The New Covenant and the Law of Christ

The moral will of God was not only expressed in the law of creation and then covenantally formulated for God’s old covenant people at Sinai, it is also given to the church by means of the new covenant, and its law, the law of Christ. It would be a grave mistake, however, to insist that, since God’s moral will is immutable, therefore the law of Christ is no different from the moral law expressed in the Decalogue (which, according to WLC 98, is where the moral will of God is "summarily comprehended").

While it is certainly true that the moral commands of the Decalogue are of perpetual validity (as Paul’s numerous quotations of them demonstrate), it must not be forgotten that it has been a while since Israel was led out of Egypt, and some significant things have transpired in the meantime. As Paul’s indicative/imperative paradigm suggests, the entrance into redemptive history of new indicatives opens the door for the entrance of new imperatives as well. For this reason we ought not think it strange that the moral will of God should undergo certain nuances that reflect the unique post-Pentecostal period of fulfillment in which we are now living (the shift of the church's worship from the last to the first day of the week comes immediately to mind).

For a further example consider I John 2:7-8. Concerning the command to love one another the apostle writes:

Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.

Here we see that a command that John's readers had had "from the beginning"—and therefore an old command—is called new because "the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining" (or, because the kingdom has been inaugurated and the last days have begun). What we have here is not "eternal moral law," nor is it "the third use of the law." Both of these formulations tend to flatten salvation-history by lifting principles from one redemptive epoch and placing them in another, as though the Bible were a collection of "timeless truths" that fell from the sky, leather-bound and thumb-indexed for easy use. Rather, what is exemplified in I John 2:7-8 is an application of the law of Christ, which consists of an old command repeated with new spin, grounded upon the indicative of Christ's love for his sheep expressed in his death, resurrection, and ascension to glory.

Tyranny, Liberty, and the "Wretched Man"

Most would agree that there is some form of contrast between the subject of Romans 7 and the subject of Romans 8. One is "carnal" and "sold as a slave to sin" while the other is "indwelt by the Spirit" and, liberated from bondage, is able to call God "Abba, Father."

It is not the presence of the contrast that occasions debate, but the nature of it. What accounts for such a wide discrepancy between the experience of the subjects of these two chapters? Is one a carnal Christian while the other is a victorious one? Has one received the "second blessing" of the Holy Spirit's power while the other remains woefully untouched by such a reviving influence? Or should we insist with the traditionalists that these chapters present no tension at all?

I would reject all of these solutions in favor of the suggestion that the contrast between "under the law" and "under grace" specifically, and between Romans 7 and 8 more broadly, is clearly set forth in 7:6.

"But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit."

Notice that the supposedly mysterious contrast, which Paul actually takes time to explain in no uncertain terms, is not the existential contrast between a believer and an unbeliever, or between a spiritual Christian and a carnal one, but the redemptive-historical contrast between serving God "in the old way of the letter" (the law of Moses) described in chapter 7, and serving him "in the new way of the Spirit" (the law of Christ) described in chapter 8.

Unless we are willing to bite the traditional bullet and affirm that a New Covenant saint is "carnal" (7:14, contra 8:9) and in bondage to sin and law (7:14, contra 6:14), we are left with little choice but to conclude that the explanation for the discrepancy between the saint of Romans 7 and the saint of Romans 8 is found exactly where Paul told us it is found: The former served God under the tyranny of the Mosaic law, while the latter serves God under the liberty of the gospel.

Ridderbos, Moo, and Fee on Romans 7

I still plan to argue my own position on this much-disputed text, but for now, consider what these men have to say:

"It is this redemptive-historical contrast of the old and the new (7:6) which governs everything and in the light of which one is to answer the anthropological questions. If, on the other hand, one turns the matter about and takes his point of departure in the anthropological description of what is then conceived as the struggle between the old and the new man, it is no longer to be comprehended how one could still maintain the real, redemptive-historical theme of these chapters (the antithesis between law and Spirit) in an intelligible manner." Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline Of His Theology, 143-44.

"... This clause ['I was once alive apart from the law'] depicts the situation of Israel before the giving of the law at Sinai—when sins were not yet 'being reckoned' (5:13).... Paul is looking back, from his Christian understanding, to the situation of himself, and other Jews like him, living under the law of Moses.... We might say, then, that Rom. 7:14-25 describes from a personal viewpoint the stage in salvation history that Paul delineates objectively in Gal. 3:19 – 4:3." Douglas Moo, Romans, 437, 448.

"The personal dimension thus refers to life under Torah. That, and that alone, is under scrutiny.... Whatever else, this passage does not describe a struggle within the believer between his or her flesh and the Spirit, but rather describes what it is like to be under the Law while in the clutches of sin and the flesh; and according to both 7:1-6 and 8:1-4 for the believer that all belongs to the past." Gordon Fee, God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul, 513. Fee also cites Romans 7:5 ("When we were in the flesh, the passions of the flesh used to be at work, aroused as they were through the law") adding, "Only a theological or existential a priori can get around something as transparent as that."

Life Under Moses or Carnal Christianity?

We have seen that life under the Mosaic Law produced bondage because of its works principle ("do this and live"), a situation that Paul vividly describes in (drum roll please)…

Romans 7.

Theologians have spilled plenty of ink debating whether Paul is speaking of a regenerate or unregenerate person in that text. My answer to that question is "No." Let me explain.

We all notice immediately that there is a contrast of some sort between Romans 7 on the one hand and Romans 6 and 8 on the other. In chapter 6 we are told that the person who is not "under the law" is no longer subject to sin's dominion, while the subject of chapter 7 is "sold as a slave to sin." In chapter 8 we are told that those who have the Spirit are not like those who are "in the flesh [and who] cannot please God," yet in chapter 7 the "wretched man" expressly tells us that he "is carnal."

To muddy the waters a bit (as if things aren't murky enough), chapter 8 explains that those who do not have the Spirit have minds that are "hostile to God," while the subject of chapter 7 "delights in the law of God according to the inward man."

I have tipped my hand a bit already, but before I lay my cards on the table, what do YOU make of all this?

The Old Covenant and the Law of Moses

Properly speaking the Old Covenant is equivalent to the Mosaic Covenant inaugurated upon Mount Sinai (Jer. 31:31-34; cf. Heb. 8:8-13; Gal. 4:21-31). Like the Creation Covenant, the Old Covenant contains its own specific law—the Mosaic—with its own inherent uses, the primary of which was to reissue to Israel the creation covenant's works principle in order to demonstrate to all men the folly of attempting to secure God's blessings by means of personal observance of the law, and to typologically demonstrate the need to seek an alien righteousness from the hand of the promised Deliverer (Gal. 3:24).

In addition to this pedagogical use, the Mosaic law also governed the civic life of the nation as they existed in the land of Canaan (WCF XIX.4), outlined in great detail the ceremonial means whereby the sins of the people were to be covered until the coming of the Messiah and true High Priest (Heb. 10:1-18; WCF. XIX.3), and demonstrated Yahweh's standards for righteous conduct (Pss. 19:7-10; 119:105).

The nature of the Old Covenant as preparatory and parenthetical demands the conclusion that its law is neither ultimately indispensable nor perpetually binding. The law of Moses was an expression of God's will specifically and covenantally formulated for those to whom it was given. Moreover, part of that covenantal formulation was the law's works principle, which Paul summarizes as "do this and live" and insists is antithetical to the faith principle of the gospel (Gal. 3:12; Rom. 10:5). To attempt extract the kernel of the Decalogue from the husk of its works principle is to put asunder what God hath joined together, for from its bestowal to its removal, the Sinanitic Covenant instilled fear, produced bondage, and perpetuated the nation's juvenility by keeping the kids under the constant, watchful eye of a babysitter.

Here's the point: To insist that all members of the covenant of grace are "under the law" in the same sense (tertius usus legis) is to completely ignore the nature of the law under which God's people in time past labored. The Mosaic law comes with a principle attached that was intended to instill doubt in its subjects (that's the whole point of its "pedagogy").

So aren't you glad it has expired?

The Covenant of Creation and Natural Law

The Westminster Confession of Faith XIX.1 states that God, upon creating Adam, bound him to a covenant of works. The covenant of creation was inextricably bound with the law of creation, both of which are of perpetual validity.

The law of nature is a covenantal expression of God's will for his rational creatures, whether fallen or redeemed. Because this is the case Paul could hold Gentile sinners responsible for such breaches as failure to worship and glorify the one true God, idolatry, homosexuality, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, gossip, prideful boasting, disobedience to parents, and covenant breaking (Rom. 1:18-32).

As I stated previously, each covenant's law has its own inherent uses, the identification of which helps alleviate the difficulty that many unnecessarily feel in seeking various ways to apply "the moral law."

The law of creation serves to demonstrate the Creator's glorious existence (Psa. 19:1ff), to highlight his righteous demands upon his creatures (Rom. 1:18ff), and to hold man's sin and rebellion in check (Gen. 9:6). For those who are in Adam the creation covenant's curse-sanction still functions to accuse and condemn the conscience of sin and evil (Rom. 2:14-15). For those in Christ, however, the curse has been lifted but the precepts still remain in effect (Matt. 19:4-8; I Tim. 2:11-15).

