphasis is on their work for God. The preaching concentrates on principles and steps to living a better life, with a constant stream of exhortations: Be more committed. Read your Bible more. Pray more. Witness more. Give more. Get involved in this cause ofr that movement to save the world... Many of us were raised in conservative evangelical contexts in which preaching was chiefly an exhortation to do more, baptism was our act of commitment rather than God's, the Lord's Supper was a means of our remembering rather than a means of God's grace, and many of the songs were expressions of our piety more than a recounting of God's marvelous mercies in the history of redemption. The expectation that God was actually visiting his people to apply the benefits of Christ's victory to sinners - both believers and unbelievers - was less obvious than the sense that we were primarily regrouping to get our marching orders." -- Michael Horton, Christless Christianity, pp. 189-191

Hamilton on typology: "typological fulfillment in the life of Jesus refers to the fullest expression of a significant pattern of events."

2010-02-04T20:01:00.000-05:00

“…typological fulfillment in the life of Jesus refers to the fullest expression of a significant pattern of events. Thus, typological interpretation sees in biblical narratives a divinely intended pattern of events. Events that take place at later points in salvation history correspond to these and intensify their significance. As Ellis writes, “typology views the relationship of OT events to those in the new dispensation not as a ‘one-to one’ equation or correspondence, in which the old is repeated or continued, but rather in terms of two principles, historical correspondence and escalation.”….

“…since the Christians conceive of themselves as those upon whom the “ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor 10:11) all things—including the fulfillment of types—take on greater significance (see also Matt 11:11, where the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than John the Baptist, the greatest OT prophet). Even in the OT the “new Exodus” will make the “former things” to be forgotten (Isa 43:18–19). Eichrodt (“Typological Exegesis,” 233–34) writes, “…typology is concerned with the depiction in advance of an eschatological, and therefore an unsurpassable, reality, which stands toward the type in the relation of something much greater or of something antithetically opposed.”…

“Ellis… writes, “Typology can be said to differ from allegorical interpretation in that it takes seriously the historical setting of an OT law or event; type and antitype identify some correspondence between different stages in a sacred history, whereas allegory elicits timeless truth from beneath the veil of the biblical ‘letter’, which may be regarded as having no reference to history.” The entry on “types” in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. is similar: “In theology, the foreshadowings of the Christian dispensation in the events and persons of the OT. . . . A Christian type differs from allegory in that the historical reference is not lost sight of. Types are looked upon, however, as having a greater significance now than was apparent in their pre-Christian OT context”… Eichrodt writes: “The so-called tupoi . . . are persons, institutions, and events of the Old Testament which are regarded as divinely established models or pre-representations of corresponding realities in the New Testament salvation history. These latter realities, on the basis of 1 Peter 3:21, are designated ‘antitypes’”. -- James Hamilton, "The Virgin Will Conceive: Typology in Isaiah and Fulfillment in Matthew, The Use of Isaiah 7:14 in Matthew 1:18-23"

James Hamilton (again): "the OT is a messianic document, written from a messianic perspective, to sustain a messianic hope."

2010-01-31T22:37:00.006-05:00

From Hamilton's endnotes:

“We inductively observe that there is much messianic speculation in second temple Judaism (both in the NT and the intertestamental literature). We add to this the observation that this speculation is anchored in the OT. We then set aside the possibility that ancient people were stupid, which seems to be an implicit assumption of a good deal of modern scholarship, and we seek a hypothesis that explains the data.

“Since the authors of these texts are presumably seeking to be persuasive to their contemporaries (see, e.g., John 20:31), it seems to me unlikely that their contemporaries would grant the imposition of new meanings onto these texts. One hypothesis that explains the fact that “Early Christians, rabbinic sources, and the sectarians at Qumran cite the same biblical texts in their portrayals of the royal messiah” (J. J. M. Roberts, “The Old Testament’s Contribution to Messianic Expectations,” in The Messiah [ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992], 41 n. 2) is that the OT is a messianic document, written from a messianic perspective, to sustain a messianic hope. This would mean that these disparate groups are not imposing a messianic interpretation on these texts but rightly interpreting them. This is not the only available hypothesis, but it seems to me to be the most convincing.

“I agree with John Sailhamer, who writes, “I believe the messianic thrust of the OT was the whole reason the books of the Hebrew Bible were written. In other words, the Hebrew Bible was not written as the national literature of Israel. It probably also was not written to the nation of Israel as such. It was rather written, in my opinion, as the expression of the deep-seated messianic hope of a small group of faithful prophets and their followers” (“The Messiah and the Hebrew Bible,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 44 [2001]: 23). The variations in messianic expectation show that the developing portrait of the coming Messiah was not crystal clear, but the pervasive expectation supports the hypothesis.” -- James Hamilton, "The Skull-Crushing Seed of the Woman: Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Genesis 3:15"

James Hamilton: "from start to finish, the OT is a messianic document"

2010-01-30T21:11:00.023-05:00

“The use of the OT in the New has been much discussed, with some coming to the conclusion that, to put it simply, the authors of the NT wrongly interpreted the OT. This being the case, their exegesis cannot be legitimately imitated today. Those who come to this conclusion are sometimes mystified as to how the authors of the NT could possibly see a reference to the Messiah in texts the NT applies to him, at points even arguing that particular applications of OT texts to Jesus in the NT do not actually refer to him at all.

"Another argument against the imitation of apostolic use of the OT is that their hermeneutical methods are not valid today. This means that while an understanding of the hermeneutical milieu can help us make sense of what the authors of the NT were doing, it does not validate their method for us. Others would agree with Moisés Silva’s objection to this conclusion: “If we refuse to pattern our exegesis after that of the apostles, we are in practice denying the authoritative character of their scriptural interpretation— and to do so is to strike at the very heart of the Christian faith.”

"It seems to me that certain presuppositional starting points have the potential to ameliorate every intellectual difficulty with the way that the NT interprets the OT, regardless of the hermeneutical tools employed. I have in mind one thing in particular, namely, the hypothesis that from start to finish, the OT is a messianic document, written from a messianic perspective, to sustain a messianic hope. Adopting this perspective might go a long way toward explaining why the NT seems to regard the whole of the OT as pointing to and being fulfilled in the one it presents as the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.

"Further, it might be in line with texts such as Luke 24:27, 44–45, which could indicate that Jesus read the OT in precisely this way (cf. also Matt 5:17 and John 5:46). If Jesus and the authors of the NT did read the OT in this way, they were apparently not alone. Craig Evans notes, “The saying of Rabbi Yohanan, though uttered in the post-NT era, probably reflects what was assumed by many in the first century: ‘Every prophet prophesied only for the days of the Messiah’ (b. Ber. 34b).”

"The only way to verify such a hypothesis is to test it against the data. The evidence is, of course, disputed. I am not suggesting that we should look for “Jesus under every rock” or in every detail of the description of the temple, a straw man which at times seems to be the only thing conceivable to certain “OT only” interpreters when they hear the kind of suggestion I am making. We need not abandon the discipline of looking carefully at what the texts actually say to see the OT as a messianic document. Nor is the objection that there is proportionally very little about the messiah in the OT necessarily devastating to this proposal, for it is always possible that a certain feature is not everywhere named in the text because it is everywhere assumed.” -- James Hamilton , "The Skull Crushing Seed of the Woman: Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Genesis 3:15"

"The traffic goes both ways."

2010-01-08T15:45:00.010-05:00

I don't always see eye to eye with Steve Hays over at Triablogue. But he is dead on in today's post, where he again challenges late-Evangelical-turned-Catholic "philosopher" Francis Beckwith (Hays has been interacting with Beckwith and others over this issue over the past week). At issue is Sola Scriptura, championed by Protestants, despised by Catholics. Beckwith's claim, in a nutshell, is that the Scriptures alone are not sufficient enough to dispense with a heretical position such as Arianism. Hays dispenses with that claim in this post.

In a post directed at Beckwith, Hays says Beckwith and his Catholic buddies are "trying to play a game of chicken with Evangelicals. You introduce the deity of Christ as a wedge issue or pressure point to leverage our assent to the Magisterium. You then argue that, on the basis of Scripture alone, the Arian interpretation is plausible or rationally defensible such that Scripture alone is inadequate to fend of a heretical Christology like Arianism. You then double-dare the Protestant to choose between the Catholic rule of faith or the Protestant rule of faith. He can only stand by sola Scriptura on pain of admitting Arianism as a valid interpretation of NT Christology."

The comments following the post are just as enlightening. Beckwith feels challenged enough to respond, and Hays snaps off another snappy but helpful answer. And the debate continues.....

Vos: "The depth to which this seeking and saving brings him down should be measured by the distance there is between the highest in God and the lowest in man."

2009-12-20T10:27:00.003-05:00

"The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost." The word "came" is in itself suggestive of a previous sphere and state which he exchanged for our world, a sphere and state wherein no seeking nor saving was required, because there all live secure and blessed in God. But much more suggestive is this word when coupled with the name "Son of Man."

"It is not accidental that our Lord makes use of this self-designation in a connection like this. Elsewhere also we read that "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom" (Mt. 20:28). And in a number of other passages the title is associated with his abode in the world of heaven, whence he descended to these lower regions of ours. In the prophecy of Daniel, where first the phrase "Son of Man" is used to describe the Messiah, twice a "coming" is affirmed of the Person so designated: "There came with the clouds of heaven One like unto a son of man, and He came even to the Ancient of Days" (Dan. 7:13). Now, while our Lord often identifies the "coming" thus described with his return to judgment, yet he likewise once and again retrospectively associates it with his first advent, when he came out of the glory he had with the Father before the world was.

"Being told, therefore, that it was the "Son of Man," who came to seek and to save, our first thought surely should be of that unspeakable grace of our Lord, who, being rich as God alone can be rich, yet for our sake became poor as sinful man only can be poor, that by his poverty we might be made rich. The depth to which this seeking and saving brings him down should be measured by the distance there is between the highest in God and the lowest in man. To lodge with publicans and sinners might be condescension for a high-placed personage—what language will express its meaning in the case of the infinite God?

"The "Son of Man," who unites in himself all that Deity and humanity together can lend of glory to the Messianic state, he it is who came to seek and to save the lost. It was such a glorious life that was wholly given up to its very last thought, poured out to the very last residue of its strength, and that for the task of helping us, the lowest of us, who would have turned away from one another, because the sinful felt it a degradation to stoop to such as were a degree more sinful than they acknowledged themselves to be.

