Download 1 - David Field

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Posts 801-1000 (April 24th 2007 – Nov 21st 2007)
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Tom Wright on "Pierced for our
Transgressions"
"Pierced for our Transgressions" on Tom
Wright
The Reduced "Lex, Rex"
Evangelism and social action
The grace of baptism
Retribution / restitution / discipline
Why Christians can't be anarchists
Fellow Christians
Hitchens and Wilson Debate
Authentic Anglican Chant
Objections to the Covenanted Nation
PCA and Federal Vision
Imputation
Imputation Again
Thirty Reasons
Craig Brown. Is. Brilliant.
JBJ on double imputation
"We left a tip" coffee
Big Five Personality Traits
Pronouns in 2 Peter
Found in Christ
Ascension Day
Samuel Rutherford and the Covenanted Nation
Happy Birthday, John Howe
What is the "Federal Vision"?
God's "permissive will"
Jim Jordan on Justification and Glorification
Will and nature in God
Natural and positive laws
How to Read
Romanus Cessario
Nice line and great book title
Pronouns in 2 Peter (II)
Flame Warriors
You havin' a laugh?
Merit and Non-Merit Schemes
Lancelot Andrewes, Pentecost 1616
Kiuchi on Leviticus: I'm anxious and excited
Britain's DNA database
Global warming gravy train
Odd perverse antipathies
The Welfare State
Reformed News
Christian Education
Incredible and amazing
Totalitarianism
I Corinthians 15.35-49
Joel Garver PCA and NPP/FV
Perfecting oursleves to death
Garver on Baptismal Regeneration
Garver on Wright on Imputation/Justification
Psalm 68.6 and Genesis 2.18
Jesus, Israel, Typology, Matthew
Last two from Joel Garver on PCA NPP/FV
report
Kingdom Now - Gerald Coates
Why the Reformation still matters
Infinity and the zero-sum game
What is the "federal vision"?
A different sort of Liberal Democrat
Peter Leithart confesses
Dissertations for life
Psalm Chant Prompts
Guilt by association (2)
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Not altogether dischuffed to be British
Peter Golding's "Covenant Theology"
Faith and union with Christ
Children and the covenant of grace
Professionally Aggrieved Grievance
Professionals
Peter Lightheart
Deathly Hallows ending
"A man of towering integrity"
A Christian constitution
Oliver Cromwell chat
The charges against Cromwell
BMA petition
Jim Packer lectures on Attributes of God
Packer on the Puritans
Precisely what I don't believe
Guilt by Association (3)
Guilt by Association (4)
Guilt by Association (5)
Christian relief and development
This "courting" business
This "courting" business - summary
Leithart on I and II Kings
Prognostications
The ideology of Development
Affirmations for a rising star
Samson Agonistes - one liners
Samson Agonistes - tasters 1
Samson Agonistes - tasters 2
Samson Agonistes - tasters 3
Samson Agonistes - tasters 4
The involuted novel
The One Great Book
Louisiana Presbytery of the PCA
Why Christian education?
Amazing Bodies
Resurrection bodies
The Eyre Affair
Will I ever finish Kiuchi on Leviticus?
Pay careful attention ... to all the flock
Global Warming, a Scientific Forecast?
We need more footballs
M.H. Abrams' "A Glossary of Literary Terms"
Academics and Churches
Lost in a Good Book
I Peter 1.22 - 2.3
Wages and the Support of Christian Workers
Admonish one another
Charitable giving
Theologia
R.T. France on Matthew
Singing the Psalms
The end of Harry Potter
Doctors of the Church
Drier summers
Kiuchi on Leviticus 3
The Baptized Body
A theological education
To Israel with Oak Hall
WWJMD?
Readings of The Good Samaritan
Conditional wills
Chanting the Psalms
Allen P Ross on Leviticus
The Prayer Book of the Bible
Milgrom, Dorian Gray, Purification Offering
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Jim Jordan on Leviticus
What a wonderful world
More on chanting the Psalms
Lupieri on Revelation
Beginning theological study
Coercion and choice
Perfect Obedience
Perfect Obedience (II)
The Christian Future of Great Britain
Jim Jordan
Offer to Oak Hill Students
A divine funnel
Thursday 13th September, 2007
Flashcard knowledge
Sermon illustrations
"Principled" pluralism? Pshaw!
A Brief Reader's Guide to Revelation
Stuck for reading?
Preaching
Idealism and double fulfillment
Mark Wilson on Revelation
Propositions, argument, square of opposition
Must we always forgive?
I forgive you
Searles reads Ryle on John
Oh, how I love ...
Analogical language
Matthew 24 (I)
Matthew 24 (II)
Leviticus reading
Marvellous moments from Milgrom (1)
Marvellous moments from Milgrom (2)
Marvellous moments from Milgrom (3)
Divorce and remarriage
Orientation to Leviticus
Muslim to Christian Open Letter
In Defense of Christendom
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Daniel 3
Leviticus 16 offerings
The Beast
Optimistic amillennialism
Uncleanness and sin proof-text
"What I did on my holidays"
Norman Shepherd
Our Father "in heaven"
Did they forget to buy some wine?
Horton's been Framed
Glory and holiness
Isms
Prayer friction
Euthyphro it in the Shedd
Water sources
Holy to the Lord
The Holiness of God
Postmill suffering
Flight from reality
Nice Jam this
Zacchaeus
Imputation / justification
Clever fools
Wine for the perishing
Engaging with Barth
Numbers 12, Romans 11
Leviticus - an eight-para intro
The Leviticus Alphabet
Usury
Keeping Clean, Growing Up
Imputation
Leviticus - a seven talk introduction
Let's get this clear
Poverty
Government which brought you ...
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
801. TOM WRIGHT ON "PIERCED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS"
Tom Wright has done a bad job of commenting on Pierced for our Transgressions in a piece HERE.
Happily - since I'm not blogging at the moment - in the flurry of responses, a couple of people have said
exactly what I would have said if I were more wise, more knowledgeable, and more articulate.
I wish that the good bishop had got out of bed the other side that morning and that instead of saying (I
paraphrase),
"There are some good things here but the book is deeply unbiblical, sub-biblical, foolish etc"
he had said what he could and should have said - something like,
"What these fellows say is splendid and true and important and courageous. Oh, and I wish
they'd taken a different approach here and here and said a great deal more about this and
that."
He didn't do so but came up with an intemperate, disproportionate response in which (to be crude about it) he
was nice to the (not altogether) bad guys and nasty to the (flawed but) good guys. There are factors which
account for that and consequences which flow from it and, happily,
Doug Wilson HERE and John Richardson HERE
save me the trouble of try to identify and discuss them.
(And so as to avoid the intemperate and disproportionate thing myself, let me say again that I think that Tom
Wright is one of the greatest NT scholars of our generation, that I love his work on all sorts of things, that he
has been badly treated by evangelicals, and that he seems to me, normally, to be a Christian brother of both
wisdom and grace.)
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
802. "PIERCED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS" ON TOM WRIGHT
That's more like it!
The authors of Pierced for our Transgressions have given a careful but clear response to Tom Wright's
criticisms of the book (see previous post). Their response may be found HERE.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
803. THE REDUCED "LEX, REX"
I've put online as item 48 HERE a 44 page pdf document listing some available editions of Rutherford’s Lex,
rex, giving the title page and the very full table of contents, and providing a taste of the book in 30 pages of
selected illustrative quotations.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
804. EVANGELISM AND SOCIAL ACTION
Although I'm not a huge fan of his introductory ethics textbook (see HERE), I think Michael Hill says a lot
more sensible things in THIS ARTICLE on"Evangelism and Social Action" than many conservative
evangelicals do when dealing with these topics.
(Mind you, his arguments against individualism and collectivism are badly in need of Reformed
covenantalism; his statement of the relationship between church and society would be strengthened by the
view that the church is itself a polis /society and that, over time it displaces and replaces the condemned and
doomed old order; and his eschatology needs to make room for the "progressive" in between the "definitive"
and the "final".)
Good stuff includes ...

Gospel as royal announcement.

Evangelism cannot be an end in itself.