The covenant of creation, therefore, provides us with our paradigm's first example of a covenant with its corresponding law. Because of the fact that all of mankind is "hardwired" to recognize this law and acquiesce in it, I will concede that it may be referred to as "the moral law" (though it is not my preferred nomenclature).

It is when we get to the next two examples that things will get interesting....

The Triplex Usus Legis

Despite the fact that the Bible rarely, if ever, uses the term "law" in an a-historical fashion denoting the theological category into which all divine imperatives—whether found in Genesis, Jeremiah, or John—must fit, it is precisely this assumption that makes the taxonomy of the triplex usus legis (the threefold use of the law) possible. A more redemptive-historical and covenantal paradigm, on the other hand, would yield similar conclusions while employing a different method in reaching them.

The schema that I am proposing would avoid extrapolating a general and universal notion of "moral Law" (with a capital L) which is then applied to people in varying ways depending upon their individual status before God. Rather, this approach would seek to discover the application of the divine will to individuals by identifying which covenant, and thence which law, they are under. As I hope to demonstrate, there are three principal covenants identified in Scripture under which men and women throughout redemptive history have stood in relation to God. Each covenant contains its own law, with its own respective uses.

I will unpack this in future posts, but for now I will just set the taxonomy forth:

1. All people, by virtue of the imago Dei, are under the covenant of creation and are subject to its law, the law of nature.

2. Israelites in time past were under the Old Covenant and were subject to its law, the law of Moses.

3. Believers today are under the New Covenant and are subject to its law, the law of Christ.

"Law" in this schema is connected to, and coextensive with, the covenant of which it is a part. Moreover, each law (-of nature, -of Moses, -of Christ) has its uses built into it, which eliminates the biblical acrobatics needed to decode how "the Law" applies to people in their varying covenantal contexts.

OK, fire away....

Law: Existential or Eschatological?

We have seen that questions such as "How does the law function in the covenant of works as opposed to the covenant of grace?" betray a view of law that is ipso facto non-covenantal. "Law," this question assumes, stands outside of time and simply drops into covenantal arrangements while remaining distinct from the covenants themselves.

The Bible, however, simply doesn't speak about the law in this way. Nowhere is "law" used to denote an eternal and unchanging list of moral norms that stands outside of covenant history. Sure, God talks about "My law" in Jeremiah 31, but that's none of our business. What is our business is how that "moral law" gets covenantally enshrined, either on tables of stone (as under the Old Covenant) or on the fleshy tables of the hearts of men (as under the New).

When the Bible does speak about the law, rather than pointing to an abstract and a-historical ethical code, it is almost always referring to the law of Moses (sometimes to the OT Scriptures in general, other times to the books of Moses in particular, and still other instances to the specific works principle upon which the Mosaic covenant is based).

So for example, when Paul says that "sin shall not have dominion over [us, for we] are not under the law, but under grace," he is not saying that the person who believes the gospel is free from the condemning aspects of the law (regardless of redemptive-historical context), and possibly also from the civil and ceremonial aspects as well (depending on redemptive-historical context)... but either way, he is still subject to the moral parts of the law (but only in its third use, no longer in its first).

This view, while common, assumes an existential rather than eschatological conception of "law."

What Paul is actually saying is that the person who is under the New Covenant is not under the law of Moses, period. No moral/ civil/ceremonial division, no first use/second use/third use distinction. The law, by which Paul means the Mosaic law, has passed into obsolescence in its entirety.

(... Which seems to me to be exactly what his first-century audience would have understood him to be saying.)

The Moral Law: Elusive, But Not Illusive

Sometimes I wonder if all our boasting as Reformed people in the fact that we refuse to peer behind the veil and steal a glimpse of God's nakedness isn't just a tad self-congratulatory. Sure, we claim to concern ourselves with the Deus revelatus rather than absconditus (the "revealed" rather than "hidden" God), but on the issue of the law our voyeurism tends to rear its head and prove that we're really Peeping Thomases at heart.

Think about it: We affirm wholeheartedly that God cannot be discovered (or in this case uncovered) by his fallen creatures, but that he must reveal himself to us by way of covenant. But then when we start talking about the law we posit a set of timeless principles that we canonize as "The Moral Law," and immediately begin attempting to figure out how "the law" functioned in the covenant of works versus how "the law" functions in the covenant of grace. And once we've plumbed those depths we turn our attention to how "the law" is used (the triplex usus legis): 1. "The law" convicts us of sin; 2. "The law" restrains evil in society; 3. "The law" serves as a guide for holy living.

The only question we haven't tackled is the one about where this so-called "moral law" is in the Bible. Apparently in our zeal to divide and apply "the law" we seem to have forgotten to actually go to the trouble of finding it (talk about taking our suspicion of proof-texting a bit too far).

And no, we can't say that the moral law is found in the Decalogue, for we all agree that the moral law, as an expression of God's unchanging character, must also be unchanging (which the Decalogue clearly is not). Rather, we have traditionally confessed (quite correctly, I might add) that the Ten Commandments summarize the moral law and are not therefore properly equated with it (WLC 98).

So if "the moral law" is an eternal, unchanging, universally binding expression of God's righteous character that lurks behind all the various laws that he has actually revealed in historical covenants throughout Scripture, is there any use discussing it? And if we insist on doing so, are we not speculating about "secret things" that God has not revealed, and that are therefore not our business in the first place?

Assurance and the Law of God

We have been considering the doctrine of assurance, and I have been hinting that a properly-realized eschatology should reduce the skepticism concerning the practical syllogism that I often detect from Reformed believers.

Though confessional Reformed and Presbyterian theologians are often unjustly (and pejoratively) labeled "Lutheran" by those whose seminaries never taught them that the distinction between the law and the gospel is associated no less with Westminster than it is with Wittenberg, there are instances in which the charge may be valid.

I'm thinking particularly about the law of God and how it relates to the believer under the New Covenant. Though I plan to unpack this in some detail in subsequent posts, in the interest of brevity I will say presently that the idea that there is an a-historical and non-covenantal category dubbed "The Moral Law"—a law we are expected to decipher—is problematic.

Moreover, the insistence that lex semper accusat (the law always accuses us) is precisely the type of Lutheran distrust of sanctification that breeds suspicion of the practical syllogism, not to mention the drastically under-realized eschatology such a view promotes.

So the discussion that follows regarding the law will be in the interest of providing a biblical, Reformed framework within which the doctrine of assurance can be considered.

Thoughts or comments so far?

Assurance in the Ache

We have seen that any genuine claim to assurance of salvation, however small in measure, is impossible without the work of the third Person of the Trinity, whose primary role in the economy of redemption is to “take what is [Christ’s] and declare it to [us],” revealing to us treasure that, without his testimony, “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man” (Jn. 16:14-15; I Cor. 2:9).

As the concept of marturia suggests when correctly understood, this assurance results from Spirit-wrought fiducia and Spirit-interpreted self-examination. Insistence upon the latter is no symptom of legalism, however, for the fact that the reflex act often results in crisis rather than complacency is itself evidence of our semi-eschatological conundrum wherein we, along with creation, groan for the full enjoyment of a redemption that we already partly possess (Eph. 1:7, 14). In this very Abba-confession the Scylla of the “already” meets the Caribdis of the “not yet,” for it is due to the present awareness of our sonship that we can call God “Father,” but it is because this adoption has yet to be consummated that this bold affirmation comes in the form of a fervent cry (Rom. 8:15).

There is assurance in this ache, however, for it is the expectant ache of a journeying son dispossessed “but for a moment” (II Cor. 4:17), yet at the same time a prince and heir of a kingdom that boasts “greater riches than the treasures of Egypt” (Heb. 11:26). It is because “assurance is glory in the bud, the suburbs of paradise,” therefore, that the yearning pilgrim can groan in “the hope that this dirge will not last long, but will soon drown in a song not sung in vain.”

Works, Assurance, and Bad Eschatology

Contrary to the opinion some theologians, I would argue that the inclusion of the syllogismus practicus (that's "practical syllogism" for all you monolinguists out there) in the assurance equation, far from being an example of inchoate legalism, is exactly the opposite.

Under the Old Covenant administration the Israelite's relationship to the law of God was different than that of the Christian under the New. This is seen in two respects. First, during the Mosaic epoch the law was written on tables of stone, whereas under the present dispensation it is engraved upon the fleshy tables of the hearts of men. According to the prophetic witness, this internal inscription of God's will is the direct result of the gift of the Spirit, facilitating our obedience and sanctification.

It is precisely this pneumatic pledge and foretaste of the heavenly regeneration that enables the new covenant saint to derive comfort from his sanctification rather than fear.

Furthermore, the Decalogue, being the very core of the Mosaic covenant, carried with it a works principle that demanded perfect and entire obedience upon threat of judgment and death (Lev. 18:5). While it is true that the Levitical priesthood provided a shadowy and obscure picture of an atonement for sin that would eventually be provided, the fact remains that the Mosaic law, strictly considered, administered death and condemnation to those who labored under its yoke.

On this side of the cross, however, the will of God for his covenant people comes not from the fire and blackness of an earthly Sinai, but from the nail-pierced hand of the risen Lamb who ministers from the heavenly Zion. The works principle that was part and parcel of the law of Moses is altogether absent from the law of Christ, for the Seed of the woman has abolished the law's curse and drunk its threatened cup of divine fury in our stead. His burden, therefore, is not unbearable (Acts 15:10) but easy (Matt. 11:28-30), not because God's demands have been lessened or his law changed, but because we now labor as full-grown sons, "upon whom the fulfillment of the ages has come" (I Cor. 10:11; cf. Gal. 4:1ff).