"When we combine this consciousness of ineffable glory sacrificed with the consciousness of absolute surrender to the service of the most despised, then, and only then, do we begin to understand somewhat of the indignation with which Jesus repudiated the charge, brought by sinful men, that it was unworthy of him to associate with publicans and sinners. With superhuman dignity the one word "Son of Man" silences that voice of murmuring in the streets of Jericho, and every echo, we may add, of that same voice from any quarter, or any age, when it presumes to criticize the gospel of Christ on the ground that it speaks in accents of the sovereign grace of God." -- Geerhardus Vos, "A Sermon on Mark 10:45"

Kleinig: "Christ has created a new cosmic choir. That choir is the church."

2009-12-19T14:45:00.004-05:00

About the only thing I could add to these wonderful thoughts which are timely for this season is this: the difference between our song and the angels' is that the content of our song is the Person of Jesus Christ, who has redeemed for himself a choir through His vicarious atonement on behalf of a sinful people. This new choir of the new covenant sings a new song in the robes of Christ's imputed righteousness.

The Lutheran theologian Kleinig points to the hills of Bethlehem in hearing the opening notes of this new song : "The incarnation of God’s Son ushers in a new age. It is an event which evokes music and produces song. It creates a new song which began on the eve of his birth at Bethlehem and has continued ever since. That song celebrates the mystery of God’s embodiment for us and our embodiment in God.

"By his incarnation Christ has brought the song of heaven down to earth for us so that we earthlings can now join with the angels in their performance of praise in God’s presence. Through Jesus heavenly praise has become incarnate on earth. We can now perform the heavenly song bodily with our human voices and our musical instruments in the presence of our embodied God.

"And more than that! By his incarnation Christ has taken up and transformed the old song which goes back to the beginning of the world and the start of human history. That old song is the song of the ravaged world, groaning under the burden of decay and waiting for redemption (Rom 8:19-22). It is also the song of broken humanity which sings of lost glory, heartache from ill-will, and the longing for peace on earth. Even though its wistful words and angry sounds are still overheard in the new song, they have been transposed into a different key and rearranged in a new song of petition and thanksgiving and praise. That new song which comes from God’s intervention in human history, gives glory to God together with the angelic choir and announces heavenly peace as a gift from God to the citizens of the earth.

"This has happened because we human beings were made as singing creatures. We have voices so that we can not only speak but also sing. We have been designed to be sensitive and responsive to ordered sound. Music and song connect us deeply with each other and link us wonderfully with the order of creation. They are an important part of our humanity. The incarnation of God’s Son must therefore affect us musically, if it is to touch us at all. Since Christ has taken on a human body to redeem us entirely, he engages us in music and song. Just as he has learnt our language so that we can hear him and speak to him in our own words, so he has also learnt our human song so that he can teach us to sing his song and make music together with the angels...

"...The presence of God and the gift of his blessing at the temple in Jerusalem prefigured and foreshadowed the incarnation. St John claims that, since the Word became flesh, the glory of God now tabernacles among us in the humanity of Jesus (John 1:14). It is hidden in the flesh of Jesus, rather than in a cloud. His body is now the temple of the living God, the place where God meets with us and we meet with God (John 2:21). Hence the body of Jesus is now the place for theophany and praise. There God is available to us; there we have access to God.

"The incarnation produces a new song of praise which applauds and lauds the presence of the incarnate deity. The gospel of St Luke explores this mystery in the story of the appearance of the angels to the shepherds on Christmas evening (Luke 2:8-20). That story however makes sense only in the light of the Old Testament. According to Psalm 29, the angels who stand before God in heaven and behold his glory face to face, react to their vision of God by glorifying him. Heaven was therefore the place where the angels sang doxology to God. But with the birth of Jesus something remarkable has occurred. The place for doxology has shifted from heaven to earth.

"The radiant presence of God, his glory, is now associated with Jesus. Wherever he is present, human beings can join with the angels in singing: ‘Glory the God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours.’ Like the shepherds, all God’s people glorify and praise God for what they hear from Jesus and see in him. The theophany of God in that human body creates a new choir, in which people combine with the angels in the performance of doxology.

"The ramifications of this event are unfolded by St Paul in Ephesians 1:3-14. As he writes this extravagant sentence, he contrasts the new choir created by Christ with the old Levitical choir at the temple. The temple choir had been appointed to praise God for the blessings which the Israelites had received from him here on earth. Each of the musicians had been given their allotted place at the temple. Their vocation from God was to praise him whenever they were rostered for duty there at the temple.

"But now Christ has created a new cosmic choir. That choir is the church. By his incarnation he has united earthings with angels under his headship. He has redeemed people and made them holy in him. They now have the same status as Jesus. They share in his sonship and have every blessing that belongs to him as God’s Son. They join the angels in a choir which spans heaven and earth. That choir consists of both Jews and gentiles. Through the incarnation of Jesus human beings have access to the heavenly realm as they continue to live on earth. Both angels and people have the same musical vocation. Even though they are only a little like God, they show what God is like by praising him. They have then been appointed as praise-singers for God the Father here on planet earth. They are to live for the praise of God’s glory (Eph 1:6,12,14). They cannot do this apart from God and in his absence. In and through Jesus they praise God the Father as those who stand ‘holy and blameless before him’ (Eph 1:4), for he has united them bodily with himself and has taken them bodily with himself into the Godhead.

"As recipients of God’s grace they sing the song of God’s amazing grace to the world. In fact, God is so utterly good and gracious, so much more generous, philanthropic and loving that the best human being, that they can only communicate something of that grace by wholehearted, full-bodied praise. Sacred music then is full of wonder and amazement at the great mystery of the incarnation, by which the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily in Jesus, so that we humans can come to fullness of life in and through him." -- John Kleinig, "The Incarnation and Music"

Vos: Christ "took up the cross when he breathed the first breath of his earthly life."

2009-12-13T07:46:00.002-05:00

"...our Lord affirms that he came to give his life as a ransom. The verb "came" belongs not merely to the first thing named—the ministering—but it belongs equally (as) much to the second thing named—the giving of the life by way of ransom: the Son of Man came to minister and to give. I beg you to notice this form of the statement sharply because many have tried to put upon it the weakening interpretation: Jesus came to serve and found, in the course of his life, that to serve to the full meant for him to die. But that merely makes the death the outcome of the service.

"What our Lord affirms is that it was the implication and the avowed end of the service from the outset. What he says carries the knowledge (of) his death and of the saving purpose of his death back into the initial act of his appearance upon earth: his coming was with this end and none other in view. He came to serve not merely to the possible limit of death, but to serve by the absolutely free and deliberate employment of death as the supreme instrument of his service. No one took his life from him. He gave it voluntarily. And he expected to give it from the very moment in which he received it. Hence the writer of the epistle of the Hebrews represents him as entering the world with the words of the Psalmist upon his lips: "Lo I am come to do thy will, O God" (Heb. 10:7, that is, it was God's will that he should suffer). And "a body didst thou prepare for me" (Heb. 10:5, that is, God gave him a body in order that it might be possible for him to experience death as the true sacrifice for sin).

"You see, therefore, how all this excludes the view that our Lord only late in his career began to entertain the idea that his death might be a contribution to the success of his work. No—he carried the conviction that his work centered in his death with him in the silence of his inner life all the days of his pilgrimage. From the beginning he set his face deliberately towards this goal and unswervingly shaped his course with reference to its attainment. The gospel in the mind of Jesus did not need first to develop into a gospel of the cross. He took up the cross when he breathed the first breath of his earthly life. Thank God we are justified in reading the gospels with this thought in mind. Jesus did not live the greater part of his life in a naive ignorance and unconsciousness of the web of destiny that was being woven around him. In his case, as in no other case, destiny and conscious purpose were identical. Not only that he died, but that he meant to die for us, this constitutes the preciousness of the gospel story for everyone who reads it with the eye of faith." -- Geerhardus Vos, "A Sermon on Mark 10:45"

The Pilgrim's gospel of the Table: "they heard him say and affirm, that he would not dwell in the mountain of Zion alone"

2009-11-24T09:48:00.000-05:00

In Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress", Pilgrim comes to the Porter's Lodge where he meets the Porter and his family. He's invited to a meal in which he engages in conversation with 3 members of the Porter's family: Piety, Prudence, and Charity. In describing this "meal", Bunyan gives us a stunning theology of the Lord's Table:

"...they sat talking together until supper was ready. So when they had made ready, they sat down to meat. Now the table was furnished with fat things, and with wine that was well refined; and all their talk at the table was about the Lord of the hill; as, namely, about what he had done, and wherefore he did what he did, and why he had builded that house; and by what they said, I perceived that he had been a great warrior, and had fought with and slain him that had the power of death, Heb. 2:14,15; but not without great danger to himself, which made me love him the more.

"For, as they said, and as I believe, said Christian, he did it with the loss of much blood. But that which put the glory of grace into all he did, was, that he did it out of pure love to his country. And besides, there were some of them of the household that said they had been and spoke with him since he did die on the cross; and they have attested that they had it from his own lips, that he is such a lover of poor pilgrims, that the like is not to be found from the east to the west. They, moreover, gave an instance of what they affirmed; and that was, he had stripped himself of his glory that he might do this for the poor; and that they heard him say and affirm, that he would not dwell in the mountain of Zion alone." John Bunyan, "The Pilgrim's Progress"

Vos: "The law must be satisfied, because apart from keeping it there is no life."

2009-11-10T09:54:00.004-05:00

This past Saturday, at the Biblical Theology Study Center, the class engaged in an extensive discussion about the nature of the atonement (via the blog-post of an emergent-friendly theologian). Over the past 100-150 years, from liberal theology to the New Perspective on Paul to the emergent church, "justice", as inseparable and inherent to the nature of the atonement, has been either watered down or eliminated... leaving "forgiveness" as the sole, overarching paradigm for the work of Christ's atonement applied to the recipient. As important as forgiveness of sins is in our salvation, it is only half of the story. Justice is the other half. In fact, without the satisfaction of God's justice, there is no forgiveness to grant to the sinner. And, as Vos notes in his sermon on Ephesians 2, without the satisfaction of God's just demands exacted through the law, there's no "life" to breathe into the dead sinner:

"Can God justly bestow this benefit (new life, or spiritual resurrection; crb) on a sinner, dead in transgressions, by creating a new life in him?

"The answer to this must be a decisive "no." God cannot do such a thing. It is true that his love is great and his mercy rich, but his justice is inviolable. It requires that the sinner be punished and that only the one who fulfills the demand of the law be rewarded. Justice draws its rigorous line without making distinctions between persons; on the left it assigns eternal death to the transgressor of the law and on the right eternal life to the keeper of the law.

"If a person dead in transgressions is to be raised up, two conditions must be met first. In the first place, he must be relieved of the burden of his guilt which rests on him because of his sins. He must bear the threatened punishment and empty to its dregs the cup of God's holy displeasure. As long as this does not happen, despite God's great love and rich mercy, there can be no talk of God showing favor to the sinner.

