Cruciality or Centrality?

At the risk of scandalizing my Reformed readers, I just have to get something off my chest (and please feel free to stop reading at this point if questioning the tradition makes you queasy).

Is justification really as central to Paul as we have made it?

I'm not questioning the doctrine's status as the artculus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae or anything, nor am I loath to insist upon our strict, confessional understanding of the doctrine. But I sometimes wonder if our emphasis on it can can skew—and even bias—our reading of the rest of the New Testament, especially our reading of the law.

Take the law/gospel antithesis for example. Is it crucial? Absolutely. Is it Reformed and not simply Lutheran? Without a doubt. But should it apply to all of Scripture as a hermeneutical straitjacket? Perish the thought.

There is no question that the distinction between the law and the gospel is indispensible for maintaining a Protestant doctrine of justification, for when the question being considered is how a sinner can secure divine, heavenly blessings, the only answer is that his works, be they ever so sincere and even Spirit-wrought, are of no avail.

But is the question of how a person can be acquitted before God's holy bar the only question ever asked in the Bible? Of course not. And yet when the law/gospel antithesis is applied to every Pauline imperative (placing those commands into the theological category of "law" which, in turn, accuses us and drives us to the gospel), the implicit message is that yes, justification is the only thing Paul was ever concerned with.

Is it me, or is this an example of legitimate, albeit misguided, devotion?

Fear, Servile and Filial

I have been arguing that one of the benefits of the New Covenant is that the believer may now serve the Lord without fear. A question has arisen, however, concerning the passages in the New Testament that speak about "working out our salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12) or it being "a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb. 10:31). What do we make of these verses?

What we must not do is simply interpret them in such a way as to place us in the same precarious situation as the saints under the Old Covenant. There is too much written in the New Testament about our belonging to a community whose covenant is "better" than the Mosaic (since it is "founded upon better promises") for us to take the approach that these two sets of verses just cancel each other out, placing us back at the foot of Sinai (Heb. 8:6; cf. 12:18).

To be sure, the New Covenant (and its sign of baptism) places dual sanctions upon its subjects, meaning that our failure to trust Christ places us in the position of earning a harsher judgment than those outside the covenant community. Furthermore, the grace promised in the gospel, once received, should make us deplore the thought of (ab)using that grace as a license to sin. It is precisely for these reasons, therefore, that the New Testament instructs us to serve Christ "with fear and trembling."

But there are crucial dissimilarities between the saints under the Old and New Covenants that must not be glossed over. The Israelites served God according to a covenant whose underlying principle, according to Paul, was antithetical to faith (Gal. 3:12). The reason God placed his people in such a situation was to demonstrate to all the sheer impossibility of securing one's inheritance by means of one's own law-keeping (hence the "pedagogical use" of the law, Gal. 3:19-25). Israel's eventual exile proved the nation's need for a "true Vine" whose fulfillment of "the work that the Father gave [him] to do" would result in his "giving eternal life to as many as the Father had given [him]."

So yes, we serve God in holy fear, but that fear is not the servile fear of underage children who "differ not from slaves," but the filial fear of those before whose eyes the love of God has been consummately demonstrated at the cross (Gal. 4:1-2; Rom. 5:8).

A love that, in turn, "casts out fear" (I John 4:18).

Should the Kernel Leave the Husk?

I'm still in the U.K. (Oxford, no longer Aberdeen), but I finally have some internet access, so I thought I'd post a long-overdue installment in our discussion on the law and the believer.

The tendency of some of our Reformed systematicians to (unnaturally) separate the demands of the Mosaic law from the context of its delivery on Mount Sinai creates, for me, some tension with respect to the New Covenant saint's motives for obedience.

Sometimes the "kernel" can't live outside the "husk."

According to the writer to the Hebrews, the giving of the law to Moses was accompanied by darkness, by tempest, by thunder, and by threat. Moses "exceedingly feared and quaked," we are told. Its preamble notwithstanding, the function of the Decalogue was to instruct God's people in the context of a covenant that threatened disinheritance for failure to "keep all things written in the law, and do them."

To ignore the relationship between the Mosaic law's form and its content (i.e., the fact that its demands had concomitant threats of curse, albeit typological) is to fall into the very trap I've been warning against: Wrenching Moses from his covenantal and canonical context and simply plopping him down wherever we think he'd look best (he's not a piece of furniture, after all).

The New Covenant saint's instruction, as I've been arguing, comes from the hand of Jesus, who, contrary to what we are often hearing of late, is not simply a kinder, gentler Moses. Rather, he is the One who could only issue his will to his church sans curse by actually becoming a curse for us by his death upon the cross. The law of Christ, therefore, can command us in the context of an already-fulfilled law of God. That's why we needed a New Covenant: so that we can obey without fear.

Does "Lex Semper Accusat"?

It is precisely at this point in our discussion of the law that our nomenclature becomes important. Since the law of Christ is covenantal (i.e. formulated for the redeemed new covenant community) it therefore has no "first," pedagogical use, for, according to Gal. 3:19 - 4:7, the primus usus legis has already been fulfilled and displayed in Israel's infancy for all to see. It must be remembered that, in the taxonomy that I am suggesting, it is a particular law’s design, not the myriad of its possible applications, that is the issue. While God’s moral will expressed in creation and written upon man's conscience certainly has an accusatory function, and while the saints often recognize their own failure to bear up under Christ's yoke (easy and light though that burden may be), this is a far cry from the Lutheran insistence that lex semper accusat. Law does not "always accuse," for the hands that guide the church are nail-pierced, and the lips which instruct her have already cried aloud, "It is finished!"

Furthermore, the distinction between the civil and spiritual kingdoms that is the by-product of the church's unique semi-eschatological situation precludes the law of Christ from having a "second," civil use. The new covenant community, being dispossessed of its heavenly homeland, has returned to a pilgrim ethic akin to that of the patriarchs before the giving of the Mosaic law (Heb. 11:13; cf. I Pet. 2:11). We exist as members of two kingdoms, that of cult and that of culture. The latter is ruled by God as Creator, the former by Christ as Redeemer.

Logic (and math) would dictate, then, that if the law by which Jesus directs his pilgrim people has no "first" or "second" use, it by implication has no "third" (in fact, if there is no first or second use of the law of Christ, then to speak of Christian obedience as "the third use of the law" would be tantamount to Bobby Brady claiming that he is the third oldest child in a family with no siblings).

The purpose of the law of Christ is to instruct those who have been united with him and endowed with the power of the Holy Spirit. Further, it is instruction that is meant to be obeyed, not feared. To insist, then, that Paul's command to "reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God" (Rom. 6:11) is "law" whose accusatory nature allows it to find its way into the "Reading of the Law" section of the worship service, is to undo what Christ has done at Pentecost and place the church back in her infantile condition during which she, with Moses, "trembled greatly with fear" (Heb. 12:21).

Thoughts?

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"?