My point, then, is that a refusal (or fear) of considering our sanctification as a means to deducing our justification betrays an under-realized eschatology that assumes, first, that the law is still written in stone rather than flesh, and second, that Jesus is still dead in the tomb.

The Direct and Reflex Acts of Faith

I have been arguing that the witness of the Spirit is not some form of verbal or propositional testimony by which the Holy Spirit communicates the fact of our adoption, but rather (in keeping with how the NT uses the term martureo), the witness of the Spirit involves an appeal to the evidence of divine handiwork in our lives.

To what, then, does the Spirit appeal to demonstrate our sonship?

The handiwork to which the Holy Spirit points consists of two lines of evidence. The first is the fact that we have exercised faith in Jesus Christ -- which includes the element of fiducia -- and therefore carries with it a degree of certitude and confidence (Rom. 5:1-2). The primary means of the saint's assurance, then, is what Turretin calls "the direct act" of faith -- looking outside of ourselves to Jesus the Savior.

The second line of evidence to which the Spirit points us is the resultant fruit of holiness that always accompanies justification, and has been called "the reflex act" of faith (II Pet. 1:5-8, 11; I John 3:10-15). The duplex beneficium (double benefit) of Christ's work, according to Calvin, is justification and sanctification, and our confessional documents make it clear that the former always produces the latter (Westminster Confession XI.2).

The witness of the Spirit, therefore, is no tertium quid. It is not merely of the "benessence" of faith, reserved for those of God's favorites who have tarried long and struggled hard to attain it. It is, rather, the conditio sine qua non of assurance, for without the testimony of the Holy Spirit we would not only be unable to call Jesus Christ "Lord" (I Cor. 12:3), we would be unable to recognize that we have called him "Lord." Without the testimony of the Holy Spirit we would not only be unable to perform good works, we would be unable to recognize the good works that we do perform.

As Thomas Goodwin has beautifully stated, "[The Spirit] writes first all graces in us, and then teacheth our consciences to read his handwriting, which we could never do without his light."

The Witness and the Whisper

As I mentioned in passing already, the "threefold method" of gaining assurance betrays an anachronistic understanding of the nature of testimony. In modern usage the words "testify" or "witness," perhaps due to their legal connotations, evoke the idea of a case being made via carefully worded argument and verbal appeal.

But the New Testament was not written in English but in Greek, and the word martureo is a lexeme with a slightly different nuance than its equivalent in our own vernacular.

In Hebrews 2:4, for example, we read that "God also bore witness [to the gospel] by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit...." It is not verbal communication of factual data that is in view here, but the appeal to evidence as confirmation of the preached Word. These spiritual phenomena served as witnesses, not through assertion, but through demonstration and proof.

Likewise in Acts 14:3, concerning Paul's and Barnabbas's ministry in Iconium, we read that the Lord "bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands." As with the passage just considered, God’s method of witness-bearing takes an indirect form. He does not verbally communicate—or inwardly suggest—that the ministry of the apostles is indeed divine, but he testifies to its genuineness by means of appeal to evidence and proof.

If we are to follow the analogia fidei, therefore, we must allow the Scripture to define its own terms rather than forcing them into our own preconceived straitjackets. When this is done it becomes evident that the witness of the Holy Spirit is no internal voice, whisper, or suggestion to our minds that we are the children of God. If such were the case the divinely-ordained harmony between Word and Spirit would be disturbed, and a mystical dissonance would result.

Rather, the witness of the Holy Spirit is an appeal, indirectly made, to the evidence of God’s own handiwork in the lives of his children, resulting in a full and well-grounded assurance of salvation.

Agree? Disagree? Why?

Word, Works, and a Tertium Quid?

It is safe to say that a great deal more attention is given to the fact that the Spirit bears witness than to how this witness is borne.

Still, it was customary for Puritan divines such as Thomas Goodwin to speak of the Spirit's testimony—often referred to as the third prong of the "threefold method" for attaining assurance—as being a direct, immediate communication of the fact of our sonship from the heart of God to the heart of man.

The most obvious, but by no means the only, problem with this approach is seen in the fact that if assurance is something that can be gained in small measure without the witness of the Spirit (Rom. 8:15), but in greater measure with it (Rom. 8:16), then what God hath joined, i.e. Word and Spirit, man hath put asunder.

If the witness of the Spirit is, as this paradigm admits, a tertium quid, then the dove has escaped the ark despite our efforts to rein her in. Once this has occurred, the only place she will find to rest her foot will be upon the unmediated experiences with which many have replaced the more sure word of prophecy.

So much for "Credo en spiritum sanctum qui ex patri filioque procedit."

The threefold method, therefore, is flawed for at least two reasons. First, it seems to presuppose an unproven and, as will be demonstrated, untenable definition of the Holy Spirit’s witness, i.e., the communication of factual data concerning the condition of the doubting saint. And secondly, by virtue of its being threefold, it divorces Word from Spirit, making assurance possible by Word alone without the Spirit’s witness, by Spirit alone without the Word’s promise, or by works alone without either.

The Threefold Method of Assurance

"When the Spirit of truth comes," Jesus declared on the eve of his betrayal and arrest, "he will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you." The Holy Spirit, then, fulfills his role as Comforter by pointing believers not to himself but to Christ, thereby providing them assurance of salvation.

But how does the Spirit do this?

In no other discussion is the "shy member" of the Trinity's bashfulness as obvious as in that of his role as witness-bearer to our status as adopted sons of God the Father. Many unwittingly assign the Spirit the job of divine whisperer whose greatest function is, in the midst of the believer's quiet time, to say in his still, small voice, "Pssst! You’re elect!"

It is common in Reformed circles to speak of the "threefold method of assurance," referring to the comfort we derive, first, from the divine promises found in Scripture, secondly, from the fruit of sanctification in our lives, and thirdly, through the witness of the Holy Spirit (this method's proponents include Theodore Beza, William Perkins, Willem Teelinck, Thomas Goodwin, John Owen, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones).

What are we to make of this view of assurance? How does the Spirit "bear witness with our spirits that we are children of God"?

Peeping Thomases

Come on, admit it: We've all desired, at one point or another, to steal a glimpse of God naked.

I'm not speaking literally, of course, since God is incorporeal and therefore has no need of clothing to cover a body he doesn't even have. But figuratively speaking, the desire to trespass the boundaries of our creaturely jurisdiction and sneak a peek behind the curtain is as old as Eve and the apple. "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" is every bit as tempting today as it was then, especially when the knowledge sought for concerns the contents of the Book of Life.

Yet as Luther has reminded us, the Deus nudus is not for us to gaze at, but our understanding of the divine is limited to the Deus revelatus: God as he has revealed himself in Scripture.

While our confessionalism requires that we repudiate the low regard for the visible church that characterizes pietism (whether liberal or evangelical), it is also the case that we take issue with Rome and her elevation of the institutional church at the expense of the invisible one.

This means that the confessionalist most certainly recognizes the existence of a smaller circle of elect saints within the larger circle of the covenant community. But precisely who the subjects of election and regneration are—well, that's not ours to determine.

We're perfectly content to leave those questions to the Deus nudus and the voyeuristic peeping Thomases whose enquiring minds want to know....

The Curse of Expulsion vs. the Blessing of Belonging

In our last post we saw that, in Paul's estimation, barring a sinning church member from the privileges of the local assembly of saints is tantamount to "handing him over to Satan" (I Cor. 5:5).

If permitted, a simple inference from this would be that if expulsion from the means of grace is so precarious, then participation in the means of grace should be considered equally beneficial. Or to put the matter differently, belonging to the church ought to be thought of as being every bit a blessing as being thrown out of it is a curse.

Significant by its absence from Paul's strongly-worded pronouncement is the idea that, if the man in error is a member of the invisible church, then that somehow mitigates the ill-effects of his dismissal from the visible one. Moreover, the idea that a truly elect child of God can never be handed over to Satan in the first place did not seem to bother the apostle either. In fact, Paul does not appear particularly concerned with God's eternal decree or the Book of Life's Table of Contents at all. Instead, he seemed to operate under the assumption that those questions fall under the jurisdiction of Another.

While evangeliberal pietism may balk at the simplicity of this type of assurance and the ease with which such churchly forms of devotion can be faked, the confessionalist can simply point out that it is no easier to recite the catechism by rote than it is to go through the motions of closing one's eyes and swaying romantically to "Lord I Wanna Love You" (and in fact, it's way harder).

So if being expelled from the visible church is to fall prey to the wiles of the devil, what is membership in it but the enjoyment of the protection and love of God? But if the alternative to being handed over to Satan is merely to remain in neutral territory where one must torturously prove his sincerity before being given the right hand of fellowship, then the Cyprianic formula of extra ecclesiam nulla salus est becomes meaningless. Once assurance of salvation becomes so rare a jewel that it can scarcely be found within the church's walls let alone without them, then what is the benefit of attending?

Your Own. Personal. Satan.