"But suppose that the punishment has been borne, the cup emptied—even that by itself is not enough. The justice of the law must be fulfilled, that is to say, it must be perfectly obeyed and observed. Only to the one who does this can God restore life and impart his Holy Spirit.

"To understand this clearly let us imagine a criminal who must bear the punishment of imprisonment designated by the law. When he is released after serving his sentence, the law has been satisfied. But is the criminal's honor restored, have his civil rights been regained, can he count on all the privileges granted to someone who keeps the law without punishment? Of course not. Although the law cannot further require penal satisfaction from him, for the most part and all too often he finds himself without civil rights and honor, disgraced and an outcast in the midst of society.

"Exactly the same justice applies in the kingdom of God. Assume that the sinner is able himself to bear the punishment of his transgression, by bearing it completely so that nothing remains to be borne. This is not the case, but assume it for a moment. What then would follow? Would this be the end of the matter for the sinner? God's wrath would be removed, but his favor would not be regained. The person would still be without citizenship and rights in God's kingdom, he would still remain a beggar who has no claim to anything. The unyielding law, with its "Do this and you shall live," would still stand—with its accusation that it has not been fulfilled and its strict prohibition against giving life to the sinner.

"You can immediately see where the great difficulty lies here. The law must be satisfied, because apart from keeping it there is no life. As far as we know, God does not grant eternal life to either angels or men on any other condition than perfect keeping of the law. But man cannot keep the law, he is dead in transgressions, spiritually impotent. If he is ever again to attain to keeping the law, it must be preceded by a creative act of God, by an infusion of life from God, whereby he is again put in a position to live according to the commandments of God.

"Thus, two things are firmly established: (1) God cannot make man alive from his spiritual death in sin, unless he has first fulfilled the law. (2) As long as God has not made man alive, he cannot fulfill the law.

"This crying contradiction demonstrates how hopeless the situation with man was. There was no solution in sight and it seemed there was nothing left for God to do but to abandon man to his miserable fate. And, indeed, if help would have had to come from man's side, it would not have appeared, not even in an eternity!

"But through his great love God knew how to find a solution. He solved the riddle in a way that caused the angels to stare in wonder and the congregation on earth, in turn, to venture in joyful rapture before the heavenly authorities and powers. When the eye of God's love could find no resting place in all of sinful humanity, then it rested upon Christ Jesus, his only begotten Son, and saw in him the possibility of unraveling the sad riddle.

"The Lord could not make us alive. We had forfeited the right to be made alive. There was no one who was worthy to be made alive—unless it be that the Son of God became man, and by becoming such, restored the possibility that man be made alive and be saved. To make us alive with Christ—that was the answer that God's great love gave to the question raised by his mercy, otherwise there was no means by which sinners could be rescued from eternal destruction.

"The two conditions just discussed were present in Christ. He was able to wipe out the debt, and he did. At the same time, because he was not dead in transgressions, by his perfect keeping of the law he acquired the right to eternal life. Him God could raise up by his sublime power and bring back in immortality. And with that the great work was accomplished in principle. Certainly there was but one point of departure found for the spiritual resurrection, but that point lay in the Mediator Christ Jesus. With Christ it is therefore possible for God to raise us up also. He took upon himself the curse and the demands of the law, we reap the fruits together with Him. In his resurrection from the dead ours is given in fact and guaranteed by right. That new life, which he received as the reward for his obedience, passes over from him, by the working of his Spirit, to all that belong to him, so that they, awakened from the sleep of sin, let Christ shine on them, say "Amen" with a living faith to all God's words of life, hunger and thirst after the righteousness of life, and end by praising God's rich mercy, which, because of his great love, even when they were dead in their transgressions, made them alive with Christ, the Lord." -- Geerhardus Vos, "The Spiritual Resurrection"

Vos: "The Psalmists are convinced that God himself desires to enter upon close fellowship with man."

2009-10-25T08:07:00.004-04:00

Ever thought of the gathering with Christ's people as a "refuge"? Vos here shows how the Psalmists spoke of "God's house", "tabernacle", and "God's dwelling place" as a "sanctuary", a "refuge", a "taking cover beneath his wings". Such is the deep-seated intimacy between Savior and people which occurs when we gather to feed on Christ. It is "covering" and "refuge" to take "sanctuary" in the fellowship and worship of His people.

Vos on the subject:

"Figures are borrowed from the intimacies of human life, nay of animal life; figures which in point of picturesqueness and forcibleness go far beyond that of a covenant or a secret counsel here employed by the Psalmist. Such is the figure of the common house in which the believer desires to dwell with Jehovah in order that there may be between God and him something of that same closeness and intimacy of fellowship as binds the members of one household together. Of course this attaches itself to the typical expression God had given the thought of religious fellowship with himself in the structure of the tabernacle or the temple. But after all it remains interesting that precisely in the Psalms this divine thought embodied in the sanctuary is most clearly apprehended and most eagerly responded to. "A day in thy courts is better than a thousand: I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness" (Ps. 84:10). "One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. For in the day of trouble he shall keep me secretly in his pavilion: in the covert of his tent shall he hide me" (Ps. 27:4,5). And even this is surpassed in a number of other passages where the Psalmist chooses figures based on physical, bodily contact in order to satisfy himself in describing his vivid experience of standing in real personal communion with God. The two modes of statement are joined together in the 61st Psalm where David first says, "I will dwell in thy tabernacle forever" and then adds by way of climax, "I will take refuge in the covert of thy wings"; as elsewhere we read the petition, "Hide me under the shadow of thy wings" (Ps. 17:8) and three times the avowal, "Therefore, men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings" (Ps. 36:7).

"Now it is to be noticed that, notwithstanding the concrete, realistic character of such expressions, the sentiment expressed remains well within the bounds of conscious, intelligent fellowship with God. There is no lapse into false mysticism here; no desire to lose one's self in God. What the Psalmist strives after is nothing more nor less than that mutual revelation of person to person, that grasping of God himself in the various forms of his approach unto us which is the culminating act of all religion. It is safe to say that both in the guarding of this idea from every kind of mystical excess and perversion and in the thoroughness on the other hand of its application within the proper limits imposed by the personality of God, the biblical religion stands unique among the religions of the world. You may find enough elsewhere of absorption into the deity as you may find plenty in other quarters of coordination between the gods and men as if the two had separated spheres of life. But you will find nowhere such a clear grasp upon the principle that from the very nature of religion man is designed to hold converse with God and to become practically acquainted with him. Nor is it merely a subjective aspiration of man which underlies this idea of religion. At the basis of it lies the conviction that there is in God himself the possibility, nay the desire for this. Notice how our passage expresses it. The secret intercourse of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will teach them his covenant.

"It is a condescension of God not an aspiration of ourselves which renders real this crowning act of religion. The Psalmists are convinced that God himself desires to enter upon close fellowship with man; that if he institutes a covenant for his servants, it is because he is in his very nature a covenant God. In the saints upon the earth is all his delight. We have no right to say that there was any lack or deficiency in God to be supplemented by the creation of man in his image and for communion with him for that would be inconsistent with his character as God. The Scriptures teach that he is all-sufficient unto himself and forever blessed in himself. Nevertheless having created man, it is natural in God to receive man as an inmate of his house and companion of his own blessed life. God himself takes pleasure in the immediate personal fellowship with us to which he invites us. There is that in him which corresponds to the highest in our religion. The prayer of his people comes like incense before him; the lifting up of their hands as an evening sacrifice. And it is because the Psalmists realize this that their own desire to meet with God and speak with God obtains that intensely passionate character to which reference has been made." -- Geerhardus Vos, "A Sermon on Psalm 25:14"

Of course, don't make too much of the theology.....

2009-09-23T21:24:00.004-04:00

..... it's just fiction (sic).

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Britton: "going organic is expensive"

2009-09-14T20:20:00.006-04:00

"…contemporary sentiment has pretty much ruled against voluntary, wholehearted acceptance of authority in general, and Christians are hardly immune to contemporary sentiment. The extreme alternative to structured authority in the church is an attractively organic non-structure, in which the common priesthood of the believers is celebrated without the 'Big Brother' feel of a church hierarchy…"

"…the 'organic' vision…(is one) in which the absence of designated leadership is lauded… if an organic church is planted properly, 'those believers will know how to sense and follow the living, breathing headship of Jesus Christ in a meeting. They will know how to let Him invisibly lead their gatherings…[T]hey will minister out of what Christ has shown them -- with no human leader present!' This is a self-consciously antiestablishment vision, charged with enthusiasm and anthropological optimism, and its promoters take pride in tracing its roots to the Anabaptists and the 'Radical Reformation.' Anything short of a spontaneous, free, and authentic group experience of the Savior is, in their view, unbiblical and pagan.

"What do we lose if we jettison a structure of authoritative leadership in the church? No slur on farmers intended, but what is true at the grocery checkout is true in the church as well: going organic is expensive. Here the pinch is felt not in the wallet but in the health of the body of Christ.

"Ordination, as a commission and a covenant, sets apart from the congregation selected men who promise to love and guard that local expression of Christ's body… the elders' charge is to 'pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock…[C]are for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood" (Acts 20:28). In church discipline, Sacraments, doctrinal matters, and instruction, the oversight of elders is intended to preserve, protect, and defend the faith and the people. Without leaders who are set apart for and dedicated to this task, the church and its proclamation of the gospel are fair game for the ravening wolves without and the wayward saints within.

"Granted, ordination brings one into a position of visibility and influence that can be gravely abused. But although every pastor or elder is just a jar of clay, God has seen fit to entrust designated human officers, answerable to God with his gospel and his church…those who govern our congregation are themselves governed by the Lord, the Word, and one another, and my understanding that their calling is a necessary gift to the rest of us." -- Paige Britton, "A Necessary Gift", Modern Reformation, September/October 2009, pp. 23-26

Not exactly a grim reaper...Owen: "death is a messenger sent of God"

2009-09-05T11:24:00.003-04:00

Let us take heed of being surprised with death. This is that peculiar wisdom which God calls us all unto at this day. We know not how soon we may be called upon by death. It may not come in an ordinary course, by long sickness, and give us warning; nor when we have lived to the age of a man, which is “threescore years and ten,” as the psalmist speaks; but we may be surprised with it when we look not for it.

He that hath not learned it for himself from the dealings of God at this present in the world, and in this congregation, will not believe it if one should come from the dead and tell him so. Let this, then, be fixed upon our minds, that whatsoever be our state and condition, some are strong, young, and healthy, and some of us are old and feeble, going out of the world; but there are none of us but may be surprised with it.