Evangelism and social action are like shape and size, you can'’t have one without the other.
Friday, May 04, 2007
805. THE GRACE OF BAPTISM
Peter Leithart's comments HERE are characteristically fresh and illuminating. Here they are:
Faith and Grace
Faith is often characterized as a "receptive" and "responsive" disposition, or as "passive." Even
if we accept standard definitions of faith, that characterization seems to overlook the variety of
ways in which grace and faith can be related. There appear to be at least three.
For clarity, in the following I am assuming that "grace" means God's favor toward men
(whether in the face of demerit or simply unmerited), a favor expressed in words and gifts. I
am assuming that "faith" means assent and trust, which of course assumes knowledge of some
kind and in some degree.
1. The notion that faith is purely receptive, that it is "instrument" of receiving God's
favor/grace is true. This is perhaps clearest if we examine what happens when the gospel is
preached and believe. The fact that God arranges things so that a sinner hears the gospel is, by
itself, a gracious act (by the definition offered above). God speaks kindly to the sinner,
announces the good news of liberation from Sin and warns against the consequences of
rejecting the gospel, promises forgiveness through the Crucified and Risen Christ. That act of
grace toward the sinner is received by faith: For that grace to become the "possession" of the
sinner at all, he needs to assent to its truth and trust both in the message and the Lord who
speaks to him. Here, faith is rightly described as the instrument of reception.
Protestant theology has generally treated the grace-faith relation exclusively on this model.
2. But that word-faith model is not the only one we find in Scripture. At times, Jesus responds
to the faith of people who seek His aid: "Your faith has made you whole." Here faith takes the
initiative, and the grace of healing is a gift that responds to pre-existing faith. The same might
be said of the faith by which Abraham is justified: Abraham believes God, and God reckons
him as righteous (Genesis 15:6). In this last case, the faith is also responsive, since Abraham
believes a promise (15:4-5). But the specific grace of being reckoned as righteous is God's
response to the faith that Abraham placed in that promise.
Two additional qualifications here: First, the faith that leads sick people to find Jesus is of
course a gift of God and is of course a response to some prior grace (grace of some sort is
always prevenient to faith). But the specific gift of healing is not received by faith; the healing
happens, and doesn't need to be believed; rather, the gift is given in response to faith. Second,
it is correct to say the grace of justification is a gift received by faith: When the gospel is
preached, God makes a promise to forgive sins and to count as righteous, and a sinner
"receives" that promise by believing it and trusting the God who makes it. My point has to do
with the exegesis of Genesis 15, where Abraham believes, and then God reckons him
righteous.
3. Can grace be given and received without faith involved at all? Protestant theology has
denied that it can. Grace might be offered in the absence of faith, but it is never received
except by faith. This has created obvious difficulties for the practice of infant baptism. It is not
surprising that many who take model #1 as normative are reluctant to baptize babies at all.
The difficulties of infant baptism might be solved by saying that we can presume on infant
faith. Or, they might be resolved by saying that faith and grace are differently related in this
case than in model #1.
Let's start, though, with creation. God formed Adam from the dust of the ground, and
breathed into him the breath of life. For Adam, life itself is a gift of grace, of unmerited favor.
And life is not just offered, promised, or held out to Adam. Adam receives life. Here faith is
not a receptive instrument at all, because the grace of life is handed over to Adam and
becomes his "possession" before he exists to have faith. The same, of course, is true of every
birth: None of us deserves to live; and we have this gift from God wholly apart from any kind
of response we might make.
If we consider the case of infant baptism, the grace of baptism falls into this category. When
an infant is baptized, the baptism itself is a gift from God's unmerited favor. Baptism itself
gives the child membership in the church, an identity as a member of the people of God and as
a Christian, a family of brothers and sisters whose Father is in heaven and whose Brother is on
a heavenly throne, the gift of public identification with Christ, a place in the temple of the
Holy Spirit, a commission to serve Christ, a deputation (to use Thomas's language) to a place
in the worship of God, and much more. These are not, I submit, merely offered or promised to
the child, but actually delivered. And they are his, whether he believes and trusts or not.
Of course, if the baptized infant grows up and refuses to believe and trust, renounces his
identity with Christ and His people, serves Mammon and worships Power, then his baptism is
a witness against him, and sooner or later God will withdraw the gifts given. Here, though,
faith is a condition of proper use of the grace given, not a condition of its reception.
One might, of course, say that the improper use of a gift is tantamount to a failure to receive it,
but that seems to me inexact: Adam did receive life, though he abused it by his sin. Had he
died in his sin, we would not have said that he never had life, never had fellowship with God.
Friday, May 04, 2007
806. RETRIBUTION / RESTITUTION / DISCIPLINE
Some questions following a lecture and my thoughts in response:
Questions:
In our group I spent my time thinking corporal punishment should include a retributive
element and yet you said after - “the parent is not a minister of God’s wrath and so paternal
punishment is not retributive.”
I can see I was jumping from government to parent too quickly.
I can see that Proverbs speaks of the rod with a forward looking purpose.
I can see that Church discipline is always with a forward looking view.
But, isn’t restitution part of retribution? (and a parent would want to enforce restitution…)
And mustn’t all punishment have some retribution, otherwise you lose the guilt and
proportionality part (Rachels article)?
And related, is there no place for retribution outside of the government?
Is there no retributive punishment in the God / Son relationship?
My thoughts:
Howdy. You've not missed a thing - these are excellent questions. Let me have a go ...
Yes, restitution is part of retribution, though that doesn't mean that all restitution is
retribution nor that all retribution involves restitution.
Retribution is "punished just because crime X deserves punishment".
Restitution is "restoring to the victim what was stolen, lost, damaged etc or making amends in
an equivalent way".
This means that parental discipline is not about retribution. rather, it is discipline, i.e. a form
of teaching / nurture.
However, since this is teaching then part of what is being taught is that wrong-doing deserves
punishment and that that some "crimes" are worse than others. And an appropriate way to
teach this is to have distinguishable "punishments" in parental discipline. There might even
be a sort of "punishment fits the crime" approach (you've written on the walls - you clean
them and something else; you've spat out your food - you miss a meal etc)
And, likewise, since this is teaching then part of what is being taught is that wrong-doing
against persons breaks relationship and that relationship can only be fully restored when the
offender is truly repentant and that an indication of true repentance is willingness to make
amends.
So you take from the retributive model the understanding that wrongdoing against persons
requires restitution and you make restitution (a part of) your discipline (even though your
discipline is not strictly retributive as such).
I'm not sure whether there is retribution outside of government in so far as government is the
minister of God's wrath. Of course, there are negative sanctions applied by various agencies
(drug-takers banned from athletic competition; mortgage-defaulters having homes
repossessed; etc.) but I wonder whether these are properly to be conceived as (implicit or
explicit) sanctions against breaking contracts - i.e. these are not God's judicial wrath being
communicated through an appointed minister of wrath but just part of that particular social
arrangement (a bit like arbitrary forfeits in "pass the parcel"). Of course where the breaking of
contract is itself a sin against God then there will be retributive wrath to be borne at some
point. Not sure about stating categorically that there is no retribution outside of government
though.
Father-Son wrath. Yes, this is emphatically retributive but that doesn't contradict the previous
paragraph because of the implicit limitation in what was being said there. That is, the series of
propositions in full should read:



God brings his retributive wrath against all sin
and does so either on the cross of Jesus or in hell
and some sins are crimes and so God appoints an agency - the state/civil magistrate to minister the "crime" bit of his wrath against a particular sin within history (before
hell). He does so because there is a social-moral order to be restored, because people
need to learn that, and because he intends graciously to restrain wickedness which
would get in the way of the spread of the gospel