(You know, I could deal with the fact that a quarter of a million people in the Seattle area are still without power with a lot more patience if one of them weren't me. Still, I am happy to report that my in-laws, with whom I am staying, had their power restored this afternoon, so you can all stop whining about being bored with the same old thread [don't you people have jobs?]....)

As I read though the comments on the last post, I was struck by an interesting exchange between a couple readers that I'd like to highlight. It went something like this:

Reader #1: "Church membership and participation in worship provide the saint with assurance of her right standing with God."
Reader #2: "Is that true? Is there no assurance beyond that?"
Reader #1: "Not really; if the church does not provide assurance, then what's the point of church discipline and excommunication?"

In his Corinthian correspondence Paul describes the barring of a sinning brother from fellowship in the church as "handing him over to Satan." Apparently for the apostle, the church and its ordained ministry of Word and sacrament are more important—and their absence more tragic—than is usually admitted in contemporary evangeliberal pietism.

And if you think about it, the insistence that God's "speech" through his ordained servant in corporate worship (particularly the gracious summons into his presence, assurance of forgiveness, and benediction) can somehow be replaced by one's personal relationship with Jesus is quite presumptuous, and even dangerous. If the churches Paul labored to plant and the "gift" of ordained ministers that Jesus rose from the dead to provide for them can be so easily circumvented, then creaturely wisdom is not only being exalted above divine foolishness, but "deliverance over to Satan" is made to look like a pretty attractive alternative to waking up early every Sunday.

In fact, when a professing Christian opts for the clutches of the devil over the communion of saints, one may sincerely wonder with whom, exactly, this "personal relationship" is being cultivated....

Creed, Deed, and "True Christianity"

Rick Warren's call for "a reformation of deeds and not creeds" notwithstanding, neither the Bible nor the reformers seem to recognize many of the distinctions upon which the edifice of "evangeliberal" pietism is built (head vs. heart, Paul vs. Jesus, physical vs. spiritual, and doctrine vs. practice).

As I argued in my last post, the divorce of "true Christianity" from its corporate practice is dangerous and unwarranted, particularly when the so-called "essence" of the faith is so mystical, personal, and romantic that it defies definition. To be sure, "I Wanna Know What Love Is" may still be the heart's cry of many Jr. High kids today, but the love that Jesus demonstrated toward his people, and the love they return to him, is more concrete than what is evoked by much of the "Jesus is my Boyfriend" Christianity that is advocated these days.

My point, then, is that the faith-once-delivered is also the faith-corporately-practiced. To identify the locus of "real Christianity" in some internal experience or "religious affection," or in the practice of an extra-canonical sacrament such as quiet times or afterglows, is to remove the faith from its objective, historical context and place it in a realm that we can only hope to understand by playing God (and he hates it when his creatures do that...).

Does the old Jesus of History/Christ of Faith dichotomy ring a bell for anyone?

Confessionalism, no less than evangeliberal pietism, desires to see faith demonstrated in its professors. But rather than the litmus test being one's devotional life, voting record, or collection of Left Behind novels, it should be sought in the fact that those who profess Christ gather together each Lord's Day around Word and Sacrament, confessing their sins, singing his praises, and hearing, eating, and drinking the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In a word: Until we learn otherwise, a "real Christian" is an observant one.

Observant Protestantism

The pietist/confessionalist taxonomy has been the occasion of considerable debate and disagreement here (for a concise explanation and defense of this paradigm for classifying American Protestants, see D.G. Hart's comments after the thread below [his is #52 in case you're counting]).

Confessionalism, rather than focusing narrowly on the use of confessions per se, is actually just code for "churchly Protestantism." A confessionalist, then, is a Protestant whose faith is not divorced from its corporate, liturgical practice (be it in an Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, or Reformed church).

This gives rise to an interesting linguistic phenomenon which Hart alludes to elsewhere: Why is it that Jews and Roman Catholics are usually described as observant or non-observant while Protestants are classified either as true, genuine Christians or formal, dead ones?

This type of nomenclature betrays the latent pietism of much of evangelical Protestantism, for rites and practices like baptism, church membership, corporate worship, and communion are all dismissed as incidental, if not inimical, to "true Christianity."

"The fact that American Protestants do not use the nomenclature of observance," writes Hart, "demonstrates just how complete the triumph of evangelicalism has been" (Recovering Mother Kirk, 247).

But if being Reformed is more than just a state of mind but actually involves participating in certain corporate, religious ceremonies, then perhaps formal, observant, churchly Christianity isn't the bane of Protestantism after all.

And if you think about it, confessionalism's insistence that the Christian faith not be divorced from its ritualistic practice means that the pietist's distinction between creed and deed is not only not a temptation for us, it's not even an option.

Tulips on Mars, Predestination in Bethlehem

Having argued, first of all, that there is a wide chasm between evangelicalism and Reformed theology with respect to how the faith is attained, cultivated, and passed on, and secondly, that "Reformed" is more than just a state of mind (i.e., it has historical, theological, and confessional content beyond TULIP), another pesky question remains to be considered.

What are we to make of well-known Calvinistic pastors like John Piper or Mark Driscoll?

These men’s ministries aren’t as easily categorized as those of Chuck Smith or Rick Warren, particularly since they exhibit some strongly predestinarian teaching (Piper especially).

Or are they?

There are a couple ways we can approach this question. We could begin with the view that the soteriological issue is the defining one, which would place these men and their churches more in line with those of R.C. Sproul or Tim Keller. Or, we could insist that the ecclesiastical question is even more fundamental, resulting in the conclusion that Bethlehem Baptist and Mars Hill are indeed different species of the same genus (one that includes Calvary Chapel and Saddleback).

For my own part, the "least common denominator" approach to Reformed theology is not only reductionistic, but it ignores the fact that ministers in Reformed denominations have taken vows to uphold much more than just predestination or the Geneva reformer’s well-known acrostic.

In fact, if American Protestantism is better understood in terms of pietism vs. confessionalism rather than evangelicalism vs. liberalism, then perhaps the tulip isn't the flower according to which a garden stands or falls after all.

Conversion, Covenant, and the Communication of the Faith

The next question in our ongoing comparison of evangelicalism to Reformed theology addresses the issue of the faith's communication from one generation, or one person, to another.

In the thinking of most of our evangelical brothers and sisters, the passing on of religion is almost invariably supernatural and miraculous rather than natural and ordinary. Now, I'm not suggesting that the miraculous element is absent from or de-emphasized in Reformed circles, but what I am saying is that, in the evangelical mindset, the threshhold through which a sinner-turned-saint passes is conversion, and this conversion is usually a cataclysmic and powerful experience.

To believers coming from the Reformation tradition, on the other hand, this is not necessarily the case. While adults coming out of pagan backgrounds may indeed experience such a seismic shift in loyalties, this ought to be the exception rather than the rule. The Christian faith, normally speaking, is passed on from parent(s) to child by means of the baptism of infants. When the child is thus initiated into the covenant community, she is then nurtured in the faith by parents and pastors who treat the child as a believer unless given a reason to do otherwise.

Is it unfair to say that the evangelical insistence upon miraculous conversion experiences demonstrates a latent suspicion of the natural and ordinary means through which God often works? And turning the tables, can Reformed believers legitimately be accused of minimizing the supernatural work of the Spirit?

Here a Sacerdotalist, There a Sacerdotalist... Everywhere a Sacerdotalist

We have seen that evangelical and Reformed believers offer very different answers to the question "How does one 'get religion'?" The next question we will ask to determine the nature of the relationship between these two branches of Protestantism is, "What does the Christian faith look like once it is acquired?"

Again, not surprisingly, the answers differ. While the evangelical may dismiss "sacramental faith" (whether in its Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, or Roman Catholic versions) as too institutional, "churchy," or sacerdotal, the fact is that his faith relies on sacraments a-plenty, just not necessarily the ones Jesus came up with.

For example, practices such as daily quiet times, altar calls, listening to Contemporary Christian Music, and attending "afterglows" are all considered important - yea vital - to growing in the Lord. In fact, even pastors themselves have become sacraments in some megachurch contexts. After all, the authority of the pastor's message often rests upon his witty personality, godly life, and dynamic speaking style (you know, the things that Paul deliberately did not employ, much to the disappointment of his Corinthian audience).

In stark contrast to this stands the faith as understood by confessional Reformed theology. To those of this persuasion, the Christian life follows a regular, Sabbatical pattern that centers upon the corporate worship of God by his gathered people on the first day of the week. Like their evangelical brothers and sisters they too place great emphasis upon sacraments, but only upon those instituted by the Lord himself. Baptism, then, initiates us into the household of faith, and that faith is nurtured and strengthened by means of the bread and cup of Communion.

I would even venture to suggest that the nature of confessional Reformed Christian living, particularly its dependance upon the ordinary ministry of the local church, when contrasted with the high-octane, subjective quest for spiritual experience so characteristic of evangelical pietism, is such that the former respresents what Luther called a "theology of the cross," while the latter betrays a "theology of glory."

Are dangers reserved solely for one or the other? Are these systems necessarily opposed? If so, does this mean that Reformed believers have no place for subjective piety?

Of Tulips and Altar Calls: How Does One "Get Religion"?

The comments on our last thread have been interesting, particularly those concerning the relationship of Reformed theology to evangelicalism.