Take heed, therefore, that you be not surprised in an ill frame. I hope there are none of you but do understand that there is great variety in the frames of believers; sometimes they are in a good frame, — grace is active and quick, — they are ready to take impressions by the word and warnings, delighting in holy thoughts; and sometimes, again, it may be the world, temptations, or selflove, comes in, or over-valuation of our relations, and indisposes them again, and they are very unfit and lifeless for the performance of duties with delight and vigor of spirit; and these they lose, though they keep up to all their duties. I persuade myself you will confirm this with your own experience.

There is no maintaining (though there may be impressions) of a quick, holy, lively frame, but by a sedulous contemplation and constant view of things that are above. Many will tell you, that when God hath been pleased to keep up their minds unto the thoughts of things above, and draw out their affections to cleave unto them, all things have gone well with them, — every prayer had life in it, and every sermon and duty, pleasure and joy; and their hearts have lain down and arisen in peace. But when they have lost their view of spiritual things, all other things continue, but there is a kind of deadness upon them. Why, then, our wisdom in this case is, to labor to keep up this spiritual view of eternal things, in a holy contemplation of and cleaving to them in our affections, or death will be surprising; come when it will, you will be surprised by it.

But if this be our frame, what comes this messenger for? Death is a messenger sent of God; he knocks at the door, and what comes he for? To perfect the frame you are in, that you may see heavenly things more clearly. He is come to free you from that deadness you are burdened withal, that darkness you are entangled with, and to set you at perfect liberty in the enjoyment of those things your souls cleave unto. How, then, can your souls but bid this messenger welcome? Pray, then, that God would keep up your souls, by fresh supplies of his Spirit, unto a constant view of heavenly things. And you must do it by prayer, that God would give you fresh oil, to increase light in your minds and understandings.

Some can tell you by experience, that, having made it their business with all their strength and study to live in that frame, they have found their own light decay, so that it would not be so fixed and constant towards heavenly things, nor so affect the heart as it had done before. Their light would work no more, until fresh supplies from the Holy Ghost gave quickness to it, and fresh oil to increase, to discern the beauty of spiritual and heavenly things. In plain terms, I speak to dying men, that know not how soon they may die. God advise my own heart of this thing, that I should labor and watch, that death might not find me out of the view of spiritual things! If it do, — if our bellies cleave unto the dust, and our eyes are turned to the ground, — if we are filled with other things, and death approaches, — do you think it will be an easy thing to gather in your minds and affections to a compliance with it? You will not find it so.

When David was in a good frame, he could say, “Thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth: O LORD, into thine hand I commit my spirit;” — “I am willing to come and lay down my tabernacle, and embrace this messenger. But David falls from his good frame, under some decays of spirit, Psalm 39, and there makes great complaint of it. Where is the readiness now of the good man, and where is his willingness of giving up his spirit into the hand of God? “Spare me a little, that I may recover my strength,” verse 13. Not his outward strength, but a better frame, fit to die in.

And if death overtake us in such a frame, the best of us will be found to cry so: “O spare me a little, to recover my strength.” — “O the entanglements that have been brought upon me by this and that temptation, and diversion; by this coldness and decay! O Lord, spare me a little.” There is mercy with God for persons in this frame; but if it were the will of God, I had rather it should be, “LORD, into thy hands I commend my spirit; for thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.” -- John Owen, The Works of John Owen, Vol. 9, Sermon, October 10, 1680.

The Sermon on the Mount and the Old Testament: Part 3

2009-09-04T21:29:00.004-04:00

There are a couple of questions that are pertinent to the relationship between the Old Testament and the Sermon on the Mount: How does Christ understand himself in light of the Old Testament, and how does Matthew understand Christ in light of the Old Testament? Again, there is much material in just the Sermon on the Mount that could occupy us for hours, so I’m going to simply look at a couple of words that occur in the thesis statement of the Sermon. There is one related question I think will be answered along the way: How does Christ understand himself not only in relation to the Old Testament, but especially the Law? I raise these questions because they are fundamental hermeneutical principles (see G.K. Beale, “Right Doctrine from the Wrong Text?”) that will help us understand the gist of the Sermon on the Mount.

In the Sermon on the Mount, we not only have Christ quoting the Old Testament, we also have him ascending the Mount and sitting down. This is no accident. This isn’t simply, as some like Davies would have us believe, Matthew writing about an event and couching it in the imagery of a king sitting down on a throne to make us think about David. Matthew isn’t simply using crowds following and Christ ascending and teaching “ethic” to make us think about Moses. Christ himself provides Matthew the opportunity to write those things because Christ himself is orchestrating the event to in a way that brings to mind the imagery of David and Moses. The very one who gave the law to Moses on the first mount, the very one who chose David over Saul, is the one who, in the fullness of times, ascends a mount and sits down to teach and dwell among His people.

Again, much ink has been spilled on the central thought of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:17-20. Entire movements and denominations are born and die over how this passage is interpreted. And to be honest, this presentation isn't going to solve an issue that has divided the church since Christ ascended to David's throne.

Of all of these issues that arise out of this passage, I want to briefly mention one and then look at the second. The first is what to do about the word "abolish". At this point, I'm really going to cut a lot of scholarship and debate off at the chase to suggest that when it comes to both "abolish" and "fulfill", we must take into account the point in redemptive history in which the statement occurred, even as we must take into account the point in redemptive history and revelation into which Matthew writes. The latter occurs much later than the former, and we must consider both if we want to get it right.

This is not a light matter. Even some who see Torah Incarnate in the Sermon on the Mount, especially Davies, Gibbs and Lloy, interpret Christ's statement here as reason to affirm Christ's reinforcement of the Law in the New Covenant. They stumble of the New Testament’s use of Old Testament law. And indeed most of the Reformed world in which we move and reside takes Christ's statement about not abolishing the law as a transcendent universal statement, good for all times, all ages, all people everywhere.

The question is this: is this how the rest of the New Testament understands Christ's relationship to the Law? The answer is no. For time sake, I really think the key to understanding "abolish" and the reality for us today is found in 2 Corinthians 3, Hebrews 8-9, and Ephesians 2 (the latter I believe is the defining statement about the abolishment of the law). If 2 Corinthians 3, Hebrews 8-9, and Ephesians 2 are saying what we affirm here them to be saying, what do we make of Christ's statement, especially since the scriptures are not contradictory. At the end of the day, what we're affirming (something I pressed back against for a long time) is that Christ says "I have not come to abolish" and in fact, in his death and Resurrection indeed did abolish the law.

There are two ways to answer this dilemma, either of which may be true at the same time. The first is to understand Christ's statement as non-universal and confined to that period of time in which the statement occurred redemptive-historically. At that point in Christ's ministry, his purposes did not included the abolishment of the law, although it isn't too long into the Matthean narrative that Christ proclaims himself to be Lord of the Sabbath. While at that time Christ's purposes were not to abolish the law, before it was all said and done, this is precisely what he had done. Christ is not being deceptive. He is merely affirming that as long as His ministry continued, by and large, He was going to submit himself to the law as under the law. I realize that's a point that not all of us agree on, but I believe this is one of the answers to the dilemma because of what I believe to be true about the word "fulfill", which I'll get to in a minute.

The other way to answer this dilemma I think is more fundamental, more basic to what we are proposing in New Covenant theology. And that's that there's a sense in which the law and the prophets, even as the Old Testament has been abrogated as obsolete, has been subsumed in the One who filled it up. There is a sense in which the law and the prophets, the Old Testament, has not been made obsolete because those types and shadows now find their home in the One who brought all of their meaning to fruition. This doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a change in form or hasn’t been a change in the way that we relate to the Old Testament or the law. It simply means that the Old Testament “lives on” so to speak in the Person who fulfilled it, and in that sense, we can say the Law or the Prophets have not been abolished.

This is also the answer to a fundamental question posed by those in Covenant Theology: how is it that David and other OT writers referred to the law as eternal, especially if we are going to insist that the law has faded away, been made obsolete, and has been abolished? There are places in the Old Testament where David and the prophets make reference to an eternal covenant that has been made with Israel, and their context for the statement is the Mosaic Law.

If the Mosaic Law has been abolished (Ephesians 2:15, 2 Corinthians 3, Hebrews 8-10, Galatians 3-4), how is it that it can be said to be eternal (also see Romans 3:19)? Much of Reformed theology, especially from Calvin onward, affirm the Mosaic law as still in force, in part because of some of the statements about the covenant being eternal. The three categories (civil, ceremonial, and moral) were invented as a means of dealing with this issue (they’re dubious attempts to “exegete” them from scripture notwithstanding).

The answer is that the Law, not in its form, not in its Old Covenant stipulations, but in its essence, that which revealed the eternal character of God, lives on in a Person who has filled up the law to its fullest measure. And it's interesting, on that point about the Law being Incarnate, Gibbs and Lloy and a host of others, do agree with us. The One who originally penned the law and wrote the law to begin with continues the Law in His Person, even as the terms and the form are changed in the New Covenant. The law has faded away and become obsolete, because the One who fingered the original law on the first Sinai has filled it up to its fullest measure. But as I argue in just a moment, this filling up the Law in the fullness of time is progressive; that filling up will not be complete until after Christ’s death and resurrection. Since it is progressive, there is a sense in which Christ can say, at this point in redemptive history, he has not come to abolish the Law. Such abolishment will not occur until his death and resurrection have been accomplished.

Christ is law Incarnate, and eternally so. I bring this up because I don’t think those of us in New Covenant theology have done a very good job at answering this question as to how the Mosaic Covenant or Law can be considered “eternal”, especially when he says here in the Sermon on the Mount, “I have not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I think NCT has had a tendency to simply wipe this issue under the rug. But I believe this question of the law’s eternality is a legitimate question. For instance, in Romans, in the context of a discussion about “law”, Paul says the law makes all men (meaning all men everywhere in all times and in all places) accountable (Romans 3:19) to God. How is that? We have our answer, which I will more fully develop shortly. Because the Person holding all men accountable *is* the Law. When the sheep and the goats are divided, Christ doesn’t have to whip out the Mosaic law from the Old Testament in order to judge men. Christ, by His very nature, Person, and work, provides the context for the division of the sheep and the goats.

In fact, I think we can argue that the finality of the Mosaic law’s form consummates a few years after Christ’s death. And a tip off to that thought occurs in Matthew. He has an allusion to the law becoming abolished. Now, I want to state up front that I’m not going to fully develop this thought. I just want to put it on the table and suggest that more work needs to be done in this area. “I have not come to abolish the law, I am here as a lawkeeper. But oh, by the way, there will come a point in time, sooner rather than later, in which the law will be abolished”.