but while other human agencies may bring negative sanctions against particular
conduct, the government is the only human agency authorised to be a minister of
God's retributive, judicial wrath.
So that, the "if the govt is the only agency of retribution, how can the cross be retributive?"
question is dealt with by expanding to "though the govt is the only human agency authorised
by God to minister retributive wrath, on the cross of Jesus God directly pours his wrath
against sin on the Son".
Does any of that make sense?
Blessings,
David
Friday, May 04, 2007
807. WHY CAN'T CHRISTIANS BE ANARCHISTS?
In reply to an emailed question:
I'm very comfortable with almost everything about "anarchism" -- private provision of
defense, right to secede etc.
The reason that I don't think a Christian can be a full anarchist relates to your fourth bullet
point. If I understand correctly (and I strongly suspect that you are far better read than I am
in these anarchist authors - I keep meaning to read chunks of Rothbard and keep failing to get
around to it) then anarchism depends upon some sort of baseline prohibition of initiating
aggression against another person.
This in turn means that if a behaviour does not "affect" others then it is not to be against the
law - this would apply, to give one clear example to homosexual sexual activity between
consenting adults.
But I think that the Bible mandates the civil magistrate to make such an activity illegal. This
means that the state will be the initiator of aggression in some circumstances and that God
requires it to be.
So
1.
If the anarchist departs from his baseline principle of not initiating aggression then he
has left anarchism;
2. If the Christian denies that God mandates the state on some (very few) occasions to
initiate aggression (i.e. take coercive action against those who are not aggressing
against others) then he has left Biblical political economy; and hence
3. A Christian cannot be an anarchist.
Monday, May 07, 2007
808. FELLOW CHRISTIANS
Taking covenant objectivity and church discipline seriously.
X is a Christian, that is, he is a member in good standing of a trinitarian Church. He may behave abominably
towards me and he may believe and teach all sorts of errors but he is still a Christian. I am to treat him with
brotherly Christian love and regard unless and until one of the following things happens:
1. He is excommunicated by those who have ecclesiastical authority over him.
2. He is publicly and impenitently guilty of an undeniably and undoubtedly disciplinable
offence and the church with jurisdiction / pastoral oversight over him fails to discipline him.
At that point other Christians may don their "extraordinary church court" judicial gowns and
treat him as excommunicated: think of someone who publicly renounces Christ but is not
disciplined, for example.
But if neither of these things apply then, however bad his behaviour and however wrong his beliefs/teaching, I
am to treat him as a Christian brother.
Which means that if I am asked what I think of him my reply will have a three parts. I will say:
1. X is a dear Christian brother who is deeply loved by the Lord Jesus Christ and for whom
Christ died. I love him dearly in the Lord.
2. I think X is wrong to have done such and such and I think he is wrong to believe/teach such
and such. And this is what I think those of us who love him as a Christian brother should do
(here follow various courses of action / responses / interventions).
3. X is a dear Christian brother who is deeply loved by the Lord Jesus Christ and for whom
Christ died. I love him dearly in the Lord.
Monday, May 07, 2007
809. HITCHENS AND WILSON DEBATE
This is not to be missed - Christopher Hitchens and Doug Wilson in a debate on the Christianity Today site HERE. I have considerable confidence in Doug Wilson's debating and writing abilities but that's not what
most significant here. It is simply that the Christian faith is coherent, internally consistent, and able to give an
account of itself and the world, whereas atheism is none of these things.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
810. AUTHENTIC ANGLICAN CHANT
Good old Andrew Towner has been teaching a small number of us something of Anglican Chant. But I find that
he's been hiding the real deal from us. I mean THIS and THIS. (Historical notes HERE)
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
811. OBJECTIONS TO THE COVENANTED NATION
I get the chance next week to mouth off about Samuel Rutherford and the confessionally Christian state or
covenanted nation.
Illustratively, let's imagine that those seeking a confessionally Christian state or a covenanted nation (or
Christendom) would say something like this:
The first line of the constitution of each and every nation on earth should include a statement
such as “The triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the one true living God and he is the
maker, ruler, redeemer, and judge of the world. The Bible is his infallible and altogether
authoritative Word. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is King of Kings and Lord of lords and has
all authority in heaven and on earth.”
Another way of putting this would be to say "yes" to the following three questions. All Christians could answer
"yes" to 1) and 2) but it takes a covenanter / Christendomite to answer "yes" to the third in any full-blooded
way.
1. Is Jesus Christ the ruler of the kings of the earth?
2. Is it desirable that the kings of the earth should acknowledge this?
3. Is it desirable that the kings of the earth qua kings should publicly confess this?
This would all have been blindingly obvious to Rutherford and follows from his understanding of government.
I'll have a little wander through some of the objections which modern evanglicals are most likely to raise and
these are the ones currently at the front of my mind:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
This is a departure from NT priorities, the NT agenda for the church.
This amounts to the worship of “power”.
This will lead to the adoption of unbiblical methods of societal change.
The confessionally Christian state has no room for democracy or tolerance: it imposes belief on
people.
The confessionally Christian state has a bad track record.
This goal is associated with a coercive and arrogant and intolerant demeanour.
You can’t confidently hold this as a goal until you’ve solved hermeneutical problems about the
Christian use of the OT.
Proponents of a confessionally Christian state fail fully to take into account our fallibility and
ignorance – other voices must be heard.
This represents an over-realized eschatology.
This is an unbiblical confusion of authorities – it leads to ecclesiocracy.
It’s too late - we live in a post-Christian world.
It’s too difficult, it’s perfectionist.
This is no different from a Muslim arguing for Sharia law.
Pluralistic liberal democracy works fine.
Put a confessionally Christian state in place and you’ll end up with horrible intolerance and with
punishing people for their beliefs.
There are too many exegetical questions to deal with.
If you want my answers you'll have to attend the School of Theology, get hold of the lectures, or - sometime
next year - buy the book. Better than any of those options, work them out yourself.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
812. PCA AND FEDERAL VISION
The PCA published a report on Federal Vision thinking a month or so back and it really wasn't a very
wonderful piece of work. A response today entitled
30 Reasons Why It Would be Unwise for the PCA General Assembly to Adopt the Federal
Vision Study Report and Its Recommendations.
helps clarify some of what's going on. Just click on the title to see the response.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
813. IMPUTATION
I'm nervous when I haven't got someone telling what I should believe but in conversation this afternoon my
thoughts on the A., B., C. of imputation came out like this:
When I say
"I believe in the imputation of Christ's righteousness"
I mean
"I believe that, because I am united to Christ, the resurrection status of Jesus ("life" /
vindication / not guilty) is reckoned as mine."
That is a separate question from whether I believe in the imputation of the active obedience of Christ.
As to that ...
1) Jesus must be perfectly obedient to God throughout his earthly life in order to be a fitting, unblemished
sacrifice. In that sense the active obedience of Christ is necessary for my salvation.
2) The one act of obedience of Romans 5 and the obedience of Philippians 2 are far more concerned with the
sacrificial death of Jesus than with his "perfect life".
3) I don't see the Bible telling me that I need "the perfect life of Jesus" to be accounted as mine or telling me
that the reason that his "perfect life" is important is so that it can be put to my credit. What I need is for my sin
to be dealt with (my guilt removed and my nature renewed) and to be taken up into the eschatological life of
Jesus.
4) I'm going to say that again: I don't see the Bible telling me that what I need is "the perfect life of Jesus" to be
put to my credit.
5) I do not believe that there are two stages or components in our restoration such as
a) our sin in dealt with so that we are back at neutral followed by
b) we have the "perfect life" of Jesus put to our credit so that we have sufficient merit to enter glory. This is
because I do not think that there is such a place as "neutral". If I am considered as not having sinned then I am
considered as someone who has loved God with my entire being and loved my neighbour as myself. I may not
have done much of that (I may be immature) but that's different from being at zero.
6) The idea of starting again, of going back to square one, or of being back in the garden is a funny idea since
history is real and there's no going back. But to the extent that the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is thought of
as putting us "back in the garden" then it puts me in a place not of needing to have Jesus's perfect earthly life
put to my credit but in the place of needing to be joined to the next-stage, eschatological life of Jesus. The
Bible doesn't tell me that Jesus's pre-cross law-keeping merits this for me. It does tell me that united to Christ
in his resurrection I am renewed and transformed and brought to a new degree of glory - I Corinthians 15
deals with this.
At least, that's what I think I said. And I think I said what I think I think.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
814. IMPUTATION AGAIN
Just remembered Matthew Mason's post HERE which at least assures me that I could probably have got away
with the speculations of my last post 340 years ago. IAO is the "imputation of the active obedience" of Christ.
Here are some of the key paragraphs:
IAO is not an intrinsic part of a Reformed doctrine of justification. And I call as my
witness, John Owen. What follows is a lightly edited version of something I posted this
morning on an email discussion list.
In The Doctrine of Justification by Faith (1677), which is vol 5 of Goold/Banner edition of his
works, Owen addresses the Roman accusation that Protestants can't agree on the doctrine of
justification. Owen dismisses Osiander as a Protestant who makes a mess of the doctrine (pp.
60f); and then says:
But as to the way and manner of the declaration of this doctrine among
Protestants themselves, there ever was some variety and difference in
expressions; nor will it otherwise be whilst the abilities and capacities of men,
whether in the conceiving of things of this nature or in the expression of their
conceptions, are so various as they are. (p. 62)
In other words, there's diversity among Protestants in the precise way we formulate
justification; that's inevitable.
Owen then lists things that Protestants disagree on, and the way he introduces the list is
significant: "That which is of real difference among persons who agree in the substance of the
doctrine, may be reduced to a very few heads..." (p. 62, my emphasis)
And his second head is...
There hath been a controversy more directly stated among some learned
divines of the Reformed churches (for the Lutherans are unanimous on the
one side), about the righteousness of Christ that is said to be imputed unto
us. For some would have this to be only his suffering of death, and the
satisfaction which he made for sin thereby, and others include therein the
obedience of his life also. The occasion, original, and progress of this
controversy, the persons by whom it hath been managed, with the writings
wherein it is so, and the various way that have been endeavoured for its
reconciliation, are sufficiently know unto all who have inquired into these
things [NB!!!]. Neither shall I inmix myself herein, in the way of controversy,
or in opposition unto others, though I shall freely declare my own judgment
in it, so far as the consideration of the righteousness of Christ, under this
distinction, is inseparable from the substance of the truth itself which I plead
for. (p. 63, emphasis in original)
So, to paraphrase: those who agree on the substance of the doctrine of justification
nevertheless disagree on IAO/IPO; those who disagree are learned divines, and Reformed; I'm
not gonna get wound up about it, though it'll become clear what I believe; and the fact that
this is an intra-Reformed controversy, and the matter's not settled should be obvious to
anyone who has read a bit of Reformed theology!
Don't forget, Owen is a generation after the Westminster Divines, he knows lots of them, has
read loads of their writings, plus vast amounts of continental Reformed stuff, plus the Fathers,
Aquinas, tons of C16/C17 catholics, and is self-consciously working as a Reformed Catholic
theologian. In other words, he has first hand knowledge of these debates. And he's not shy of
taking on Richard Baxter's doctrine of justification, or Reformed advocates of eternal
justification, or Osiander. So if he thinks a Protestant account of justification is badly wrong,
he'll say so. But IAO is a matter on which he'll put forward his own opinion (IAO is necessary)
without entering into controversy with learned Reformed divines who deny it.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
815. THIRTY REASONS
Wow, that document linked earlier - the response to the PCA report on Federal Vision thinking called ...
30 Reasons Why It Would be Unwise for the PCA General Assembly to Adopt the Federal
Vision Study Report and Its Recommendations.
is really a rather powerful piece of polemic. Sections 12, 14-17, 21-23, 25-26 are especially telling.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
816. CRAIG BROWN. IS. BRILLIANT
First draft of Tony Blair's resignation speech. HERE.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
817. JBJ ON DOUBLE IMPUTATION
Asked the other day whether I had read Jim Jordan on "Merit versus Maturity" I had to confess that, while I
was vaguely aware of his thoughts on the matter and had read related bits and pieces, no, I hadn't read his
Federal Vision chapter ("Merit versus Maturity: What Did Jesus do for Us?" in The Federal Vision ed.
Steve Wilkins and Duane Garner, 2004, pp.151-200).
And then asked about merit theology and the imputation of the active obedience of Christ I responded as
reported HERE.
I think that the idea of "obedience" being "imputed" is asking for trouble and is a distinct question from
whether one believes in the imputation of Christ's righteousness (i.e. that Christ's resurrection status is
reckoned to us).
We need our punishment borne, our guilt removed, our natures renewed so that "sin" is dealt with. The death
of Jesus does this (well, the resurrection is more definitely associated with the renewal of nature but ...).
We need to be taken up and further into the true Humanness of Jesus (Spirit-maturity / Resurrection life).
The resurrection of Jesus does this.
Nevertheless, Jesus's life and death and resurrection can't be parcelled out neatly and there's a sense in which
everything from conception to enthronement is his obedience. But that "obedience" isn't a credit put to our
account.
On the related idea of "neutral", I think it goes
1. in Adam
2. in Christ involving
2a. in Christ and thus forgiven through his death and
2b. in Christ and thus enjoying his eschatological life through his resurrection
That's different from
1. in Adam
2. in Christ - he dies in my place - I'm forgiven
3. in Christ - 2. plus - he lived a perfect life in my place - I qualify for glory.
Anyway, all that by way of introduction. I have now read Jim Jordan's chapter and agree with most of what's
there. In particular, these two paragraphs just before his conclusion put things very well indeed, in my view:
It also brings up the matter of double imputation. That there is a double imputation of our
sins to Jesus and His glory to us is certainly beyond question, and I am not disagreeing with
the general doctrine of imputation, or of double imputation. But merit theology often assumes
that Jesus's earthly works and merits somehow given to us, and there is no foundation for this
notion. It is, in fact, hard to comprehend what is meant by it. What does it have to do with my
life that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and this good deed is given to me? The miracles
that Jesus did were not required of me to satisfy God's justice. Salvation does not return us to
the Old Adamic Covenant, even in a good and perfect way. Salvation gives us the glory of
Jesus Christ, so that we do greater things than He did during His Adamic earthly life (Matt.
11:11; John 14:12). The New Testament is clear throughout that what is given to the saints is
the Spirit, who comes from the glorified Jesus. It is not Jesus' earthly life and "works and
merits" that are transferred to us, but His glorified and resurrected life in the Spirit that is
transferred to us.
There seems to be nothing in the Bible to imply that we receive Jesus' earthly life and then
also His death. His earthly life was "for us" in the sense that it was the precondition for His
death, but it is not given "to us". What we receive is not His earthly life and His death, but His
death and His glorified life. What we receive is not Jesus' merits, but His maturity, His
glorification. (194-95).
Yip.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
818. "WE LEFT A TIP" COFFEE
Thomas Papworth with a brief and clear summary of what goes on with "Fair Trade" coffee HERE. A taster
paragraph:
Ultimately, “Fair Trade” coffee is a misnomer, because it is no different in trade terms form
any other coffee. The terms of trade are identical. The difference is that the
wholesaler/distributor has chosen to pay above the market price for the product. This is not
really “Fair Trade” but (depending upon one’s perspective) a form of charitable subsidy or a
misguided means of convincing farmers to keep producing coffee when their labour would be
more usefully turned to some other product. I think a more honest title would be “Generously
paid for” coffee, or perhaps “We left a tip” coffee.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
819. BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS
Richard Winter's book, Perfecting ourselves to Death, put me onto the "Big Five Personality Traits".
Wikipedia's introduction is HERE.
Like all these things, the value lies in the descriptive generalizations and distinctions the scheme introduces. It
provides a set of questions not a set of answers but the questions may be helpful in a variety of ways.