When we consider the relationship between these two branches of Protestantism by posing such questions as: 1). How do we "get religion"? 2). What does it look like once it is acquired? 3). How is religion cultivated? 4). How is it passed on?, the two systems appear quite distinct and even antithetical to one another.

In answering the first question, for example, the evangelical response to how religion is acquired (if such terminology would even be granted in the first place) would center around the extra-curricular evangelistic activities of Christians, while the Reformed believer would focus more upon the local church's official mandate to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments.

Do both sides have a valid point? Does Christ's Great Commission have a broad application to all believers, or is it intended solely for the church's ordained officers?

Straining at a Gnat, Reformation-Style?

Two of our non-Reformed readers (one an Anglican, the other an evangelical) have recently questioned the deliberate and conscientious approach of Calvinists toward worship. They comment:

"Why do Presbtyerians have to make everything so confusing?"

"I just don't see how we make such a distinction between our individual and corporate Christianity.... Worship is not about this hill or that hill... it's about the spirit and truth...."

Are we, as we claim, seeking to offer God "acceptable worship, with reverence and awe," or is it in fact true that we are so painstaking in our attention to detail that we "strain at a gnat while swallowing a camel"?

The second comment from our evangelical brother is interesting, particularly because of the many things that are simply assumed without being proven (it can be read in its entirety toward the end of the A Call for Categories thread).

The first thing presupposed is an interpretation of "worship" in John 4 that is individual rather than corporate (which makes the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman nonsensical). Furthermore, our brother assumes that Jesus' point about worship no longer being offered "on this or that hill" means that institutional religion's days are over (as if Reformed believers focus solely on "candles, instruments, songs, robes, dancing clowns, [and] waving flags," while evangelicals "try to stay so close to a rabbi named Jesus that [they're] coughing on the dust he kicks up with his feet").

It seems that our good ol' American, post-Enlightenment sensibilities have so eclipsed the world of Jesus and Paul that the individual has swallowed the Body, the the heart has prevailed over the head, and "Thus saith the Lord" has morphed into "Cogito, ergo sum."

New Covenant Boasting

The very idea of "boasting" would appear utterly inconsistent with the Pauline doctrines of grace were it not for the fact that Paul himself did it all the time. But in order for boasting to be legitimate, some qualifications are in order. As Walter Sobchak has reminded us, "This is not 'Nam, there are rules...."

First, it is not permissible to boast in the fact that we have done what we were told. Paul says in I Corinthians 9:16 that he cannot boast in preaching the gospel since he has been commanded by Jesus to do so.

Secondly, though, it appears that boasting is an option if we are going above and beyond the call of duty. Now don't misunderstand me, I'm not advocating the Pharisaical practice of inventing laws, fulfilling them, and then bragging about it ("I fast twice a week"). By going "above and beyond the call of duty" I'm referring to what Paul did, namely, denying ourselves the enjoyment of things that are perfectly permissible and voluntarily limiting our rights to benefits to which we are actually entitled (specifically for Paul these benefits included meat, marriage, and money, I Cor. 9:4-6).

This notion could have drastic consequences for American Christians, not the least of which is the distinct possibility that all those passages about suffering may actually apply to us (who says we Reformed ministers never give application?).

In the minds of many believers today, until the antichrist implants microchips into our foreheads and forces us to worship a statue or have our heads chopped off, "suffering" is nothing more than a noble theory that people in heathen lands have to deal with (plus, we'll all be raptured before any of that bad stuff happens anyway).

But could it be that carrying our crosses in more civilized lands like ours may mean that we cease to think in terms of our "rights" and what we're entitled to? It seems to me that the One who told us to carry our crosses had an inalienable right not to be nailed to one.

A Call For Categories

I've been arguing that John Frame's desire to broaden the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW) to apply to "all of life" is only possible by watering down the its strictness in order to expand its jurisdiction (kinda like what evangelicalism does with Scripture in general).

For example, he writes:

"There are, of course, human activities for which there are no explicit biblical prescriptions. Scripture doesn’t tell us how to change a tire, for instance. But there are biblical commands that are relevant to tire changing, as to everything else.... When I change a tire, I should do it to the glory of God. The details I need to work out myself, but always in the framework of God’s broad commands concerning my motives and goals. Here too, worship is parallel with the rest of life."

The alert reader will surely have noticed that, for Frame, the RPW's regulating aspect (which used to say that all worship not expressly warranted by Scripture is prohibited) now functions more like a suggestion. Worship, according to Frame, is any activity that "glorifies God," and further, the church is free to do so according to some broad "biblical commands that are relevant" while "working out the details ourselves."

Frame then leaps categories from worship's elements to its circumstances and forms:

"In worship... there are some activities for which there are no explicit biblical prescriptions. Scripture does not tell us specifically when or where to meet for worship, or how many hymns to sing, or precisely what words to use in offering prayer. These decisions require the use of godly reasoning, guided by the general teachings of the Word (WCF 1.6). The parallel between worship and other areas of human life should not surprise us, because, in one sense, worship is all of life."

By blending the elements of worship which Scripture alone may regulate (prayer and singing), its circumstantial details (the number of hymns sung), and the forms the elements take (the particular words used during prayer), Frame has walked into a discussion that has been going on for hundreds of years, redefined its terms without bothering to tell anyone first, and then broadened its jurisdiction to the point of meaninglessness.

And we think the Mormons confuse categories when they insist that, since Jesus is the Father, he was a schizophrenic who talked to himself all the time....

Is All of Life Worship?

Although many believers in Methodist, Lutheran, and Anglican traditions might find the Reformed articulation of the Regulative Principle of Worship (whatever elements of public worship that are not biblically mandated are therefore prohibited) rather stifling, Professor John Frame sees the RPW as not being strict enough. He writes:

"But when you think about it, the regulative principle is not limited to worship services. It is God’s regulative principle for all areas of human life.... How do we find out how to glorify God in all of life? The same way we find out how to glorify God in worship: we consult His Word. So the sufficiency of Scripture is for all of life, not merely for one segment of it" (A Fresh Look at the Regulative Principle, 1).

So according to Frame, the RPW's jurisdiction should be expanded to cover "all of life" (from which "worship" shouldn’t be separated in the first place).

But as T. David Gordon has pointed out in response to Frame, the reason why the RPW was initially formulated was to answer the question about the limits of ecceliastical power (a question Frame fails to address):

"The issue was not... 'worship' versus 'the rest of life,' but those aspects of life governed by the church officers versus those aspects of life not governed by the church officers.... Frame's attempt to put 'all of life' under one umbrella... is doomed to futility, because it does not address the very issue the regulative principle was designed to address, the limits of church power and the liberty of conscience."

So here's my question: Ought we to distinguish between the sacred and the secular so as to limit the church's jurisdiction to what we may and may not do in worship? And if not, should we either A). Give the church's officers power to dictate all of life as strictly as they do worship, or B). Allow them to govern worship as loosely as they do all of life?

The Regulative Principle of Worship

Who gets to determine how God is worshiped? Are we free to worship him in whatever manner we choose (provided we are sincere), or does he insist on prescribing the kind of worship he will accept?

Historically, the Calvinistic wing of the Reformation has argued for the latter position (whatever is not commanded is prohibited), while both the Lutheran and Anglican branches have taught the former view (whatever is not prohibited is allowed).

In the next day or so I hope to begin an extended interaction with John Frame's views on the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW). Frame repudiates the distinction between "worship" and "all of life," arguing that it is inconsistent for believers to posit one rule governing one and a different standard regulating the other.

While I suspect that most of our readers will embrace the Reformed position, I know that there are some Episcopalian lurkers out there whom I'd be interested to hear from. And what about you evangelicals? What say you?

Traditional and Reformed: A Tautology?

To many, the description of a church’s worship as containing "traditional, Reformed liturgy" is a somewhat tautological and needless repetition of concepts (one which most likely originated in the Department of Redundancy Department).

But is it necessarily the case that the label "Reformed" inherently contains the concept of "traditional"? When I think of traditional Presbyterian worship, what comes immediately to mind are things like dark suits, pipe organs, schmaltzy hymns like "In the Garden," and hard pews with Ward, June, Wally, and the Beave sitting in them (Eddie and Lumpy are outside smoking cigarettes in the church parking lot).

Alas! The 1950s' may not have been the high water mark of American religion after all....

The worship at Exile Presbyterian Church is certainly liturgical and Reformed, but I don’t know if I’d call it traditional. I don’t wear a suit but a black Geneva gown, we celebrate Communion every week, and we sing both biblical psalms and hymns, some of whose tunes are from the third century with others having been written last year. Moreover, our liturgy is a bit more rich and robust than what one would usually associate with traditional Presbyterianism (we kneel for confession of sin, raise our hands during the Doxology, and have been known to sing some of our prayers).

So are we a traditional Presbyterian church after all, or just a Reformed one? Is this a distinction without a difference?

Borrowed Liability

Having just preached on Paul's determination to "know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (I Cor. 2:1-2), I find it striking that not only did Paul insist upon preaching the cross exclusively, he insisted on being consistent when he did so.

How can cross-focused, Christ-centered preaching be inconsistent with itself?

According to I Corinthians 1:17, when the gospel, which is a foolish message characterized by weakness, is presented in the garb of earthly power and worldly wisdom, "the cross is emptied of its power." In other words, when either the wrong message is preached, or the right one is preached in the wrong manner, the cross is eclipsed by whatever signs or wisdom the Jews and Greeks respectively desire.