Remember, this word “abolish” is the same word that is translated as “destroy”. The allusion is found in Matthew 27:40, and verse 40 is set up by verse 20:

Matthew 27:20: “Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.” Matthew here is setting up a juxtaposition in this chapter.

Matthew 27:40: “And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” Now, unlike John, Matthew places this quote on the lips of his accusers.

This quote had shown up in Christ’s trial as an accusation (and not coincidentally, is the same accusation lodged against Stephen in his trial; compare Matthew 26:61 with Acts 6:14). We know the witnesses at Christ’s trial to be false witnesses in the sense that Christ had done nothing wrong; but the accusation in and of itself is completely accurate. We know this because of the account John provides us in John 2. And here on Golgotha the accusation shows up again in the form of mockery (it’s also another form of Satan’s temptation; compare Matthew 27:40 with Matthew 4:5).

The religious leaders who held the trial persuaded the crowd to “release Barabbas and destroy Jesus”. And the irony is in Matthew’s juxtaposition. Even as they “destroy” Jesus (as he had suggested in John 2), Christ is “destroying” the temple, or at least setting the stage for it to be destroyed (in A.D. 70). And certainly, this is how Stephen understood it, if we follow what he unpacks in his sermon (Acts 7).

Now, there is more than this simple juxtaposition taking place in Matthew. This thought of “destroying” temple is connected to the word “abolish” in Matthew 5:17. And this is where more work needs to be done. One cannot have “temple” without “law”. The two are inseparable. The giving of the law resulted in the creation of the tabernacle and “law” regulated everything that occurred in the tabernacle. This is reiterated when David dedicated the tabernacle after bringing the ark of the covenant back to it (1 Chronicles 17:40), it’s confirmed at Solomon’s dedication of the temple (2 Chronicles 6:14-17), and it’s a central thought in the entire account of Josiah’s “discovery” of the law in the temple (2 Chronicles 34:14ff). Temple and law were inseparably bound to each other. So much so, that in Matthew’s use of “abolish” and “destroy”, to “destroy” the temple is to “abolish” the law. What we have in the destruction of the temple, embodied in the “destruction” of Christ’s “temple”, is the ending of the Mosaic law (and covenant: the end of the temple signals the end of the Mosaic covenant). The old law has given way to a new One, Christ himself. And the upshot of Matthew’s connection between Matthew 5:17 and 27:40, for our discussion within and without New Covenant Theology, is that Christ’s statement in Matthew 5:17 cannot be understood as a universal. There is an eschatological trajectory to the 5:17 statement which is connected to Christ’s work on the cross. Christ is not positing a truism for all places, all people, and all time, at least at it relates to the Mosaic form of the law. It must be understood within and limited to the framework of his place and his ministry in that moment in redemptive history. -- crb, "The Sermon on the Mount and the Old Testament"

Owen: "Grow in that desire of coming to Christ, and you will conquer the unwillingness of death."

2009-08-11T23:47:00.003-04:00

“Philippians 1:23…’Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ… I have a strong bent and inclination of Spirit’. The is that which in Scripture is used for ‘lust’ and ‘concupiscence;’ that is always working with strong bent and inclination. ‘It is not a desire that sometimes befalls me, now and then, when in trouble, sickness, or pain; but I have a habitual, constant inclination.’ Unto what? ‘…to depart’, to leave this body. It is usually translated in the passive, ‘I have a desire to be dissolved.’ But the plain meaning of the word is this, ‘I do desire that contexture of my nature may be reduced unto its distinct principles, -- may be analyzed.’

"Now, analysis is the reducing of a speech from the present contexture into its proper, distinct principles. Then, here lies the difficulty. I told you the soul hath an aversation to this dissolution; and yet the apostle saith, ‘I have a continual strong inclination to it.’ To what? Pray observe it, -- ‘To be with Christ.’ I have no inclination to be dissolved as the end, but only as the means for another end, that without it I cannot be with Christ. There is my end. And so far with respect to that end, that which is in itself no object of inclination becomes an object of desire.

"Brethren, I know no man dies willingly, - no man living can have an habitual inclination to close cheerfully with this dissolution, -- but by looking upon it as a means to come to the enjoyment of Christ. I tell you, your bodies are better to you than all the world, than all your goods, or any thing else. But Christ is better to the soul than any thing: and therefore, unless it be for the enjoyment of Christ, let men pretend what they will, there is no man willing to part with the body, -- to be dissolved. Grow in that desire of coming to Christ, and you will conquer the unwillingness of death." -- John Owen, The Works of John Owen, Vol. IX, p. 349

The Sermon on the Mount and the Old Testament: Part 2

2009-08-01T11:16:00.004-04:00

The following is from a presentation given at this week's New Covenant Theology think tank in Angola, New York at New Covenant Baptist Fellowship. This is part 2.

The Possibilities proposed for Old Testament

All sorts of possibilities have been proposed for understanding the Old Testament context for the Sermon on the Mount. Is this a "New Moses"? The prevailing thought for much of 20th century scholarship on the sermon has landed in this camp. Then along came Kingsbury and others who challenged that notion by putting forward the idea that Christ as the "Son of God" provides context for the Sermon. Liberal scholarship has tended toward seeing Jesus as the New, Great Rabbi teaching Israel about his view and interpretation of the Law, come to raise the standard of morality in Israel. Closely related to the view of Christ as the greatest of the Rabbis, is Christ as Wisdom, the one who both teaches and embodies the ancient wisdom of Israel in a fresh new way. And there are other views. Is Christ a New Israel re-enacting the Exodus from Egypt? Is the New Exodus a paradigm for Matthew? Is Christ a New Adam come to restore or renew the creative order? A New Moses come to rescue His people from Egypt? The Son of David come to claim His throne? Is this the Suffering Servant come to provide hope and healing to a nation? All of these ideas have their proponents, and most have some very good exegetical justification.

Then, once we have argued about how Matthew understands Christ in this context (or even how Christ understands himself for that matter), then the sparks begin to fly as we argue over just what Christ is doing with the Law in this Sermon. Is this a recapitulation or reinforcement of the Mosaic law with the ultimate, Divine stamp of approval? Is this reinforcement with the ultimate, Divine interpretation of the Law? Is Christ modifying the Law? Is He superseding the Law? Is he ratcheting up the Law's demands, making it more severe? Is He raising the bar? Is Christ giving us brand new law? Is Christ delivering New Torah in the Sermon on the Mount? Has Christ given us a new book of wisdom? Is Christ giving us a new perspective on the book of Moses?

To their credit, those whose views that have gained the most traction in the evangelical community have attempted to provided the exegetical support for their positions. Some of these ideas have more warrant than others in the text. In fact, other than the totally "divineless" Great Rabbi of liberal apostates, most of the attempts at understand the Old Testament context for Christ in Matthew arise from thoughts that are present in Matthew, if not the whole of the Gospel Witness in the synoptics and John. So the question isn't really about which one isn't here, but which view or views seem to be best reflected in the text. It is with this last question in mind that we proceed. This is not about proving one thing to the exclusion of all others, but attempting to allow the text to speak to us about the Old Testament context.

Before we move on I will state up front, for those who get really irritated at speakers who leave the main things for last, that what I believe is the context for the Sermon and for the book of Matthew is "the Son who would be King". This isn't to say that the idea of Moses isn't present. This isn't to say that the idea of Rabbi or Wisdom isn't present. But this book moves from David's geneology to Magi-King to Baby King to the inscription over the cross, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews" to "all authority has been given to me".

Old Testament backdrop: use of OT

It would also be really easy to spend a lot of time developing the Old Testament backdrop for the book of Matthew; and in a very real way, one must do this at some point to arrive at the context being used by Matthew in narrating for us the Sermon on the Mount. We are not going to do that here, but we will briefly mention four important details for our study.

The first is that Matthew begins his gospel with "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David". It's interesting. This language is almost verbatim from the toledots in Genesis, leading some to conclude that Matthew is beginning to chronicle here the new creation. I concur insofar as Matthew 1 sets up the birth of Christ as a new beginning, a new era. However, this new creation doesn't begin with Adam, but Abraham, and its trajectory is David.

And David is where Matthew is headed. He develops the genealogy along David's ancestry, and ultimately lands the story in Bethlehem, the city of David. It is here that Magi-kings bestow king gifts to a baby, "born King of the Jews". It becomes hard to ignore the idea that Matthew wants us to believe that Jesus is heir to David's throne and recipient of all the covenant promises that were given to David. Were it not for the fact that Christ ascends a mount to deliver ethical discourse, those who are inclined to see Moses would probably be more inclined to see David here.

Come walk with me through Matthew:
o Matthew 1:1: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham."
o Matthew 1:6: "…and Jesse the father of David the king…"
o Matthew 1:17: "So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations."
o Matthew 1:20: "But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
o Matthew 2:1-2: "Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
o Matthew 2:3-5 "When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
o Matthew 4:17: "From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (More on this in a minute).
o Matthew 4:23: "And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people."

From the very beginning of his eyewitness account of the Christ, the Messiah, Matthew is bent on us (and those in the early church) reading his account understanding that this Messiah *is* the Promised King who is the final heir to David’s throne.

The second detail important for us is found in Matthew 2:15 where Matthew quotes Hosea 11:1, in speaking of Joseph fleeing to Egypt, "out of Egypt I have called my son." Again, much could be said here. But as Matthew develops the story of this new Son of David, something much bigger is in play: Christ as the One who will live out Israel's story as the Son of God, even as Israel was a "son of God" (unlike John's "Son of God, which places Christ's deity in the foreground, and Luke's "son of God" which places Christ as the New Adam into the foreground, here, "son of God" places Christ as the New Israel in the foreground). This Son of God also moves through the Matthean text in a trajectory to the cross where on the lips of the Roman centurion, "truly this was the Son of God".

Matthew chronicles for us that Israel’s champion, Israel’s incarnational representative, is miraculously brought up out of Egypt, and then… if we were to follow Matthew's narrative further into chapter 3, this Son that has undergone an Exodus from Egypt, then moves through the Red Sea, through the baptismal waters, into the desert where he is tested and tempted for 40 years; just kidding… 40 days; So that by the time we get to chapter 5, this one who has been brought up out of Egypt, through the baptismal waters, in the desert, has now ascended a mountain. And it is on this mountain that one better than Moses beckons Israel to draw near; it is on this mountain that THE Son of David ascends and sits down, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom (4:23).

The third thing we need to see is that this book not only moves from the genealogy of David to the King of the Jews, and the son called out of Egypt to the Son of God, but also moves from the promised One, Emmanuel, God with us in Matthew 1 to Matthew 28, I am with you always, to the end of the age. The heir to David's throne has come to reside with His people forever, and through His death and resurrection brings it to pass. This Emmanuel not only takes up his residence with Israel, but this Emmanuel lives out the history of Israel as a Son bringing about the justice and peace that Israel could not.