Openness to Experience - appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, and
curiosity.

Conscientiousness - a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement;
planned rather than spontaneous behaviour.

Extraversion - energy, positive emotions, surgency, and the tendency to seek stimulation and the
company of others.

Agreeableness - a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and
antagonistic towards others.

Neuroticism - a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety,
depression, or vulnerability; sometimes called emotional instability.
Monday, May 14, 2007
820. PRONOUNS IN 2 PETER
Noticing first and second person pronouns in Ephesians 1-2 and in I John makes a real difference to how we
read those passages of Scripture.
I had not noticed, however, what a help this is in reading 2 Peter 1 until Johnny Prime pointed it out two or
three weeks back.
v3ff - God's divine power has granted to us apostles all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the
knowledge of him who called us apostles to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us
apostles his precious and very great promises so that (as we reliably pass them on to you - as eyewitnesses and
in contrast to the false teachers) through them you readers/hearers may become partakers etc
Then we stay in the second person for a while ... you, you, you
In vv12-15 Peter speaks personally (first person singular)
And, significant for the argument of the letter (as with vv3ff) we move back to the first person in v16ff - For we
apostles did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made know to you readers/hearers the power and
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but we apostles were eyewitnesses of his majesty ... we apostles ourselves
heard this very voice ... we apostles were with him on the holy mountain. And we apostles have something
more sure, the prophetic word, to which you readers/hearers will do well to pay attention
This underlines one of the main things going on in 2 Peter. You could follow the unstable, fiction-author false
teachers or you could follow the reliable holy prophets and eyewitness apostles.
The pronouns in those early verses make the contrast very clear.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
821. FOUND IN CHRIST
Wonderful stuff from Philippians 3 this morning in chapel.





the relationship between suffering and joy
the rhetorical power of Paul's moves in vv1-2
the seriousness and reality of Paul's righteousness under the law in 4-6
the shaking that this passage gives to false religion
the heart of the matter - found in Christ.
And what a great passage for showing the power of redemptive-historical readings. It's less a matter of having
two enduring schemes of getting saved (flesh or gospel, law or Christ) than an account of history. (Not there
aren't - as so clearly explained this morning - applications to false religion wherever it is found.)

there's the "flesh" aeon (see HERE for more) - the period of Israel under the law, weakened by her
Adamic solidarity and yet still the people of God

and that gives way to the Messiah aeon (see how much it is "Christ" in this section) - the time of
fulfillment, the age of Spirit
The things of the "flesh" were good in themselves but they had deep limitations and, more especially, a sell-by
date.
So it was good to have the status of a covenant member, faithful human, true Israelite under the law from
Sinai to Pentecost. Afterwards, though, the real deal has arrived and the status of covenant member, faithful
human, true Israelite that Paul had previously (in the flesh / under the law) is rubbish in comparison to the
wonderful reality of "righteousness" from God.
The old aeon (flesh) ways of being a covenant member have given way to the infinitely better new aeon
(Christ) ways of being a covenant member. You'd be wicked and foolish if, once Messiah has come, you clung
onto or went back into the old ways. That would be glorying in the flesh rather than "glorying in Christ Jesus
and putting no confidence in the flesh."
So it's not

"here are two possible ways of trying to get a place in heaven - make sure you choose the right one
because the other one doesn't work"
so much as

"here are two different periods in God's dealing with humankind - make sure you don't tell the time
wrongly and start drinking milk which is way past its sell-by date; instead drink and enjoy and
celebrate Messiah's wine".
And, hallelujah for the "the righteousness that is through faith of Christ which is from God by faith".
If any deny the imputation of the righteousness of Christ through faith (in those terms - as against particular
understandings or formulations of it) then they almost deserve the consequences of the misunderstanding
they generate. Hopefully, pretty much any careful reader of Paul believes in the imputation of the
righteousness of Christ. What they mean by that may vary somewhat.
For myself, I believe in the imputation of Christ's righteousness.
That is




those who through faith are in union with Christ
are graciously counted by God
as having the not guilty / true Israelite / faithful human / empty charge sheet status
which belongs to Jesus and was declared his in the resurrection.
Good news from Philippians 3 - what a great way to start the day!
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
822. ASCENSION DAY
"Even a loser can win when he's up against a defeatist" (Mark Steyn).
Islam is definitely a loser and humanism is definitely a loser.
But, sadly, when it comes to matters of public theology most evangelicals are defeatists.
And even a loser can win when he's up against a defeatist.
It's remarkable, really, that evangelicals can be defeatists - it's a failure of perspective, a refusal to look up. Our
discussions are sometimes like the debate between the two men in Slough which has been going on for the last
120 years. One of them insists that humans cannot fly, that if God had intended us to fly he'd have given us
wings and the rest of it. The other has produced detailed documents showing how, if pedal speed can be
maintained to power the mechanical wings then it is scientifically possible for humans to fly almost a mile.
Meantime a huge passenger jets containing between 300 and 600 people passes overhead every two minutes.
Evangelical defeatism is a failure of Biblical perspective. After all, today is Ascension Day:

The risen Lord Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth and has been made head
over all things for the Church.

He is the ruler of the kings of the earth and he is currently putting his enemies beneath his feet.

He has presumably asked the Father for the nations as his inheritance and the ends of the earth as his
possession - and so he will receive them.

All nations will bow to him and all kings will serve him and his kingdom will grow to become the
largest plant in the garden with the nation-birds finding rest in its branches.

That kingdom is the stone which crushed the kingdoms of men in Daniel 2 and which is growing to
become a mountain-empire which fills the whole earth.

Jesus is the firstborn from among the dead and therefore it is right that in all things he has the first
place. He has been highly exalted and not only will every knee bow to him but every knee should bow
to him.
Evangelical defeatism is a failure of historical perspective. After all, the statistics are out there:

It took 1400 years for 1% of the world's population to become Christians.

For that to double to 2% took the next 360 years.

It was then 170 years for that to grow from 2% to 4%.

Then, between 1960 and 1990 the proportion of the world's population who are Bible-believing
Christians rose from 4% to 8%.

Now in 2007 one third of the world's population confesses that Jesus is Lord and 11% of the world's
population are "evangelical" Christians.

The evangelical church is growing twice as fast as Islam and three times as fast as the world's
population.

South America is turning Protestant faster than Continental Europe did in the sixteenth century.
South Koreans reckon that they can evangelize the whole of North Korea within five years once that
country opens up.

And then there's the Chinese church. Tens of millions of Christians who've learned to pray, who have
confidence in Scripture, who know about spiritual warfare, have been schooled in suffering and are
qualified to rule. One day in the next century that Church - tens of millions of Christians trained to die
- will be released into global mission and our prayers for the fall of Islam will be answered.
Evangelical defeatism in matters of public theology is a failure of biblical and historical perspective.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
823. SAMUEL RUTHERFORD AND THE COVENANTED NATION
I've put online (item 49 HERE) the six page handout which accompanied my lecture on "Samuel Rutherford
and the Confessionally Christian State / Covenanted Nation" at yesterday's Oak Hill School of Theology.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
824. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOHN HOWE
John Howe, 1630-1705, was born on the 17th May.
There's far more about him than you'd ever want to know HERE and at Amazon sales ranking 700,787 (!) this
is a book which could do with another couple of people looking at it - thereby doubling its readership.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
825. WHAT IS THE "FEDERAL VISION"?
David Cassidy has produced a really handy introductory summary. Context, explanatory remarks, and the full
version is HERE. This is the summary section:
1. Sola Scriptura - Scripture and not Tradition (even reformed tradition!) must rule in all
things as the highest court of appeal and only infallible guide in matters of faith and life.


Biblical Theology is foundational to Systematic theology.
Confessions and Creeds are Essential Guides to the Truth, but are always subject to
'the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures.'
2. Sacraments are a True Means of Grace to the Elect. God actually works by His Spirit in
the sacraments of holy baptism and the Lord's Supper to communicate his grace to his people.


The sacraments accomplish different things with different recipients. The elect
receive blessing by them, the unrepentant receive cursing.
FV theologians want to use the term 'elect' in a wider way, noting 'external' and
'temporary' membership in the people of God; but contrary to commonly held
accusation, they clearly do not mean by this the same thing as the stipulated,
systematic use of the term when we speak of decretal election. On that matter FV
theologians (as far as I can tell) differe not one iota from their opponents, and I think
Doug Wilson has more than adequately shot down this straw man accusation.

Baptism is a rite of initiation into a priestly people; baptized people - the priests of the
Lord - eat from the altar, and this includes the children. Paedocommunion is often
(though not always) held by those who are typically identified as FV.
3. Salvation brings relationship to God and to his people, the Church. The idea rampant in
much of American evangelicalism that salvation is exclusively personal is Biblically incorrect
and dangerous.