Don't misunderstand me -- wisdom and power are good things that Scripture tells us to seek, but when we refuse to allow the cross to define those things for us (which it does in a way that is antithetical to the world's notion of them), then whatever you call it, it's not Christanity.

Moreover, when our definition of power or wisdom is borrowed directly from the dictionary of this age, then we subtly undermine with our methods what we proclaim in our message.

Yes, unbelievers enjoy plenty of what Van Til called "borrowed capital" from the Christian faith. But it's the borrowed liability that we saints receive on loan from the world that concerned Paul.

Jesus: Less Attractive Than Tony Robbins, and Less Popular Than the Beatles

Speaking of Jesus' appearance, Isaiah writes, "He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him" (53:2). For this reason C.H. Spurgeon remarked that Paul "determined only to know Jesus Christ, and him crucified, and just to set him forth in his own natural beauties unadorned." "Alas for that wisdom," Spurgeon continued, "which conceals the wisdom of God! It is the most guilty form of folly."

The problem today, however, is that in the subtle estimation of many, the cross was fine for Jesus to die on, but not us. How else can we interpret the fact that the primary goal of many churches these days is to not appear weak, irrelevant, and foolish in the eyes of the world (you know, the way Jesus looked)?

Word and sacrament (the means that God has ordained for the growth of his people), are ordinary means "that from the world's perspective aren't very noble or glamorous... but the great and mighty redemptive power of God is packaged or conveyed in a flimsy and unconvincing form" (D.G. Hart, Mother Kirk, 121).

John Lennon was right, "The Beatles are more popular than Jesus." His words were eerily prophetic, though, since both he and Christ were murdered. But the earthly vindication of Lennon's boast was demonstrated by the fact that, just after his shooting, his vigil gathered a lot more mourners than a measly 120 (Acts 1:15).

Will we, as the church, ever collectively figure out that earthly power and influence is directly antithetical to the power of the gospel? And if we insist on continuing to proclaim a message of foolishness using the means of worldly wisdom, is that not a denial of the cross more dangerous than stem cell research and gay marriage?

Can Divinity Be Mastered?

"The minister," writes D.G. Hart,

"... does not hold authority because of special gifts... nor does the minister speak with power because he is telegenic and winsome. Rather, authority resides in the ministry because of the office of the pastor itself. The office, no matter who holds it, is authoratative." (Recovering Mother Kirk: The Case for Liturgy in the Reformed Tradition, 113.)

Crucial to a confessionalist view of the Christian faith (over against a pietist one) is the importance of the ordained ministry of Word and sacrament. The blatantly anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic nature of the confessionalist position makes it seem utterly foreign and even backward when compared to all the stuff that makes America tick (a dissimilarity that, when coupled with a healthy sense of the separation between church and state, shouldn't be a problem).

In our day, however, the idea that anyone's opinions about what God thinks about a particular issue are more trustworthy than another's is ludicrous, especially "when every Tom, Dick, and Sadie with a strong D average in high school has the right to express an opinion" (Ibid., quoting John M. Timmerman). But when we're grappling with something that's really important like, say, cancer, then all of a sudden the expert's opinion actually matters.

Is the fact that the instruction of M.D.s in white coats carries more weight than that of M.Div.s in black gowns a possible indication of where our priorities lie?

Or to put in more simply: Are our souls so much less important than our bodies that the spiritual health of the former can be diagnosed by anybody with a Bible, while the physical health of the latter requires some actual expertise?

And just what does "Master of Divinity" mean anyway?

And Now For Something Completely Different....

Having looked somewhat in depth at the "this-worldly" devotion that often characterizes pietism (whether in its liberal or evangelical formulations), I would now like to consider those things which characterize what D.G. Hart considers the proper alternative to pietism: confessionalism.

One of the most immediately obvious differences centers around the question of authority. Now I know what you’re thinking: "Don’t all Protestants hold to the Bible as their sole authority in all matters related to faith and practice?"

That’s a good question, but I’m not sure it’s the right one. In other words, framing the issue of authority in terms of Bible versus Tradition commits the same error as does dividing Protestants into either evangelical or liberal camps. It captures a lot, but misses a lot more.

The question has never been over whether the Bible or tradition holds ultimate sway for Protestants, for we have always given the final word to the former. The real question, then, is the follow-up: "This Bible that is our ultimate authority, are we to read it in conjunction with, or in isolation from, the rest of the believing community down through he ages?"

Well, which is it? Are we to open the Good Book with a blank slate and receive its truths fresh from the Author’s lips, or are these truths in some way mediated through confessional documents and/or the lips of the ministers of the Word?

One Market, Under God – Part Four: Christian CEOs, Rise Up!

The final section in Dick Doster’s article “The Kingdom Work of the Corporate World” (byFaith Magazine, October 2006) is called “Transforming Business for the Kingdom.” In it Doster highlights various Christian artists—such as Suzy Shultz, Bret Lott, Bach, and U2—who have created some of the world’s best art, and then asks, “Where are their business counterparts—the entrepreneurs and corporate executives who, with the same passion, reshape the world through business?” He continues:

“God’s people can, as agents of his redemptive plan, transform business, stripping it of selfish ambition and pursuing instead what’s best for their neighbors. Through business, God’s people can harness mankind’s creative activity, and with it nurture his creation, developing products that make life better.”

I’ll list the unspoken and unproven assumptions for you, just in case you missed them all: 1. Business is supposed to be “transformed”; 2. The transformation of business is something Christians are responsible to do “as agents of God’s redemptive plan”; 3. Business and “selfish ambition” are things that the corporate executive can and should separate; 4. What is “best” for our neighbors is business (and everything that goes with it); 5. The products that business creates “make life better.”

Doster then ends his article with the incredible statement that many regretful Christians, on their deathbeds, may (rightly) gasp: “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.”

I will exercise Herculean self-restraint here and merely point out that such confusion of kingdoms is alarming to say the least. When God’s redemptive plan is equated with what The Gap does, or conversely, when the latter’s vision statement begins to resemble the church’s Great Commission, then what we are left with is a Social Gospel that may be relevant, but only at the expense of its holiness.

In short, when Christ's kingdom is trivialized and the culture sacralized, what we are left with is earth instead of heaven....

Some Relevant Humor to Lighten the Mood....

Report: Everything Made In Sweatshops

NEW YORK—A new U.S. Department Of Labor study revealed that Martha Stewart Living housewares, Tommy Hilfiger clothing, iPod music players, forks, diapers, telephones, and every other conceivable consumer good in existence is manufactured by people laboring in sweatshop conditions. "Long hours, low wages, and unsafe work areas are involved in producing everything our civilization uses," Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said at a press conference Tuesday. "It is now literally impossible for anyone anywhere in this country to purchase any single thing that doesn't infringe on someone's human rights." Chao added that even the few items still made in the U.S., such as designer T-shirts and certain Toyota sedans, are also produced in deadly squalor, mostly by illegal immigrants. The Department of Labor recommended no immediate course of action in response to the report, which was compiled by 135 government employees in an 20-by-80-foot Quonset hut without air-conditioning working six 18-hour shifts a week for $1.15 an hour.

From The Onion

One Market, Under God – Part Three: Blessed are the Poor....

The third portion of Doster’s article in byFaith Magazine (“The Kingdom Work of the Corporate World”) is called “Business is How We Care For the Poor.” Yes, you read that correctly.

Business is, “in an ultimate sense, the only solution to poverty,” Doster writes, since “for-profit work in the secular world is how we care for those in need.” As Christians go into business, the theory goes, new wealth will be created which will create new jobs, thereby fulfilling the cultural mandate and loving our neighbors.

But as I pointed out in my last post, a corporation has only one mandate, and that is to make money for its shareholders. If people are benefited in the process, that is merely a by-product that will exist only as long as the company’s bottom line increases. So if your favorite clothing company can have its products manufactured in a Chinese sweatshop by eight-year-olds making 12 cents a day, that is good news for investors. Or if American businessmen can privatize Bolivia’s rainwater and prohibit the indigenous population from collecting it in buckets to wash themselves for free, a victory is claimed for the free market.

My point is simple: To insist that the second Table of the law can only be fulfilled in a free-market, capitalist society, and that the wealthier a CEO becomes the better off the rest of us will be, is about the most white, privileged, American interpretation of “kingdom work” that I have ever heard.

Or are we only to “contextualize” the kingdom message to those who think that "Rush is Right"?

One Market, Under God – Part Two: How Sociopaths Love Their Neighbors

The next section in Dick Doster’s “The Kingdom Work of the Corporate World” (byFaith Magazine, October 2006) is entitled “Business Is How We Love Our Neighbors.” The author writes:

“God has placed most of his people in business because it is there, working with others in a common purpose, that we [‘Love God and neighbor’].”

But as Joel Bakan has powerfully highlighted in his book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, Big Business is anything but a Samaritan, let alone a “good” one.

Legally speaking, the corporation is a person entitled to all the rights that other individuals share. As a legal entity, a corporation has as its edict one, and only one, goal: To create profits for its shareholders, without legal or moral obligation to the welfare of workers, the environment, or the well-being of society as a whole. Competition and self-interest dominate, and other aspects of human nature, such as creativity, empathy, and the ability to live in harmony with the earth, are suppressed and even ridiculed (taken from the editorial review on amazon.com).