Again, this is not to say that Moses or Wisdom or any of the other typological motifs are being used in Matthew. This is only to say that wherever we turn in this book, especially in the Sermon on the Mount, we are going to see one or two or three of these being highlighted in the text.

There is a fourth, which is related to Christ being the Son of David, that we will spend the next few moments looking at...

Old Testament backdrop: use of OT (Isaiah 9)

While the main body of the book of Matthew begins in 4:17, with the Sermon on the Mount being the first big event in that portion of the book, the verses preceding 4:17 contain an Isaianic prophecy that gives context to the rest of the book, especially the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 4:8-17
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ” Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

It would be really easy to limit this prophecy to Matthew's immediate concern, that of Christ's explicit fulfillment of Isaiah in moving from Nazareth to Galilee. Further, it would also be really easy to limit the scope of Matthew's use of Isaiah.

Matthew 4:15-16 quotes Isaiah 9:1-2 nearly verbatim. Christ's move to Capernaum from Nazareth is understood in light of the words of Isaiah: "But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined." This One come to save His people from their sins is moving into new territory. Having conquered Satan through testing in the wilderness, this Son come from Egypt is tracing new boundaries, boundaries that include both Jew and Gentile.

But the move to Capernaum is more than predictively noteworthy. Matthew once again uses the word "fulfilled" in quoting Isaiah (see Matthew 1:22, 2:15,23, 3:15, and 5:17). This Jesus who has conquered Satan in the wilderness and is now moving the theatre to Capernaum is one who is filling up to its fullest measure and bringing to fruition the intended purposes of Isaiah 9. In the fullness of redemptive history's climax (Galatians 4:4), it is this child who has been born, this Son who has been given, who is a light to the nations. This Jesus emerging victorious from the wilderness, moving from Nazareth to Galilee, is the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace whose government is on His shoulder… bringing justice to Jew and Gentile alike.

This one moving from Nazareth to Capernaum isn't simply one making predictions come true. This promised Messiah, the One who will save His people from their sins, is the promised heir to the Davidic throne, the Davidic heir promised in Isaiah 9. The Davidic anticipation from Isaiah 9 comes to fruition in the One born in Bethlehem, "king of the Jews". It is the One moving from Nazareth to Capernaum, this One who will be identified with the Galileeans, is heir to a Davidic throne where the government shall be upon his shoulder, (whose) "name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." This Jesus, moving from Nazareth to Capernaum, is the heir to the throne of David and David's kingdom, of which the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. This beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased, moving from Nazareth to Capernaum, the Galileean is the very same One who not only is heir to the throne of David, but will establish that throne and will uphold that throne with justice and with righteousness from Matthew's time and forevermore. No, this isn't simple predictive history coming true. This is Christ filling up Isaiah 9 to its fullest measure as the One of whom, for whom, and through whom Isaiah 9 was written.

Old Testament backdrop: use of OT (Isaiah 42)

However, more than Isaiah 9 is in play here in Matthew 4, and this becomes important as we move to the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 5. In the move from Nazareth to Capernaum, Matthew sees the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, the heir to David's throne who will bring justice.

It swings on the turn of a word. Matthew doesn't simply quote Isaiah 9. In the ESV which we use @ Clearcreek Chapel the English word chosen for this passage in Matthew, the right one I think, masks the literal definition which provides "nuance" to the Emmanuel idea in view here. This one coming will not simply dwell among his people, but will "sit" among his people. The word is "to sit", and this phrase isn't taken from Isaiah 9, but from Isaiah 42, where we read, "I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other…"

There you have it, right there in the purview of Matthew 4 and ultimately Matthew 5. This Jesus moving from Nazareth to Capernaum, this Jesus who comes preaching and teaching the gospel of the kingdom, this Jesus who takes up residence as he sits among his people is a Covenant given to the people, a light for the nations, giving sight to the blind, and giving freedom to the shackled. This Jesus, who is being followed by great crowds, ascends the Mount and "sits down" among His people.

Matthew's use of Isaiah in chapter 4, pulling in Isaiah 9 and 42 as he leads into the Sermon on the Mount, pushes us to see the Suffering Servant, the heir to the Davidic throne, as the One who delivers the Sermon on the Mount. The language of Isaiah 42 has already set Matthew up for this… the Suffering Servant, the Israel of God (Isaiah 49:3), is the heir to David's throne (Isaiah 9:7). And it's this Davidic heir who will be a covenant, inaugurating a new covenant: Isaiah 55:1 says this: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David."

There is so much to be said here but so little time. We begin to hear echoes of the Sermon on the Mount. Those who "hunger and thirst for righteousness" will be forever satisfied. The one who has ears to hear, "incline your ear; listen diligently". The Suffering Servant, the Covenant for the People, the One who is wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities, the One who was crushed and put to grief, ascends the Mount, sits down on his throne among His people, and begins what will be the making of a Covenant with His people, satisfying their most basic longings, cravings, and appetites.

It is this Suffering Servant, this manna from heaven (Matthew 4:4), satisfying the hunger and thirst of those who seek God's righteousness, who ascends another mountain at the end of the book of Matthew, and as the New David, proclaims to His disciples, that He has been given all kingdom authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). It is this Davidic King, who has been granted all authority in His resurrection, who in Matthew 29 (ha!), ascends to His rightful throne as David's heir.

Sermon on the Mount OT: Rabbi?

At this point a couple of things should be said about two other ways to see the typology of Christ being put forth by Matthew. The first is this: Many commentators have suggested that, in ascending the mount, sitting down, and beginning to teach his disciples, that Christ here is assuming the posture of a Jewish rabbi who dispenses wisdom, divinely inspired wisdom, with his students. W.D. Davies and others have pointed out that this is not likely, though still part of the imagery here. It's not likely because in Matthew, the only ones who refer to Jesus as Rabbi are the skeptics and unbelievers. Those who are his disciples, other than Judas, assign other titles and labels to Christ, especially "Lord", again a reference to Christ's claim to David's throne. As an aside, the fact that Judas is the only disciple to refer to Christ as Rabbi is a tip off that Matthew is number Judas among those who are not kingdom citizens. However, we must grant that the imagery here, among other things does suggest that of a great rabbi, although I would propose that the Jewish Rabbi is not in view here. Again, keeping the Son of God/Son of David in front of us here, there is one greater than Solomon who sits on that mount, perfecting and fulfilling the Son who is to know wisdom in the fear of the Lord. This is never more apparent than Christ's story of the wise man and foolish man, which has shadow/fulfillment of Proverbs written all over it.

Sermon on the Mount OT: Moses?

The other one we must comment on is Moses. By far, most of the literature and most of the scholarship centers on Christ as a Moses figure, especially in light of the Israel in the Red Sea and wilderness imagery of chapter 3. And certainly, it is hard to escape the image of One ascending a mount, dispensing ethic, and using some of the finer points of the law in contrast and comparison as Christ does in the antithesis of Matthew 5:21ff. Christ specifically interacts with the Law in chapter 5:18. And those like Davies who want to dismiss the Moses imagery are unable to do so altogether because the witness of the text is playing against them. Kingsbury, Cater, and others dispense with Moses entirely, and I find that problematic.

The answer to this problem, is this Moses or is this David, is found in understanding the nature of typology in the Old Testament and how that typology is fulfilled in Christ in the New. Without going off on a rabbit chase about how this occurs, one thing we must keep in front of us is that Christ is the Yes and Amen of Revelation, the All in All of scripture. Very often, the New Testament authors, and Christ himself… in fact, he does this as much as any of them, are conflating and collapsing imagery of the Old Testament into One Person, Jesus Christ. In this sense, we must avoid the either/or trap that seems to occupy so many. It really is a both/and. It is both David and Moses. However, Moses is not the dominant image here. David is. The problem here is that too many do not readily see the dispensing of ethic (again, this is the way the Sermon is commonly portrayed) as an idea attached to a King. Yet over and over again in the Old Testament, especially the prophets, this is precisely connected to the Ruler that is coming… someone who will give wisdom, someone who will promote justice and righteousness. That, among other things, *is* ethic. This coming Ruler is greatly interested in the ethics of His people; it's why He is going to give them a new heart. It's why He is going to give His Spirit and cause them to obey.

For lack of a better term, it is good for us to see here a David-Moses. This is the “son of David”, the One born “king of the Jews” assuming the posture of One who has authority, and as the Sermon unfolds, One who has ultimate and supreme authority. Moses had authority because it was he that the Israelites considered to be the giver of the law. Moses was revered because he was assumed to have divine authority (especially after the little spat with Miriam and Aaron). But this Moses on the Mount in Matthew is invested with Davidic authority, the authority of a throne. This David Moses isn't simply giving ethic. This David-Moses is describing the kingdom citizen and the kingdom citizen's life. At the bookend of this sermon Matthew tells us that the “crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and *not* as their scribes”.

This king, this David-Moses comes proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, a kingdom that is not of this world, a kingdom that imposes itself on this world, a kingdom that does not look like the kingdoms of this world. This David Moses comes offering a righteousness that the original Moses could not provide. -- crb

The Sermon on the Mount and the Old Testament: Part 1

2009-07-31T21:15:00.006-04:00

The following is from a presentation given at this week's New Covenant Theology think tank in Angola, New York at New Covenant Baptist Fellowship.

Introduction

I am convinced more than ever that a proper understanding of the Sermon on the Mount is fundamental to New Covenant Theology. This study has been a blast. There are things here in this text in Matthew that I've seen for the first time. And I've become convinced that much of the error surrounding this passage occurs simply because people don't allow the text to speak for itself.

The Sermon on the Mount's Old Testament backdrop is as controversial as it is colorful. If the Sermon is the most argued about passage in the scriptures, one fundamental reason is the wide diversity of opinion regarding it's place in redemptive history. How one understands this Sermon's relationship to the Old Testament has a fundamental impact on just about every facet of the Christian experience, from one's understanding of redemptive history to how one worships on Sunday to how one relates to God, brothers and sisters in Christ, the unbelieving neighbor, and the world at large. Simply put: a Christian's view of the Sermon's relationship to the Old Testament is bound up with his or her self-identity and worldview.

That the Old Testament and the Old Covenant have an interest in the Sermon on the Mount we will treat as a given here. One need look no further than those statements found in chapter 5 which theologians have labeled "the antitheses". All six of the antitheses are predicated in Old Testament law. Each of the "you have heard it said" statements employs an Old Testament quote before moving on to the "but I say to you" addendum, the interpretation of which has enflamed so much controversy. There are other quotes and allusions to the OT in the Sermon, but the so-called antitheses are certainly the most notable.