Revivalism as commonly practiced in American evangelicalism tends in an antichurch direction, is highly individualistic, narrowly experiential, and thus unhelpful.
A restoration of 'Churchly' evanglelism centered in the regualr use of the means of
grace is necessary.
There is a proper sociological dimension to the doctrine of justification - right with
God means you are not only in relationship with God but also with his family, your
brothers and sisters in Christ, regardless of race, nationality, or economic status.
This is hardly surprising since the covenant of Grace flows from God who is in himself
a sweet society - the Trinity is a community of persons; man made in the image of God
has seen that image marred by sin, personally, familially, and culturally. The Church
is a community of persons born of the Spirit because salvation saves not just the soul
but the body, not just the individual but the 'people' as well, transforming them to be
the Bride of Christ.
4. Severing from the Tree is a real possibility. The warnings and exhortations are in
Scripture to guide the faithful with wisdom in the fear of the Lord.


Apostasy is real, and real blessings are lost and real curses embraced by those who are
members of the Church and then repudiate the Faith, leaving the Church for the love
of the world.
The elect of God cannot apostatize, but members of the people of the Church Militant
do, and thus lose genuine blessings given to the Church through Jesus Christ.
5. Sola Fide is correct and vital. It is faith alone that justifies and the faith that justifies is
never alone, but accompanied by the other saving graces. Saving Faith is a living faith,
showing itself to be such by good works which God has ordained. This is because faith arises
from the heart/soul made new through union with Christ. Those given faith become the
faithful in Christ Jesus.

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These good works are not meritorious in any way.
These good works flow from faith but are not faith itself.
These good works will be seen on the Last Day as a vindication of the one who claimed
faith in Christ.
6. Societal Implications of Christ's Reign. Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords now.
This 'Lordship' includes but is not limited to the realm of the human heart or the Church in
heaven and on earth. Christ reigns now and is bringing the nations under the sway of sceptre.



Most FV people are Postmillennial
Some are theonomists (though many are not, and many theonomists adamantly
oppose the FV).
Most hold to some form of the Kuyperian or even pre-Kuyperian model of Christ's
reign in the world and over the world, the latter a more ecclesiocentric approach. This
model reminds us that it is from the Garden-Sanctuary-Throne of Grace that mercy
and rule flows.
7. Service in Worship is God's First. God acts in worship to call his people to assemble
before him, cleanse them from their sins, consecrate them to himself as a holy people,
commune with them at his Table, and then commission them to go into the world to be lights
and make disciples.


This pattern in worship is heavenly, following the order of Revelation
This pattern reinforces the traditional ordo salutis


This pattern repeats not only the personal ordo but also the whole flow of human and
redemptive history (and thus in worship BT and ST kiss!).
There are many who hold to this pattern in worship who would not identify
themselves as FV friendly or even sympathetic. But virtually all the FV advocates do
share this view of Lord's Day worship.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
826. GOD'S "PERMISSIVE WILL"
It may sound iconoclastic and it's highly likely that it comes from ignorance but I have just about given up on
the idea of God's "permissive will".
The intended function of the distinction/term is to assert a moral asymmetry between God's relationship to
what is evil and his relationship to the good.
But the effect of the distinction/term to my mind is to imply that God draws circles and says, "I won't step in
there". It implies a self-limitation on the part of God.
I don't believe that there is such a self-limitation, nor, indeed, that it is possible. I believe that God's
sovereignty is inalienable. I believe that God is personally, purposefully, actively present at and to every point,
time, space, event, object, and person in creation.
I therefore believe that rather than saying

God actively and directly wills and causes good but only permissively and indirectly wills evil.
we should say

God actively and directly wills and causes absolutely everything and he loves the goodness of all the
good things he wills and causes and he loathes and is wrathful towards the evil of all the evil things he
wills and causes (the evil or sinfulness of which is the responsibility of wicked moral agents).
Or more briefly,

God causes the things which are good and loves the good. God causes the things which are evil (but
not the evil-ness of them) and loathes the evil.
Of course, this is at the level of discussing vocabulary for a dogmatics lecture in relation to God's inalienable
sovereignty and permissive will and self-limitation and things. I also affirm that it is right and proper and
important, on occasion, to talk about God "allowing" Satan to afflict Job, for example, or "allowing" this or that
natural or moral evil to occur.
Happily, Neil Jeffers is going to sort this out once and for all very soon now.
Monday, May 21, 2007
827. JIM JORDAN ON JUSTIFICATION AND GLORIFICATION
Remember this one?
Well, Jim Jordan gives us more HERE. It goes like this ...
The Nicene Creed says something else about the gospel. It says about Jesus Christ: Who (a)
for us and (b) for our salvation. Then it expands: (a) came down from heaven and was
incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and was made man; (b) ALSO (different
connective) was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried....
The Creed assumes that the incarnation was necessary for us, and the Fathers all explain that
this was in order to "bring many sons to glory." They called this theopoesis, the process of
becoming more and more like God. We usually call it glorification. In other words, Jesus came
to bring the human race to full maturity, and He would have come for that purpose even if
Adam had not sinned.
Some Reformed theologians today seem to be confused about this. Jesus died for our sins; we
all admit that. But Jesus also did what Adam failed to do. Or more accurately, Jesus
completed what Adam failed to start. But what did Adam fail to start? Some list of good works
that earned merits? Or did Adam just fail to remain faithful and grow up? Either way, Jesus
gives us more than we lost in Adam. But that extra is not justification; it's glorification. Yet,
over and over, this extra that Jesus did, whether called merit or something else, is seen as
having to do with justification and forgiveness of sins, with being made fundamentally right.
Having for the most part ignored or postponed glorification ("Those whom He justified some
day in the future He will glorify" is the common gloss on Romans 8:30), too many Reformed
thinkers have confused the two and imported into the doctrine of forgiveness elements that
have to do with glorification. They say we are declared righteous because of Jesus' completion
of Adam's work. Rather, we are made glorious thereby.
The gospel is both justification and glorification. Both are by faith in the present age. But
when they are confused, the gospel itself is confused.
Monday, May 21, 2007
828. WILL AND NATURE IN GOD
One question which we constantly try to avoid in our Doctrine of God lectures is that of the "necessity" of
creation. "Necessity" in the sense of "could-not-be-otherwise-ness".
In the old categories I believe that God has liberty of spontaneity rather than liberty of indifference. That is to
say, that God makes his choices according to what he wants and what he wants reflects who he is.
God wants what he wants because he is who he is. And he chooses what he wants. In this sense, the will /
nature distinction, while useful in lots of ways, cannot be maintained absolutely in a simple God. It is not that
there is God and then, separately his "will" (either in the sense of a list of his preferences/decisions or in the
sense of a faculty of choice). God is his will. God's will is according to his nature.
Now one of the problems with this, for some people, is that it appears to them to restrict God's "freedom". But,
to choose a couple of extreme examples, God "cannot" choose to sin and God "cannot" choose to die (qua God
- the person of the Word, God, does, of course, die according to his human nature).
But when we say that God cannot choose to sin or to die, we are not restricting his freedom. This is not a
limitation on God but a perfection of God. It's a wonderful thing if I "cannot" bring myself to tell a lie, for
example.
When you push this, you end up saying that God "cannot" choose to create a world other than the one which
most perfectly brings glory to him. Which means that, yes, you assert,
1.
this is the best of all possible worlds (not denying the possibility of billions and billions of other
worlds, mind you)
2. it was "necessary" for God to create this world in the same way that it is "necessary" for God to not sin,
to be infinitely alive and wise and righteous and loving and the rest of it.
A couple of qualifying sentences on this #2, though. The way that this is not pantheist is that while God's
righteousness is God and while God's wisdom is God and while God's will is God, the creation of a world, the
bringing into existence of what did not exist means that there is, from the side of the creation itself, a radical
contingency, dependence, and "very-much-could-have-been-otherwise-ness". God's righteousness and God
are identified. God's will to create and God are identified. God's creation are God are NOT identified. Creation
is not God. The Creator-creature distinction is not blurred by saying that the Creator's will to create is an
infinite perfection, a "necessity" of God's flawless and free nature.
Maybe this is best put as saying


creation is not necessary
God's will to create, like his will to anything, is necessary - a couldn't-be-otherwise freedom of his
infinite perfection.
Which isn't a million miles away from Turretin as quoted by Muller:

"What is necessary originally on the part of the principle can be free terminatively on the part of the
object."
The classical theist tradition is deeply troubled about this question (see Muller's Post-Reformation Reformed
Dogmatics ) and yet the consensus remains that we shouldn't assert the "necessity" of creation. I don't get it
but because this is contrary to the tradition then I am happy to acknowledge the speculativeness, the likely
ignorance, and the possible danger of these thoughts and I am very, very ready to relinquish them when I learn
more.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
829. NATURAL AND POSITIVE LAWS
Once you've said what I just said (in the previous post) about will and nature in God then you become very
suspicious about the natural/positive law distinction.
Theologian on the street ways of thinking reckon that positive laws are "those that could have been otherwise".
That is, God said not to serve in battle for the first year of marriage but he could have said two years or six
months and still be the same God. He said there was one tree that was forbidden but he could have forbidden
two trees and still have been the same God.
I doubt it.
I think that all of God's laws flow from his perfectly wise and righteous nature and "could not have been
otherwise."
The fact that some laws change and some are abrogated proves nothing. It merely means that a proper
understanding of the law includes due time and person restrictions.
It is eternally the case that Jews between Sinai and Pentecost must not eat pork.
It is eternally the case that after Pentecost anyone may eat pork.
As with the previous post, this is a departure from the tradition and because this is so then I am happy to
acknowledge to speculativeness, the likely ignorance, and the possible danger of these thoughts and very, very
ready to relinquish them when I learn more.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
830. HOW TO READ
The handout accompanying my introductory lecture on "How to Read"in the Stating the Obvious module at
Oak Hill is item 50 HERE.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
831. ROMANUS CESSARIO
Reminded (HT - Steve Jeffery) of how much I like Romanus Cessario's book, Introduction to Moral Theology,
I have put some of my favourite moments online as item 51 HERE.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
832. NICE LINE AND GREAT BOOK TITLE
.
Nice line from Aronson's Social Psychology:
"Humans are not rational beings, they are rationalizing beings."
And great book title suggested in conversation with the returned exile Ros Clarke:
"GHE: Get Over It!"
_____
(For younger readers, GHE is grammatical-historical exegesis.)
Friday, May 25, 2007
833. PRONOUNS IN 2 PETER (II)
See HERE. Hmmm.
Pause for thought comes from Marty Foord and Allan Chapple - to whom, many thanks for their kind
response. The words below are Allan's:
No, I don't think it does work. If we trace the use of the 1st person plural from the beginning, I
think we get the following results (I'm using the UBS text):
(1) the dative in the 2nd line is exclusive, because it follows tois isotimon--but the most
natural way of reading it is that it's an epistolary plural (there being no indication in v.1 that
Peter is
writing on behalf of anyone other than himself); but it could possibly refer to "us who were
believers already, before you were converted". There is no contextual reason at all to see it as a
reference to the apostles.
(2) the genitive in the 3rd and 5th lines must be inclusive, because JC is God, Saviour, and
Lord for all believers--and v.2 is not indicating that the addressees were meant to think that
they had come to know the apostles' Lord.
(3) without clear contextual indicators to the contrary, the dative and accusative in v.3 would
normally be understood to have the same reference as the immediately preceding use of the
1st person pronoun: viz., that at the end of v.2. That this is the case here is reinforced by the
fact that the hos at the beginning of v.3 implies that its contents are in some way dependent
on what precedes: it completes or expands the "wish-prayer" in v.2.
(4) it is very difficult to see how (in NT terms) the contents of v.3 could plausibly be seen as
the special prerogative of apostles, as distinct from believers as such.
(5) the dative in v.4 might be exclusive, because the verb in the hina-clause is 2nd person
plural--but if so, it is not immediately obvious that the 1st person pronoun must refer to the
apostles as such (i.e., it would be necessary to make the case exegetically: this could be done-but equally, other possibilities might also exist). However, the "we" who have been given the
promises might still be inclusive (referring to all believers), because the transition to the 2nd
person might mean no more than that paraenetic material (vv.5-11) necessarily focuses on
those being addressed. In other words, the move from v.4a to v.4b may only mean "you folks
need to make sure that you take hold of, and make your own, what's been given to us all".
That's how it looks to me today anyhow.
Allan.
As I said ... Hmmm. The proposal appears initially to have real explanatory power. But now this. I think I'll
revert to that tried and trusted interpretative method: leave it for a bit and see how I feel later.
Friday, May 25, 2007
834. FLAME WARRIORS
After months of seeing these labels used, at last, thanks to the inestimable Barb, I now understand. These are
Flame Warriors. I know him. And him. Yes, yes, I've often seen her. And so on.
Friday, May 25, 2007
835. YOU HAVIN' A LAUGH?
Truly unbelievable stuff from Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. The sheer incredibility of
this is mind-boggling and deeply re-assuring to those of us who've read our Genesis 1.1!

There needn't actually be a universe at all. For a very long time there wasn't. There were no atoms and
no universe for them to float about in. There was nothing -- nothing at all anywhere. 18

No matter how hard you try you will never be able to grasp just how tiny, how spatially unassuming, is
a proton. It is just way too small. A proton is an infinitesimal part of an atom, which is itself of course
an insubstantial thing. Protons are so small that a little dib of ink like the dot on this ‘i’ can hold
something in the region of 500,000,000,000 of them, or rather more than the number of seconds it
takes to make half a million years. So protons are exceedingly microscopic, to say the very least.
Now imagine if you can (and of course you can't) shrinking one of those protons down to a billionth of
its normal size into a space so small that it would make a proton look enormous. Now pack into that
tiny, tiny space about an ounce of matter. Excellent. You're ready to start a universe.
I’m assuming of course that you wish to build an inflationary universe. If you'd prefer instead to build
a more old-fashioned, standard Big Bang universe, you'll need additional materials. In fact, you will
need to gather up everything there is -- every last mote and particle of matter between here and the
edge of creation -- and squeeze it into a spot so infinitesimally compact that it has no dimensions at
all. It is known as a singularity. [28 begins]
In either case, get ready for a really big bang. Naturally, you will wish to retire to a safe place to
observe the spectacle. Unfortunately, there is nowhere to retire to because outside the similarity there
is no where. When the universe begins to expand, it won't be spreading out to fill a larger emptiness.
The only space that exists is the space it creates as it goes.
It is natural that wrong to visualise the similarity is a kind of pregnant dot hanging in a dark,
boundless void. But there is, no darkness. The singularity has no around around it. There is no space
for it to occupy, no place for it to be. We can't even ask how long it has been there -- whether it has just
lately popped into being, like a good idea, or whether it has been there for ever, quietly awaiting the
right moment. Time doesn't exist. There is no past for its to emerge from.
And so, from nothing, our universe begins.
In a single blinding pulse, a moment of glory much too swift and expansive for any form of words, the
singularity assumes heavenly dimensions, space beyond conception. The first lively second (a second
that many cosmologists will devote careers to shaving into ever-finer wafers) produces gravity and the
other forces that governing physics. In less than a minute the universe is a million billion miles across
and growing fast. There is a lot of heat now, 10 billion degrees of it, enough to begin the nuclear
reactions that create the lighter elements -- principally hydrogen and helium, with a dash (about one
atom in a hundred million) of lithium. In three minutes, 98 per cent of all the matter there is or will
ever be has been produced. We have a universe. It is a place of the most wondrous and gratifying
possibility, and beautiful, too. And it was all done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich. 27-28

So what caused it? One notion is that perhaps the singularity was the relic of an earlier, collapsed
universe -- that ours is just one of an eternal cycle of expanding and collapsing universes, like the
bladder on an oxygen machine. Others attributed the Big Bang to what they call "a false vacuum" or "a
scalar field" or "vacuum energy" -- some quality or thing, at any rate, that introduced a measure of
instability into the nothingness that was. It seems impossible that you could get something from
nothing, but the fact that once there was nothing and now there is a universe is evident proof that you
can. It may be that our universe is merely part of many larger universes, [32 begins] some in different
dimensions, and that Big Bangs are going on all the time all over the place. Or it may be that space and
time had some other forms altogether before the Big Bang -- forms to alien for us to imagine -- and
that the Big Bang represents some sort of transition phase, where the universe went from a form we
can't understand to one we almost can. 31-32

The Big Bang theory isn't about the bang itself but about what happened after the bang. Not long after,
mind you. By doing a lot of maths and watching carefully what goes on in particle accelerators,
scientists believe they can look back to 10-43 seconds after the moment of creation, when the universe
was still so small that you would have needed a microscope to find it. We mustn't swoon over every
extraordinary number that comes before us, but it is perhaps worth latching onto one from time to
time just to be reminded of their ungraspable and amazing breadth. Thus 10-43 is
0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001, or one ten million trillion trillion
trillionths of a second. 32
Saturday, May 26, 2007
836. MERIT AND NON-MERIT SCHEMES
Weston Hicks posted a very helpful brief summary of the views of "merit-theology" and "non-merit theology"
folks on the imputation of the active obedience of Christ over in the comments section of Doug Wilson's blog
(HERE).
This - with teeny editorial corrections - is how it ran:
Don’t understand the imputation of active obedience/ imputation of passive obedience in
justification discussion?
The issue is this: If you believe the Bible teaches merit theology, IAO is necessary in
justification to be evangelical. If you don’t believe the Bible teaches merit-theology, you can
either believe IAO is part of justification or believe it isn’t and still be evangelical. It’s all about
your framework.
Merit theologians believe this: Salvation is earned. Adam was to earn it. He had no sin, but
wasn’t yet glorified (not yet enjoying the *eternal* reward – another way of saying he was in a
probationary state). Instead of earning salvation by obedience (like a worker from an
employer), he sinned. So he compounded the problem. He not only still needed ‘positive’
obedience to earn salvation, he needed forgiveness of sins to even get him back to where he
was pre-fall. On this construction Jesus’ suffering/death on the cross (PO) takes care of sins
and his perfect life (AO) earns eternal life.
Non-merit theologians believe this: Salvation was always a free gift from a God who never
related to any of his children as an employer, but always and only as a Father. Had Adam been
glorified, it would have been by living by faith – as you and I do. The Father would have given
this eschatological blessing in time (just like I will give my son the gift of a car if he lives the
next 16 years or so by faith). Living by faith for Adam was different, considering he had no sin
nature. Any sin for him, was the most high-handed of sins. So he needed to remain sinless,
which was no biggy for him.
So when Adam fell, we incurred the guilt of sin and need to be restored to sinlessness. Like
merit theologians, non-merit theologians believe sacrifice takes care of sin. Non-merit
theologians believe Jesus didn’t earn anything from God, but lived by faith. He persevered to
the eschatological blessing Adam never got. This happened at his resurrection. So, in union
with the *risen* Lord, we have that eschatological blessing that merit-theologians need IAO to
get to. Non-merit guys just don’t need IAO to get there. Non-merit guys have Jesus’
resurrection accomplishing what merit-guys have his “active obedience” accomplishing: the
eschatological reward. And both have his passive obedience (death and suffering on the cross)
taking away sins.
So the claim that merit-theologians sometimes make that “people who deny the IAO leave a
vacuum that they fill by human obedience” is just a misguided claim altogether. Guys who say
this are revealing that they aren’t very aware of structures of thought and presuppositions,
because they are applying their philosophical structure to men who don’t hold to it.
See, non-merit guys have the death (PO) taking care of sins, and the resurrection taking care
of the eschatological gift (eternal life). Merit theologians have the death (PO) taking care of
sins and the perfect life (AO) taking care of the eschatological gift, which they’d probably
rather refer to as a “reward” because it helps rhetorically enforce merit theology. Of course,
there is no real problem with “reward” language for non-merit guys either, but you
understand my point.
Some non-merit guys like think of Union with Christ meaning that we have all Christ has by
joining Him (both legally and vitally – like in a marriage). So we wear the robe of glory that
only the faithful son gets (eschatological gift – Heaven – eternal life). Many think it is more
exegetically faithful to say that we do not get “God’s righteousness given to us a justification”,
but through Union with Christ, share in the Son’s “not guilty” verdict, a verdict gotten by way
of faithful obedience.
An important point is this: non-merit guys still believe Christ was sinless in life. Had he not
been, his sacrifice could not take away our sins. Also, without His sinlessness he wouldn’t
have been given the eschatological reward of resurrection and glorification. So His sinlessness
is non-negotiable and sets up a lot, but just wasn’t earning anything.
But when talking about what reconciles us back to God, non-merit guys see the Bible teaching
that the roadblock was Sin, and the sacrifice (PO) takes care of that.
Notice that a merit-guy OR a non-merit guy could be legalistic, antinomian, or orthodox.
A merit-guy could believe we receive the IPO & IAO in justification, but that our own
obedience is a third ground and not merely the instrument of laying hold of both. This is
legalism. A non-merit guy could believe that we receive IPO and Christ’s glorification at
justification and similarly believe that human obedience is another ground and not merely the
instrument of laying hold of justification (and all benefits of salvation). This is legalism.
But both the merit-guy and the non-merit guy could believe that justification doesn’t
necessarily have to be accompanied by new obedience to be genuine. This is antinomianism.
Incidentally, someone sent me this quotation from Turretin’s Institutes (emphasis added):
Although Christ fulfilled the law for us as to obedience, it cannot be inferred
that we are no longer bound to render obedience to God. It certainly follows
that we are not bound to obey for the same end and from the same cause (to
wit, that we may live by it, from our federal subjection). But this does not
hinder our being bound by a natural obligation to yield the same obedience to
God, not that we may live but because we live; not that we may acquire a
right to life, but that we may enter upon the possession of the acquired right.
Just as (though Christ died for us) we do not cease to be still liable to death—
not for punishment, but for salvation (14.13.27, p. 452).
So Turretin says that obedience is still required to enter possession of eternal life (see also his
answer to the question “Are Good Works Necessary for Salvation? We Affirm” where he says
they are necessary for the Christian “as means” not as merit.). The idea that Norman
Shepherd’s teaching that good works are necessary to salvation is in some way tied to his
thinking on IAO is simply untrue to the Reformed heritage.
And both the merit-guy and the non-merit guy could join together in believing that whatever
we receive at justification, we receive by the instrument of faith, and is always accompanied by
new obedience and repentance, or else isn’t genuine. This is the Bible’s teaching.
So both philosophical systems make sense. But they are set up differently. The merit setup
requires IAO. The non-merit setup doesn’t. Of course, lots of non-merit guys believe in both,
but they don’t think you have to. That’s why Doug Wilson and Mark Horne (non-merit
theologians) can say they personally believe in IAO at justification, but that IPO-only guys are
perfectly orthodox.
Once you understand the deeper structure of the difference, the discussion becomes about the
details of biblical exegesis. For guys that either a) don’t understand the deeper structure of the
difference or b) want to use the fact that this stuff is confusing as a tool to kick people they
don’t like out of denominations -- this ends up being a “gospel-denier!! gospel-denier!!” kind
of thing.
There are nuances, twists, and turns that I left out, but the basic point is this:
Both non-merit and merit theologians believe all of salvation was given firstly and fully to
Christ and Christ alone, and is secondly and derivatively received by us by faith. What
“justification” or other details of salvation consist in is a function of a particular theologian’s
deeper philosophical structure.
But non-merit guys and merit guys BOTH:




believe all of salvation is in Christ and we receive it by faith;
can be legalistic, antinomian, or orthodox;
can have a robust doctrine of apostasy or believe apostasy is impossible;
and much besides.
Imputation of Christ’s active obedience just isn’t the test of orthodoxy some want to make it.
The Westminster divines understood this, which is whether or not they held to the IAO in
justification, they didn’t bind people to it in the confession. It just ain’t there.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
837. LANCELOT ANDREWES, PENTECOST 1616
Not exact quotes but some nice moments from the good bishop's sermon on John 20.22: And when he had
said that, he breathed on them, and said, "Receive the Holy Ghost".
Three such comings there were in all. Once did our Saviour receive the Holy Ghost, and twice
did He give It. Give It on earth in the text; and after, from Heaven on the day. So three in all.
At Christ's baptism, "It came upon Him in the shape of a Dove." At this feast It came upon His
Apostles in the likeness of "tongues of fire." And here now, in this, comes breath-wise, having
breath for the symbolum to represent it."
Christ as God and man:
Verus homo qui sperare - true man, by the fact that he breathes
Verus Deus Qui Spiritum donare - true God, by the fact that it is the Spirit he gives.
Thrice was the Holy Ghost sent, and in three forms.
1. of a dove - from the Father
2. of breath - from the Son
3. of cloven tongues of fire - from both the Father and the Son.
The Holy Spirit associated with breath. Two Nicene affirmations of the Spirit relate to this:
- Lord and Giver of life. Breath is life - the beginning of life and the continuing of life
- Who spake by the Prophets. The same breath that is life is voice. "That we live by, we speak
by also. For what is the voice but the inward word or conceit clothed with breath or air."
"Receive the Spirit" gives to man the life of nature. "Receive the Holy Spirit" gives to man the
life of grace.
The breathing, the pestilent breath of the serpent, that blew upon our first parents, infected,
poisoned them at the first: Christ's breath entering, cures it; and, as ever His manner is, by the
same way it was taken, cures it -- breath, by breath.
Take this with you too. It is not Christ's breath, any breath of His, but His breath now after
His rising, and so His immortal breath. A mortal He had, which He breathed out, when "He
gave up the Ghost" upon the cross. All the while He was mortal, He held His breath. Till it was
more than so, He breathed it not, till it had in it the vigour and power of immortality; which
sin cannot endure, but scatters straight ...
If sin shall ever truly be left, it must come of hatred, not of fear.
Fond, ignorant men! For hath not the Church long since defined it positively, that the baptism
Peter gave was no better than that which Judas; and exemplified it, that a seal of iron will give
as perfect a stamp, as one of gold?
"Receive the Spirit" how may all receive it? It is by "Receive my Body". "And so receiving it, He
That breathed, and He That was breathed, both of Them vouchsafe to breathe into those holy
mysteries a Divine power and virtue, and make them to us the bread of life and the cup of
salvation; God the Father also sending His blessing upon them, that they may be His blessed
means of this thrice-blessed effect!
Sunday, May 27, 2007
838. KIUCHI ON LEVITICUS: I'M ANXIOUS AND EXCITED
By November 16th I need to know Leviticus a lot better than I do now and so I'm delighted that Nobuyoshi
Kiuchi's Apollos commentary on the book has just been published. A couple of people I greatly respect are fans
of some of Kiuchi's previous work and I very much look forward to working my way through this commentary
over the next month or two.
That said, as I read the introduction, I heard myself saying "oh dear, oh dear" as well as "splendid, splendid".
I'm a little worried as well as very excited. Here are the two reasons for my anxiety with some of the "oh dear"
quotations to illustrate:
1. ignorance of JBJ's astounding work on Leviticus (see quote from p.40 below)
2. a tendency to think that the external/physical/visible/corporate (weak, immature, inauthentic) should be
set over against the internal/spiritual/invisible/individual (strong, grown-up, the real thing).

"The Israelites left Egypt without experiencing any clinical operation on their hearts. It became
necessary for their hearts to be dealt with by the law, and this is why the law is given after their
physical removal from Egypt." 27

"Moreover, while Wenham notes in the above statement that "holiness" may be taken as a goal or
ideal, my proposal that it is a term referring to a certain condition of the human heart, namely the
absence of an egocentric nature... indicates that the Israelites standing before the Lord in Exod. 19 are
as yet unredeemed (saved) from their sinfulness. In other words, while there is a dimension where it is
possible to address the exodus event not only as salvation from bondage in Egypt but also as their
salvation from sin (cf. 1 Cor. 10:1-4), the spiritual reality of the people showed that they were far from
being saved from their own sinfulness. … Moreover, while the people are assumed to be in a
covenantal relationship with the Lord, all the rules in Leviticus constitute the covenant’s very content.
Thus it is inappropriate to assume the people were saved, so the rules in Leviticus were added purely
to enhance or enrich the covenantal relationship between the people and the Lord. Therefore it seems
necessary to conclude that unless one becomes holy, he remains unsaved from his sinfulness; i.e. his
own egocentric nature." 28

"To follow the prescription in ch. 3 may appear to satisfy what the Lord requires. However, if the
burning of fat symbolises, as proposed in this commentary... the annihilation of the offerer’s
egocentric nature, then simply to follow the prescription outwardly remains a long way from what is
required. Likewise by following the uncleanness regulations of chs. 11-15 one becomes clean. However,
if "uncleanness" symbolises the human [p.32 begins] existential condition, to attend only to the literal
observance of these rules would make a person a mere hypocrite.” 31-32

“Moreover recourse to visible things is intelligible for human beings who often remain unaware of
spiritual things. Thus spiritual matters are conveyed by tangible objects …” 32

“Based on the distinction between outward observance and the spiritual truth is symbolises, I make a
distinction between outer cleanness/uncleanness and inner cleanness/uncleanness, and between
outer holiness and inner holiness." 32

"Does the Lord except those offerings made by people who do not truly embody the symbolic meaning
of these offerings? The answer is no. For unless the offerer’s heart embodies the symbolic meaning of
the offering, the latter becomes a profanation of holiness. This of course raises the question of who
may offer an offering in the true sense of the word." 32

"As far as my knowledge goes, no modern exegete has attempted to explain cleanness/uncleanness
regulations in Lev. 11-15 in relation to the fall account in Gen. 3, which this commentary will address
intensively." 40

"It is desirable that people ultimately dispense with the visible sanctuary … The ritual functions to
divide human beings into two kinds of people: the hypocritical and those who seek the spiritual truth
behind the ritual." 44