To put the matter bluntly, if the corporation’s identity were not just legally that of a person, but if it were an actual flesh-and-blood human being, we would lock him up and throw away the key. After all, we have a word for people who relentlessly pursue their own interests with contempt for the suffering or harm it inevitably causes others – they’re called “sociopaths.”

My point is not to demonize those who work in the business world, but simply that the desire to Christianize every aspect of society requires a pretty large list of assumptions about what a Christian society would look like.

And (lo and behold!) it usually looks a lot like a free market democracy with an eagle as its mascot.

One Market, Under God – Part One: Dominion Now

I was planning to consider further the nature of confessional Christianity (which I will eventually do), but I came across an example of what happens when transformationists attempt to “redeem” every square inch of life, and I just can’t pass this one up.

In the latest issue of the PCA’s byFaith magazine there is an article by Dick Doster called “The Kingdom Work of the Corporate World” (!) that illustrates the danger I have been attempting to highlight, i.e., that “bringing Christ’s kingdom to bear” upon various cultural spheres often involves the baptizing of the transformer’s favorite political or socio-economic theories.

The article begins by arguing that God calls his people into the corporate world in order for them to fulfill their mandate to subdue the earth by means of their ingenuity in business:

“Consider the things that make your life richer, more comfortable, more convenient, and more productive. Think about all the things that make you safer, healthier, and wiser. They are all products of business innovation.”

Note the unspoken (and unproven) assumption here: God desires our lives to be rich, comfortable, convenient, productive, safe, healthy, and wise. Really? With the exception of the fourth and seventh, none of those qualities characterized Jesus, or Paul, or Peter, or John. Without skipping a beat the author continues:

“There is no more creative force in the world today than business, and God has placed most of his people there, not to pursue money or power, nor to satisfy their selfish ambition—but to create, rule, fill, and subdue the Earth.”

As is often the case with transformationists, and with post-millennialists more broadly, the author has failed to read the cultural mandate of Genesis in the light of the suffering motif that the cross provides for us. Yes, it was Adam’s duty to subdue the earth, and that command was repeated in the common grace Noahic covenant of Genesis 9. But as Hebrews 2 points out (building upon both Gen. 1 and Psa. 8), it is through the “suffering and death” of the second Adam that he, and mankind in him, will eventually be “crowned with [the] glory and honor” that would have been ours in the first Adam had he fulfilled his covenant obligations. For now, though, “we do not see all things in subjection to man, but we see Jesus...” (which really ought to be enough).

So whatever visions of conquest that we may entertain in this age must be understood in the light of the cross. It is in the age to come, and not now, that the dominion mandate will be realized.

And even if it were fulfilled in this age, it most certainly wouldn’t be through Big Business....

A World-and-Life View or a Faith Once Delivered?

"A carefully considered Christian world-and-life view that is consistently acted upon can provide the coherence, the integrity, that is the basis for a meaningful life." So argued Gaylen Byker, President of Calvin College, during his convocation address in September of 2001. According to most Reformed Kuyperians and others of a transformationist stripe, a well developed world-and-life view is essential for Christian living and cultural transformation.

Questions immediately arise, however, regarding the source of this thing we're all supposed to share. "World" and "life" are about the two broadest categories one can think of, so where does one's "view" of these things come from?

It seems that if the answer is, "From the Bible," then a certain view of the Bible is presupposed which is hard to sustain, namely, that it is meant to furnish the believer with enough information about politics, economics, art, and culture to provide us with the correct world-and-life view and thereby secure "the coherence and integrity that is the basis for a meaningful life."

But is the Bible's view of economics Libertarian or Green? Is the Bible's view of politics Red or Blue? Is art supposed to be descriptive or prescriptive, according to Jesus?

And further, if we maintain that the Bible speaks to every area of life, then in the end mustn't we conclude that it really speaks about nothing at all?

Neither the Three Forms of Unity (the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dordt) nor the Westminster Confession and Catechisms mention anything about a "world-and-life view," but they do speak of a "Faith, once and for all delivered to the saints." Shouldn't we allow the Bible to speak authoritatively to those things that it is actually intended to address, rather than baptizing our favorite political and economic theories with Scriptural significance?

Countercultural Contextualization?

The dialogue over the last couple days has been both helpful and lengthy (we've had a combined 350 unique visitors and 750 page views since Tuesday morning, but I suppose that's to be expected when Darryl Hart and Tim Keller are joining the conversation)....

But one area that needs to be clarified, I think, is the nature of counterculturalism.

When a ministry such as Redeemer in New York makes a claim to both counterculturalism and contextualization, I must admit that, initially, I have trouble wrapping my mind around such strange bedfellows (kind of like the first time I saw a photo of Kevin Federline). How can a church both contextualize the gospel to the tastes of its surroundings and claim to subvert them at the same time? And what was Britney thinking when she hooked up with K-Fed anyway?

But I think I'm beginning to understand the Redeemer Model: Christians are to be markedly different when they interact with unbelievers at work, for instance, but then in public worship they are to make every effort not to stumble those same visiting unbelievers unnecessarily. So to use Keller's example from the comments below, a Christian CEO won't seek to maximize profits if workers' rights are violated (counterculturalism), and his church won't use the Trinity Hymnal if the unbelievers' tastes are violated (contextualization).

But this seems to be doing things in precisely the opposite way than the Scriptures tell us to.

It is not in the cultural kingdom that Christians are to be countercultural, but in the cultic kingdom. When we are engaged in common grace, kingdom-of-man activity we are to go about our business quietly, honestly, and with all diligence. We pay our taxes, we respect our fellow man, and we obey the powers that be (I Pet. 2:12-17; Rom. 13:1-7; I Tim. 2:1-2).

But on the contrary, when we are summoned into the heavenly Jerusalem each Lord's Day we give expression to the subversive, otherworldly, and countercultural characteristics that define us as a community (and if you ask me, eating the flesh and drinking the blood of our murdered Leader is a tad more revolutionary than caring about workers' rights... just ask any member of the Green Party).

So contextualization and counterculturalism can coexist. But believers should practice the former in the secular realm and the latter in the sacred....

Gnosticism, Confessionalism, and Jewish Folly

The charge of "Gnosticism" usually follows about twelve seconds after advocates of the Two Kingdoms framework insist that cult and culture must be kept distinct. As one sixteenth-century Gnostic explained:

"Whoever knows how to distinguish between... this present fleeting life and that future eternal life will, without difficulty, know that Christ's spiritual Kingdom and the civil jurisdiction are things completely distinct.... It is a Jewish folly [both] to seek and to enclose Christ's Kingdom within the elements of this world...."

But the charge that confessionalism (the antidote to this-worldly pietism and the liberalism and evangelicalism it spawns) is "Gnostic" is an example of guilt by association, since holding to a dualistic position does not a Gnostic make. Gnosticism, properly understood, refers to a dualism between matter and spirit, the material and the immaterial. So all one must affirm to avoid the charge is that the new heavens and new earth will not be immaterial but physical. (Confessing belief in the bodily resurrection also does the trick.)

So ontological dualism (matter vs. spirit) is not the same as eschatological dualism (this present age vs. the age to come). The former is indeed Gnostic, while the latter is patently Pauline.

And as the "Gnostic" I quoted above correctly observed, the attempt to subsume "every square inch" of life under the umbrella of Christ's spiritual kingdom smacks more of the Old Testament Jewish theocracy than of the pilgrim ethic that characterizes the patriarchs, the Babylonian exiles, and us today.

(But what would he know? He was too busy reforming the worship of Geneva to grasp the subtle difference between postmilennialism and amilennialism.)

Holy Urbanism Old and New

A phrase caught my eye in D.G. Hart's recently-published A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State, in which he writes:

"The redemptive urbanism of the Puritan founders and their American Protestant descendants... repeated the errors of Christendom... [for] the American invocation of the city-on-a-hill metaphor has been at considerable odds with the old urbanism of the Bishop of Hippo [as defended in Augustine's City of God]...." (p. 38, emphasis added).

I couldn't help but wondering if Hart was consciously drawing a connection between the "redemptive urbanism" of John Winthrop, minister and first governor of the Massachussetts Bay Colony and Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. After all, both men share a similar interpretation of the importance of "the City," one which invests a greater redemptive significance in this institution than Hart is comfortable with.

I'll ask the forgiveness in advance of those who cry "foul!" whenever I label transformationists as postmillennial, but I just can't help myself: When both the Puritan founders like Winthrop and advocates of the redemption of culture like Keller were/are equally committed to the transformation of the kingdom of this age into the spiritual kingdom of Christ, how is the former postmillennial and latter optimistically amillennial?

(And Dr. Hart, please feel welcome to flesh out this connection if you choose.)

Transformers and Decepticons

(Forgive the Eighties reference; unless you were or had a kid during that decade, you'll just scratch your head at the title of this post, so if you don't get it, just forget it and move on....)