More important is Christ's statement in Matthew 5:17, where Christ says "do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." Here Christ brings the Law and the Prophets of the Old Testament to bear on the entire Sermon. And it is this statement, I have not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, that gives rise to the antitheses in the verses following, which themselves arise from the Law of the Old Testament. So the Old Testament not only provides context for the Sermon on the Mount, it's actually being quoted in the Sermon on the Mount.

The question then becomes, how does Christ understand his own Sermon in the context of the Old Testament? And the second, closely related, is how does Matthew understand Christ and His sermon in the context of the Old Testament? Before those questions can be answered, the structure, context, and purpose must be considered.

The Structure of the Sermon

While proposals for the Sermon's structure are as diverse as the interpretations of it, I'm of the opinion that its structure can be fairly easy to ascertain, while at the same time, making sense of the structure is a little more difficult.

Introduction: 4:23-5:1
Beatitudes: 5:2-10
Salt and Light: 5:11-16
I have come to fulfill: 5:17-20
Antitheses: 5:21-48
Father who sees in secret (Lord's Prayer): 6:1-18
Laying up Treasures: 6:19-24
7 imperatives: 6:25-7:23
Those who hear these words of mine: 7:24-27
Conclusion: 7:28-8:1

I am not convinced that the Sermon can be easily sectioned into 5 books of Moses, as some commentators have proposed, much like some have proposed that the book of Matthew is also divided into 5 books (although there seems to be a "panel" structure to Matthew following along the series of "when he had finished" statements… 7:28, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, 26:1). Nor am I completely convinced that a chiasm is present here in the Sermon on the Mount, although there are tell-tale signs of one. Both the introduction and conclusion have parallelisms, as do the Beatitudes and the wise man/foolish man parable. There is also parallelism with the "Law or Prophets" of 5:17 with "Law and Prophets" of 7:12. At the very least, the introduction and conclusion make the Sermon very easy to section off from the rest of the book of Matthew, especially when the conclusion includes the first of the "when he had finished" statements.

If this is a chiasm, then the midpoint of this sermon, its "climax", is 5:48 (unlike many chiastic proponents who see the Lord's Prayer as the point of the climax). And there are a couple of reasons why this makes sense: it is reflective of not only a recurrent theme in the Sermon (5:6, 5:20, 6:33, 7:23 - in reverse), but also the main theme of the Sermon (5:20). 5:48 is the imperative form of the main theme found in 5:20… the necessity of having a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.

Thus the righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees, the righteousness the blessed man hungers and thirsts after, the righteousness we are to pursue, the righteousness that sets itself over against all lawlessness, is to *be* perfect, even as the Father in heaven is perfect. Like much of the Sermon that reveals an indicative-imperative rhythm, 5:48 is the imperative form of what is stated in the indicative form in 5:20.

Structure of Matthew: Perfectly finished

Not only does 5:48 sit at the center of the Sermon's thrust, it is unpacked throughout the rest of the book. The greek word for "perfect" is the same word used in the literary markers that set off the 6 panels in Matthew: "finished".

Let's look at those statements:

7:28-8:1: "And when Jesus finished (perfected) these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching,… when he came down..."

11:1: "When Jesus had finished (perfected) instructing his twelve disciples, he went from there to teach and preach in their cities."

13:53-54: "And when Jesus had finished (perfected) these parables, he went away from there, and coming to his hometown he taught them in their synagogues, so that they were astonished."

19:1: "Now when Jesus had finished (perfected) these sayings, he went away from Galilee…and large crowds followed him, and he healed them there."

26:1: "When Jesus had finished (perfected) all these sayings, he said to his disciples…" Don't miss the word "all" here… there is an intention of Matthew to show that the finality of Christ's perfection of his work and teaching is coming.

Most of the main elements of 4:23 and 7:28 are present in the rest of these literary markers (the words or thoughts of "finished", "he went", and "teaching/preaching", "healing"). Listen to 4:23: "(Jesus) went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease… great crowds followed him". 7:28: "the crowds were astonished at his teaching", 11:1, Jesus "instructed" and "went to teach and preach", 13:53-54, Jesus "taught them in their synagogues" and "they were astonished", 19:1, "large crowds followed (Jesus) and he healed them…".

The first thing we can say is that these markers are completing what was begun in 4:23. Understood in light of the fulfillment talked about in Matthew 5:17, these literary markers point to an ongoing progressive fulfillment in the ministry and teaching of Jesus Christ.
What was started in 4:23 is continued and "perfected" through the rest of the book… this "perfecting" of what was started in 4:23 has everything to do with "being perfect, as *His* heavenly Father is perfect, with a "righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees". What was started in 4:23, and is being perfect throughout the rest of the book has everything to do with perfecting the righteousness that exceeds the Pharisees, a righteousness after which we hunger and thirst. This perfecting throughout the book of Matthew has everything to do with providing kingdom citizens with the satisfaction of our deepest longings, cravings, and appetites (Charles Dennison).

Thus, the theme of Christ's righteousness is tied to the unfolding of the events of the book of Matthew, especially in regards to those literary markers, the teaching of Christ. 5:48 helps provide interpretive context for the series of "finished" statements.

One final note about 5:48. It too has an Old Testament backdrop. We will say more about this later. But not enough attention has been given to Christ's use of Leviticus 11:45 in the Sermon, especially with 5:48 sitting at the point of the chiasm like it is.

The Context of the Sermon

The immediate context of the Sermon is found in Matthew 4 verses 23ff. In fact, there is such fluidity between these 3 verses and the Sermon, one would not be mistaken to think that the entire Sermon canopy begins in 4:23.

Matthew 4:23ff… this is what Jesus Christ proclaims to his people through His Word:
And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." -- Matthew 4:23-5:20

In the development of the Sermon on the Mount as an important passage for understanding the New Covenant, little attention is given by commentators, pastors, and theologians to the passage immediately preceding the Sermon. And this is unfortunate, for it is there that we find the historical and theological context for the Sermon, as well as allusion to its Old Testament underpinnings.

The first thing we can say about this immediate context is that Christ has the ear of the whole Jewish world. The whole world is his stage, even if it is Israel who is the intended audience. Note the parallels: "he went throughout all Galilee" and "his fame spread throughout all Syria". These two are simultaneous events. As Christ does one, the other is being accomplished. And note the language as to *who* takes note of Christ "going" all over Galilee and his fame being spread through all of Syria: "great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan". North, East, West, and South… this is a description of what had been the land of the twelve tribes of Israel. Even as Christ's fame has spread beyond the borders of old Israel, Israel itself has taken notice of this one named Jesus.

The second thing we must note is Christ's activity… and this becomes important as we consider the Sermon and its relationship to the OT. Verse 23: And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people." This activity that has Israel's ear, is threefold: teaching, proclaiming, and healing. Much, much more could be said about how this threefold activity of Christ unfolds throughout the rest of the book of Matthew. And there will be more to say about how this activity drips with Old Testament significance and fulfillment. But, what we need to see at this point of our discussion, is that it is this activity that leads into Christ's ascent of the mountain to deliver his Sermon. Christ ascends the mount to teach. What he delivers is the gospel of the kingdom, and in bringing the gospel of the kingdom to his people, brings healing to those who have ears to hear. And he does it in didactic, unilateral or unidirectional, and incarnational form. Christ teaches the gospel of the kingdom in dialogue. Christ preaches the gospel of the kingdom in unidirectional monologue. And Christ incarnates the gospel of the kingdom in healing the sick. That threefold activity consumes Christ throughout the course of his life on earth.

The third thing of note here are the "crowds". Not only do the crowds provide a linchpin between this last part of chapter 4 and the Sermon on the Mount, but the crowds also provide a bookend to the end of the Sermon. Notice the language: "great crowds followed him…" and "seeing the crowds"…. And chapter 8 verse 1: "great crowds followed him…" What we have leading into the Sermon in the immediate context is a total engagement of Israel with this phenomenon named Jesus. What occurs here and throughout the rest of the book of Matthew hasn't been confined to one subgroup of Israel. It hasn't been relegated to a select few. This Person from Galilee has gathered and united Israel with his proclamation of the kingdom.

And the last thing to note is the content of that proclamation: the gospel of the kingdom. More on that in just a moment.

The Purpose of the Sermon

We've only begun to note the context of the Sermon in Matthew, and it's probably a little early in the discussion to posit the purpose of the Sermon, at least in the fullest sense of purpose. To flesh out all of the questions regarding the Matthean use of the Sermon and why it occurs where it does in Matthew is beyond the scope of this presentation. In order to get at its purpose, we must ask questions such as 1. How does the Sermon serve the larger purpose of the book of Matthew? 2. What is the purpose of the book of Matthew? 3. Why does it occur earlier rather than later in the book? 4. What is the relationship between the Sermon and chapters 4 and 8 of Matthew, those chapters and events that immediately precede and follow the Sermon? And there are other contextual questions we could ask that would help us understand the purposes of the Sermon on the Mount.

The question we will attempt to contain ourselves to in this presentation is this: 5. How does the use of the Old Testament (by both Matthew and Christ) help us understand the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount? In order to get at "purpose", though, we must begin with the Sermon and its immediate context itself. The structure of the Sermon should serve up for us, a cursory stab at the goals and intent of Matthew and Jesus in the Sermon.

There are four items of note in regard to structure and immediate context:

The good news of the kingdom

Chapter 4, verse 23: And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

The first thing that we want to see is that the Sermon on the Mount is the good news of the kingdom. It contains the gospel. The Sermon unfolds for us just what it is that Jesus is teaching and proclaiming. Look at verse 2: And he opened his mouth and taught them. At the very least, Matthew is linking the sermon to Christ's activity of "teaching" in 4:23. But he also goes to the pain of describing Christ as "opening his mouth", a description that over the course of the scriptures portrays proclamation. So this Sermon is an unpacking of the content of Christ's teaching and preaching (4:17 as well) the gospel of the kingdom.

And this isn't simply the "gospel". This is the "gospel of the kingdom". The Sermon has everything to do with the ushering in of a new world order, a new era. This message was on John's lips in Matthew 3:2, "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And Jesus picks up John's message and carries it himself, in Matthew 4:17, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." This Sermon on the Mount is the message of the in-breaking of a kingdom that is not of this world.

As one who had authority

Just as the beginning of the Sermon helps us see purpose, so too does the end. Verse 28: And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. Much has been written about what this is telling us about Jesus and the Sermon, and we won't unpack that here; but this very last phrase, "great crowds followed him" is identical to chapter 4:25 and the lead-in into the Sermon. Matthew here, among other things, is providing a bookend to the proclamation and teaching of the gospel of the kingdom.

Some commentators would prefer to say that the Sermon constitutes a collection of Christ's sayings throughout the course of Christ's ministry, collated by Matthew to serve Matthew's theology, ecclesiology, and history. But the bookend won't let us go there. "When Jesus finished these sayings" implies the end of an event. It is most likely that what we find in the Sermon does reveal the content of Christ's teaching and preaching over the course of his ministry, especially if one is inclined to believe the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:17ff) is not one and the same with the Sermon on the Mount. Even if it is true that this Sermon summarizes Christ's teaching, this Sermon is a singular unit. The bookend, among other things, forces us to conclude that this Sermon is an event. At an early stage of Christ's ministry, Christ delivers this Sermon to a people, Israel, in a singular and very significant *event*. This *event* is important to the life of Israel and to the church in redemptive history.

Thus, the structure not only helps us see the content of the proclamation and teaching of the gospel of the kingdom, but also helps us see the proclamation and teaching of the gospel of the kingdom as a significant event in redemptive history.

An exceeding righteousness

I've already alluded to a series of statements that occur within the Sermon itself that serve up for us the trajectory where Christ is taking both his immediate and extended audiences. These also help form the substructure to the sermon: 5:6, 5:20, 5:48, 6:33, and 7:23.

Let's look at those verses… these statements are all interconnected, helping unfold and unpack the Sermon:

5:6: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. This, not coincidentally, is the center point around which the rest of the Beatitudes revolve. The thrust of the Beatitudes, as blessing upon the kingdom citizen from the mouth of the King, is found in this: the satisfaction for those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, a righteousness, the later statements tell us is outside of the crowd's grasp, a righteousness that is not theirs.

5:20: "…unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven". I preached an entire sermon on this a few weeks back, so I would refer you to it on my blog. If there is a thesis statement to be found in the Sermon on the Mount, it is found in 5:17-20. The entire Sermon swings on this question about the kind of righteousness characteristic of the kingdom citizen. This righteousness is beyond the grasp of the kingdom citizen. It is not self-generated. Jesus comes proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, a kingdom that is not of this world, a kingdom marked by a righteousness that can only come from above. The crowds, who have come from North, South, East, and West in the land of old Israel, lack righteousness. And this Jesus who sits on the mount tells his people that unless their righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, the kingdom is not for them (chapter 5 verse 20).

5:48: "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Not only is this a righteousness outside of their grasp, the demands of the law have not changed. The law demanded complete obedience. 5:48 occurs here as the imperative form of the indicative in 5:20. Those who gain entrance into heaven, must have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. In order to have that righteousness which exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, "be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."

6:33: "…seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Just as 5:48 functions as an imperative form of 5:20, so too 6:33 functions as an imperative form for the indicative found in 5:6. The thrust of this verse is "hunger and thirst" after the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And it is here that we find the solution/resolution to the dilemma of 5:20 and 5:48. The righteousness that exceeds the Pharisees, the perfect righteousness demanded by God can only be found in God alone, or, more importantly, the One sitting before you on the Mount.

7:23: "…depart from me, you workers of lawlessness" (or anti-righteousness or unrighteousness). Here, "workers of lawlessness" function as the antithesis for those who are "blessed", hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Again, more on this in a moment.

So… along with the parallelisms noted earlier that help us see some semblance of a chiastic structure, this series of statements within the Sermon itself function like glue holding the structure of the Sermon together. Further, the repetition of the common theme here points us in the direction of Christ's intended purpose of the Sermon and connect the Sermon to the rest of the book of Matthew.

One of the upshots of this discussion to this point, is this: as much as we want to talk about ethic and the commentators want to posit the Sermon as "ethic" (and for good reason), don't miss the righteousness, the larger purpose the ethic is serving. We would be hard pressed to deny that an "ethic" is being delivered by Christ on the Mount. Some might want to go there. I don't think we can dismiss that thought. But even once we've agreed that there is ethic here, the question becomes (amid all sorts of controversy) is "what kind of ethic?" Regardless, while there is ethic, the structure of this Sermon points us away from coming to the conclusion that *ethic* drives the motivations of Christ (and Matthew) in the delivery of this Sermon and its incorporation into the text of Scripture.

The thought that runs to the heart of intent isn't "ethic" (contra the utilitarian or moralist worldviews that dominate a lot of the commentaries), but "righteousness". In this Sermon, "ethic" serves the purposes of "righteousness". "Ethic" flows out of "righteousness." Some who have understood this have charged Matthew (and Christ)himself with being "unfair" and even "unethical". Understood as subservient to the righteousness that God requires, this "ethic" becomes most severe, and indeed it is, outside of the One sitting at the top of the mount. But the "ethic" unpacked in the Sermon on the Mount *is* the answer as to what kind of righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees. It begins to form the "content" of that righteousness which exceeds the Pharisees. It's a vicious cycle… in order to have this kind of righteousness, one must live out the ethic. But the only way to live out the ethic, is to have the righteousness which exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. This "righteousness" dominates the landscape, and even the "ethic" delivered on the Mount serves its purposes.

"Blessed is the man"/"depart from me"

And the last bit of structure to briefly mention is one that occurs in the parallelism already mentioned. I briefly mention it here because I think we must keep this idea in front of us. Without going into all of the elements that make up a biblical covenant, other than the identification of the parties and the promises involved, the most notable elements of a covenant are the blessing and cursing elements. Blessing is promised upon the recipient based on certain conditions, and cursing is threatened upon the recipient based on certain violations of the agreement.

We have those elements present in the Sermon on the Mount, raising the possibility that this gospel of the kingdom, this ethic of the kingdom citizens, is laying the groundwork for the New Covenant. What we have in the Beatitudes constitute a "blessing" upon those kingdom citizens whose righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees. And what we have in the judgment of the Day of the Lord (*that day* is a reference to the "day of the Lord") are the curses of the covenant: "depart from me, I never knew you" and "great was the fall" of the house of those "who hear my words and do not do them". Given the fact that Christ completes all the terms and obligations contained in this Sermon, and given the fact that both the blessings and cursings of this Sermon fall on the One giving the Sermon, what we have in the Sermon are the beginnings of Torah and Covenant Incarnate. -- crb

The Vossed World

DeYoung's Reformed survey on sanctification: Monergistic or synergistic?

Old: "If we are truly to understand Christian preaching, we must see Jesus Christ as its center."

Tripp: "Every passage imparts to us insight that is vital for a proper understanding of the passages that directly address marriage..."

Built into the NCT ThinkTank is a willingness to allow for the presenters views to be openly examined and respectfully critiqued

The Incarnation of the Abstract: New Covenant Theology and the Enfleshment of the Law

Beale: The so-called Great Commission is "a renewal of the Genesis 1:26-28 commission to Adam"

NCT Think Tank 2011, Canandaigua, NY

What is New Covenant Theology?

Fazekas: "A gospel theme runs like a silver thread throughout the Bible"

Goldsworthy: "The gospel achieves noetic salvation for us through the perfect mind of Christ our Savior."

Goldsworthy: "Jesus' mediatorial role is the guarantee of real communication between God and people"

Goldsworthy: "Jesus' mediatorial role is the guarantee of real communication between God and people"

Goldsworthy: "Christ interprets all facts"

Horton: We are in a better position than Moses in redemptive history

Vos on Biblical exegetes and hermeneuticizers: "dependent and receptive"

Greg Beale on New Testament Biblical Theology - audio

Vos: "In his sinful condition...man... is absolutely dependent on the self-disclosure of God"

Vos: "In theology... the living God proceeds to impart to this subject that to which of itself it would have no access."

Hasel: biblical theology as a "reciprocal relationship" between the Testaments

Goldsworthy: the Incarnation is "the substitution of God's righteous history in Christ for our fallen and condemned histories of rebellion."

Vos: "In the resurrection, therefore, we have the assurance that we ourselves also shall be made fit in our entire nature for our habitation in heaven."

What is New Covenant Theology?

The New Interprets the Old

Forman via Leithart: "it is the people of God, consisting now of believing Jews and Gentiles, who have been promised the inheritance of the earth."

Stephen Wellum: "Eschatology, properly understood, is nothing more than a thorough study of God’s great act of redemption in Jesus the Christ."

Jew and Gentile: What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

Church as "letter"

Jerry Bridges: "God doesn’t just call us to freedom, he actually exhorts us to stand firm in our freedom."

Platt: "Give up everything you have, carry a cross, and hate your family"...sounds a lot different than "Admit, believe, confess, and pray a prayer after me."

Leeman: "Submitting to the local church is how we submit to Christ's lordship."

Jonathan Leeman: "the local church is where the church on earth *is*"

Christ as Context

Goldsworthy: "The resurrection is the ultimate demonstration of Christology and of God's hermeneutical reference point."

The image of God, from its very inception, anticipates Jesus

Goldsworthy: "If something is not what God did in and through the historical Jesus two thousand years ago, it is not the gospel."

Iconic Images

Van Til: " I understand no fact aright unless I see it in its proper relation to Christ as Creator- Redeemer"

Chester and Timmis: "To fail to live out our corporate identity in Christ is analogous to the act of adultery..."

Hear, Here, Sproul Jr.... "One can no more defect from the Lord’s army than one can be disowned after being adopted into the family of God."

Horton: "The emphasis (of church gathering) is on God's work for us - the Father's gracious plan, the Son's saving life, death, and resurrection, and the spirit's work of bringing life to the valley of dry bones through the proclamation of Christ."

Hamilton on typology: "typological fulfillment in the life of Jesus refers to the fullest expression of a significant pattern of events."

James Hamilton (again): "the OT is a messianic document, written from a messianic perspective, to sustain a messianic hope."

James Hamilton: "from start to finish, the OT is a messianic document"

"The traffic goes both ways."

Vos: "The depth to which this seeking and saving brings him down should be measured by the distance there is between the highest in God and the lowest in man."

Kleinig: "Christ has created a new cosmic choir. That choir is the church."

Vos: Christ "took up the cross when he breathed the first breath of his earthly life."

The Pilgrim's gospel of the Table: "they heard him say and affirm, that he would not dwell in the mountain of Zion alone"

Vos: "The law must be satisfied, because apart from keeping it there is no life."

Vos: "The Psalmists are convinced that God himself desires to enter upon close fellowship with man."

Of course, don't make too much of the theology.....

Britton: "going organic is expensive"

Not exactly a grim reaper...Owen: "death is a messenger sent of God"

The Sermon on the Mount and the Old Testament: Part 3

Owen: "Grow in that desire of coming to Christ, and you will conquer the unwillingness of death."

The Sermon on the Mount and the Old Testament: Part 2

The Sermon on the Mount and the Old Testament: Part 1

Jonathan Leeman: "the local church is where the church on earth is"