All the language concerning the "transformation of culture" that we hear in ecclesiastical circles today gives rise to the question, "Just where did this idea come from?" According to Hart, it is part and parcel of pietist Christianity. He writes:

"Throughout the twentieth century, evangelical and mainline Protestants have assumed, thanks to their pietist heritage, that religion has immediate relevance to all walks of life.... [T]he legacy of pietism is a this-wordly form of devotion that... manifests 'the passion to hammer down history, to touch the transcendental, to earth the supernatural in the mundane.'" (Hart, Lost Soul, xxx).

The intended result of pietism, whether liberal or evangelical, is results. When the poor are fed, abortion is criminalized, and X amount of souls are converted, then the gospel has done its (tangible and utilitarian) work.

Biblially speaking, where does this idea that the ministry of the gospel must produce a visibly better society come from? And if this is not the point, then what is?

What Hath Wheaton To Do With Grand Rapids?

In a passage that is sure to raise some eyebrows (which those who know him will agree he revels in doing), Hart further defends the essential difference between pietism and confessionalism by writing:

"The institutional church set confessional piety apart from revivalism's rugged spiritual individualism and low regard for clergy, liturgical rites, and creeds.... In fact, on a spectrum of Christianity that placed creeds, clergy, and rites at one end, and religious experience and personal morality at the opposite end, Protestant confessionalists would be located closer to Roman Catholics than to revivalist Protestantism." (D.G. Hart, The Lost Soul of American Protestantism, 50, emphasis added).

At issue here is the nature of the tie that binds (or divides, as the case may be). Is ecclesiastical similarity more important than doctrinal difference? Or does doctrinal agreement transcend ecclesiastical distinctiveness? And if we affirm the latter, we must then answer the question: How much agreement do Reformed believers have with evangelicals, really? Sure, we affirm some basic essentials, but are there not striking differences with respect to soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology, and various other loci?

Moreover, Calvin's own defense of the Reformation listed worship above justification as the primary example of the need to reform the Church, thereby seemingly giving ecclesiology the upper hand over soteriology (the latter being an outgrowth of the former).

So what say you? Is any paradigm that places Grand Rapids closer to Rome than to Wheaton de facto illegitimate? And if solidarity over "the essentials" trumps churchly concerns, does that not assume that doctrine is formulated in an ecclesiastical vacuum rather than in the context of the community of believers?

A Tale of Two Pieties

In his book lamenting the so-called "new measures" employed by nineteenth-century revivalist Charles Finney (which were characterized by an early version of the "altar call" in which people could come forward to the "anxious bench" after the sermon to receive instruction concerning conversion), John Williamson Nevin wrote:

"The old Presbyterian faith, into which I was born, was based throughout on the idea of covenant family religion, church membership by God's holy act in baptism, and following this a regular catechetical training of the young, with direct reference to their coming to the Lord's table. In one word, all proceeded on the theory of sacramental, educational religion." (Nevin, The Anxious Bench, quoted in D.G. Hart, John Williamson Nevin: High Church Calvinist.)

According to Nevin, there are two systems of religion at work in Protestantism: the "system of the bench," and "the system of the catechism." These two systems "involve at the bottom two different theories of religion. The spirit of the Anxious Bench is at war with the spirit of the Catechism.... They cannot flourish and be in vigorous force together." And in case his readers misunderstood his message, Nevin then added, "The Bench is against the Catechism, and the Catechism is against the Bench."

It is hard to believe that there was a time when religion in this country was characterized by the ordinary ministry of the local church, with her worship, liturgy, preaching, and sacraments (and admittedly, this period didn't last long).

What we need to recover today is just such a view of the local church's role in the life of the believing family. Rather than the slick program-driven and desperate attempts at "relevance" (which the world gets to define, by the way), we need a ministry that will simply open the Scriptures and preach Christ crucified from them, and then give the bread and the cup to hungry and thirsty pilgrims.

Anything less than a bold refusal to pander to the whims of the worldly is to sell our birthright, like "that profane man Esau," for a bowl of beans.

But will it work?

Conservative Iconoclasm?

As we've seen, the assumption by both church historians and sociologists of religion is that revivalistic Protestantism (evangelicalism) is a conservative form of Christianity. Yet as Hart points out, this view fails to take into account the fact that the forms such piety takes -- an emphasis on conversion, small group Bible study, evangelistic crusades, and altar calls -- all represent a very novel approach to the Christian faith. In other words, the way most believers today seek to "get religion" is starkly different from the way their forebears did.

The "pietist" and "confessionalist" paradigms for growth in the Christian faith are made into bedfellows, however, by the insistence that whatever is not evangelical is liberal, and whatever is not liberal is evangelical.

Beside the obvious inconsistency behind labeling the religion produced by iconoclastic trailblazers as "conservative" stands the equally obvious question, "If evangelical spirituality consists largely of quiet times and Vineyard-style praise and worship, what does Reformed spirituality look like? And why the insistence that these two brands of piety must be distinct rather than blended?"

Well...?

Liberalism and Evangelicalism: Two Sides of the Same Pietist Coin?

As I highlighted below, D.G. Hart's plea for a reconfiguring of the common two-party division of American Protestants (abandoning the liberal/evangelical division in favor of a pietist/confessionalist one) hinges upon his contention that the agreement between pietists and confessionalists on doctrines such as the authority of Scripture is overshadowed by their disagreement over just about everything else.

What is "pietism"? Hart traces its origin in this country to the revivals of the Great Awakening (1735-1742), and writes:

"The sort of religion heralded by the revivals of the First Great Awakening is chiefly responsible for the triumph of a utilitar-ian view of faith. The itinerant evangelists of these revivals, as well as their successors, transformed Christianity from a churchly and routine affair into one that was intense and personal.... American pietism dismissed church creeds, structures, and ceremonies as merely formal or external manifestations of religion that went only skin deep. In contrast, pietists have insisted that genuine faith was one that transformed individuals, starting with their heart and seeping into all walks of life." (D.G. Hart, The Lost Soul of American Protestantism, xxiii).

What makes Hart's argument especially striking is the fact that he places both liberals and evangelicals in the pietist camp. As he and others have pointed out, both parties tend to pit doctrine against practice (hence Rick Warren's call for a "reformation of deeds not creeds"), head against heart, institutional against primitive Christianity, and Paul against Jesus.

What are we to make of all this? Is pietism inconsistent with confessional Christianity? Is there as great a similarity between liberals and evangelicals as Hart argues for? And how ought Reformed believers to conduct themselves toward our evangelical friends across the aisle?

American Protestantism: A New Paradigm

After highlighting the traditional nomenclature with which American Protestantism is usually characterized ("liberal" vs. "evangelical"), D.G. Hart argues that these categories, like King Belshazzar's reign, have been "weighed in the balances and found wanting."

A better way to divide American Protestants, Hart argues, is between "pietists" and "confessionalists" (with both liberals and evangelicals falling into the former category). Hart writes:

"The two-party [liberal/evangelical] interpretation lacks nuance and so lumps together disparate Protestant communions on the basis of a slim set of criteria, such as conversion and social activism. Such a minimalist approach to the various denominations of Protestantism, in turn, ignores such historically important aspects of Christianity as liturgy, creeds, catechesis, preaching, sacraments, ordination, and church government. Ironically, by overlooking these churchly dimensions, the standard approaches to American Protestantism miss what may in fact be a more significant division in Unites States religion -- namely, between believers who distinguish the essence of Christianity from the external practices and observances of it (i.e., pietists) and those who refuse to make such a distinction (i.e., confession-alists)." (D.G. Hart, The Lost Soul of American Protestantism, xxvii, emphasis added).

So according to Hart's schema, the agreement that confessional churches have with evangelicals on issues such as the inspiration of Scripture and the diety of Christ is less significant than the disagreement they have over just about everything else.

How does this paradigm play into our discussion concerning the attitude of Refomed believers toward evangelicals? Toward Lutherans? Toward proponents of the New Perspective on Paul?

Contending Earnestly Without Beating the Air

I know the timing of this may seem odd, especially in the light of the recent series on the Federal Vision, but I've been thinking lately about whether Reformed churches should define themselves negatively, and if so, against whom ought we to define ourselves?

To partially answer my own question, I would prefer we not always present ourselves, our theology, and our worship to others as anti-seeker, anti-Catholic, anti-New Perspective, et cetera, et cetera. Surely there is something deep, rich, and beautiful about Reformed theology and practice that should make it compelling to believers and nonbelievers alike, shouldn't there?

And if there is a battle waging and lines being drawn, it is not the same lines that were drawn in the sixteenth-century. Rome is not the enemy anymore, and in fact, I wonder whether we ought to define ourselves against any church or denomination that has a covenantal and confessional identity.

So now what? Are we doomed to weep because we, like Alexander, have no worlds left to conquer? Unfortunately we are still the church militant, and our theologia viatorum (pilgrim theology) precludes our laying down our weapons just yet.

But if we must "contend earnestly for the faith," it seems wise to expend our energy and efforts in the right direction (and a twelve-part sermon series on how Lutherans are closet-Eutycheans because of their doctrine of ubiquity seems somewhat wide of the mark).

I would argue that if we stop to consider where the loudest voice and greatest influence effecting how God is marketed to the world today is found, it would have to be broad evangelicalism. In fact, the more I interact with folks of this persuasion, the more I wonder to myself whether we even have a common religion anymore.

So here's my question(s): Am I reading the writing on the wall correctly? Ought we to define ourselves negatively as "not your neighbor's evangelical church"? Why or why not? How and how not?