In the NT believers are saved by believing that the work of Christ was done for them. 48
That said, there's much which leaves me very hopeful that this is going to be an extremely worthwhile read.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
839. BRITAIN'S DNA DATABASE
I shouldn't be surprised but, in addition to CCTV cameras and plans for ID cards, I read this morning that
Britain "leads the world" in its rapidly expanding DNA database. These paragraphs from HERE.
My correspondent asked the police to destroy the fingerprints and DNA sample since he did
not see why he should be on a criminal database for the rest of his life. This matter is now
being considered by the chief constable of his local police force, who has the discretion to
remove these records "in exceptional circumstances".
He should not hold his breath. In the past five years, just 634 profiles have been erased from
the DNA database. Over the same period 2,650,000 have been added.
In total, there are now 4.1 million profiles on the DNA database. It is estimated that 100,000
are from children who have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any offence. The
odd thing is that there was no legislation setting up the DNA database. It was established in
1995, as the world's first, to store the profiles taken from convicted criminals. Parliament has,
however, subsequently passed legislation setting out the circumstances in which the police
can take and retain DNA.
It started with just convicted criminals, was extended to people who were tried but acquitted,
then to people who were charged but never tried and then, last year, to people who were
arrested but never charged.
Now the Government wants to go further and compulsorily retain DNA from people who are
suspects or just witnesses and whose samples are taken for elimination purposes. It is also
considering whether "non-recordable'' offences, such as dropping litter or speeding, which are
not subject to DNA capture, should be brought within the system. (By the way, this is only in
England and Wales; in Scotland, an individual's profile is removed from both the Scottish and
national databases after acquittal and is not retained, save in exceptional circumstances,
unless someone is convicted.)
It is not surprising, therefore, that the UK has the world's largest DNA database, half as large
again as the rest of the European Union put together. It represents more than five per cent of
the population, compared with just over one per cent in the rest of the EU and 0.5 per cent in
America.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
840. GLOBAL WARMING GRAVY TRAIN
David Evans feeds my prejudices / supports my suspicions HERE.
Monday, May 28, 2007
841. ODD PERVERSE ANTIPATHIES
Lee Gatiss (who, delightfully, is as far from entertaining "odd perverse antipathies" as a man can get) recently
brought to my attention Samuel Butler's description of the mid-seventeenth century 'presbyterians' which is so
painfully relevant still. These are people who ...
“Call fire and sword and desolation
A godly thorough reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
A sect, whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss.”
Monday, May 28, 2007
842. THE WELFARE STATE
Jam Cary - as usual - talks interesting sense HERE.
Monday, May 28, 2007
843. REFORMED NEWS
It's early days for REFORMED NEWS but I wouldn't be surprised to find myself visiting this site regularly
for sane and accurate coverage of the goings on in and around that funny little part of the Christian Church
you might call the "Reformed World".
Monday, May 28, 2007
844. CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
My copy of Ali McLachlan's address at a recent Christian schooling conference arrived yesterday and it's just
as good the second time around. See HERE for details. For Brits, this is a quite superb 50 minute starter for
considering the (irrefutable, incontrovertible, and unstoppable) case for Christian schooling.
Meantime, Peter Leithart's recent address, notes of which are HERE, is as inspiring and compelling as it is
embarassing.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
845. INCREDIBLE AND AMAZING
Incredible does not mean amazing - it means un-believable.
Amazing does not mean incredible - it means astonishing.
Here are some incredible and some amazing paragraphs from Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything.
It's important to distinguish the incredible from the amazing. Other value words which might come in useful
are arrogant, stupid, wonderful, remarkable, fascinating, and stubborn. And, though you wouldn't get this
from Bryson, the phrase you'll most want about your person in reading these is, "All praise to our glorious
Creator God".
According to Guth’s theory, at one ten-millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second, gravity
emerged. After another ludicrously brief interval it was joined by electromagnetism and the strong and weak
nuclear forces -- the stuff of physics. These were joined an instant later by shoals of elementary particles -- the
stuff of stuff. From nothing at all, suddenly there were swarms of photons, protons, electrons, neutrons and
much else – between 1079 and 1089 of each, according to the standard Big Bang theory.
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I should say that everything is just right so far. In the long term, gravity may turn out to be a little too
strong; one day it may halt the expansion of the universe and bring it collapsing in upon itself, until it
crushes itself down into another singularity, possibly to start the whole process over again. On the
other hand, it may be too weak, in which case the universe will keep racing away for ever until
everything is so far apart that there is no chance of material interactions, so that the universe becomes
a place that is very roomy, but inert and dead. The third option is that gravity is perfectly pitched –
‘critical density’ is the cosmologists’ term for it – and that it will hold the universe together at just the
right dimensions to allow things to go on indefinitely. Cosmologists, in their lighter moments,
sometimes called this the ‘Goldilocks effect’ – that everything is just right. 35
With their radio telescopes they can capture wisps of radiation so preposterously faint that the total
amount of energy collected from outside the solar system by all of them together since collecting
began (in 1951) is ‘less than the energy of a single snowflake striking the ground’, in the words of Carl
Sagan.
Far from marking the outer edge of the solar system, as those school-room maps so cavalierly imply,
Pluto is barely one-fifty-thousandth of the way.
The sun accounts for 99% of the mass of the solar system.
How fast you are spinning depends on where you are. The speed of the Earth's spin varies from
something over 1600 km an hour at the equator to zero at the poles. In London the speed is 998 km an
hour.
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In 1781 Herschel became the first person in the modern era to discover a planet. He wanted to call it
George, after the British monarch, but was overruled. Instead it became Uranus.
Astronomers today believe the Astronomers today believe there are perhaps 140 billion galaxies in the
visible universe.
At sea level, at a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius, one cubic centimetre of air (that is, a space about
the size of a sugar cube) will contain 45 billion billion molecules. And they are in every single cubic
centimetre you see around you. 175-76
Above all, atoms are tiny -- very tiny indeed. Half a million of them lined up shoulder to shoulder
could hide behind a human hair. 176
Neutrons and protons occupy the atom’s nucleus. The nucleus of an atom is tiny -- only one-millionth
of a billionth of the full volume of the atom -- but fantastically dense, since it contains virtually all the
atom’s mass. As Cropper has put it, if an atom were expanded to the size of a cathedral, the nucleus
would be only about the size of a fly -- but a fly many times heavier than the cathedral. 184
It is still a fairly astounding notion to consider that atoms are mostly empty space, and that the
solidity we experience all around us is an illusion. When two objects come together in the real world -the billiard balls are most often used for illustration -- they don't actually strike each other. "Rather,"
as Timothy Ferris explains, "the negatively charged fields of the two balls repel each other … [W]ere it
not for their electrical charges they could, like galaxies, passed right through each other unscathed."
When you sit in a chair, you are not actually sitting there, but levitating above it at a height of one
angstrom (a hundred millionth of a centimetre), your electrons and its electrons implacably opposed
to any closer intimacy. 184
Saturday, June 02, 2007
846. TOTALITARIANISM
Perry de Havilland HERE:
Britain has no gulags, no killing fields, it has a relatively free press (though less so than it
was), it has no internal passports (though they are working on that with ID cards and panoptic
surveillance)... but every year we take more and more steps towards the destruction of a
voluntary civil society of free interaction and its replacement with a state in which no aspect of
life is not politically regulated. This is often described as making things 'more democratic'...
and in that the supporters of the total state are not being disingenuous, for democracy is just a
type of politics after all.
We are headed for a different kind of totalitarianism than that of Stalin or Hitler or Mao, but a
total state really is what a great many people have in mind for us all. They seek a sort of
'smiley face fascism' in which all interactions are regulated in the name of preventing sexism,
promoting health, and defending the environment. The excuses will not invoke the Glory of
the Nation or the Proletariat or the Volk or the King or the Flag or any of those old fashioned
tools for tyrants, but rather it will be "for our own good", "for the Planet", "for the whales",
"for the children", "for the disabled" or "for equality".
But if they get their way it will be quite, quite totalitarian.
Monday, June 04, 2007
847. I CORINTHIANS 15.35-49
v.35 – two questions: a) by what power? b) in what form?
35 But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?"
vv.36-38 – general answer to a) – the power of the Creator God
36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the
body that will be, but a naked grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he
has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.
vv.39-41 – general answer to b) – its own distinct form
39 All flesh is not the same: humans have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish
another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the glory of the heavenly bodies is
one kind, and the glory of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of glory, the moon another
and the stars another; and star differs from star in glory.
vv.42-44a – resurrection body answer to b) – incorruptible, glorious, powerful, Spiritual
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is corruptible, it is raised
incorruptible; 43 it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it
is sown the embodiment of ordinary nature, it is raised as the embodiment of the Spirit.
vv.44b-49 – resurrection body answer to a) – the Spirit-life-giving power of the risen Lord Jesus, the Manwho-will-come-from-Heaven. If there is an ordinary natural body, there is also a Spirit-empowered glorybody.
45 So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, life-giving Spirit. 46 The ‘ofthe-Spirit’ did not come first, but the ‘of-ordinary-nature’, and after that the ‘of-the-Spirit’. 47 The first man
was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48 As the ‘Man Who Came From The Earth’, so are
those who are of the earth; and as the ‘Man Who Comes From Heaven’, so also are those who are of heaven. 49
And just as we have borne the image of the One-from-Earth, so shall we bear the image of the One-fromHeaven.
A. Introduction: How does hope work?
If the desirable state is uncertain then we act to make it true
If the desirable state is certain then we act because it’s true
- better understanding of the story – live accordingly
- better understanding of what matters – live accordingly
B. Amazing bodies – vv35-44a
From death we will be raised by the Creator God to a different level of embodiedness / physicality. We will
have amazing bodies.
Generally:
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Discontinuity/death – 36-37
Really a body – 35, 38
Work of God – 38
Different sorts / levels – 39-41
Particularly:
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Not corruptible but incorruptible
Not dishonourable but glorious
Not weak but powerful
Not ordinary nature but Spirit-empowered
C. Advanced-level humanness – and all because of Jesus – vv44b-49
Adam was flawless but immature. If he’d obeyed then he’d have moved to advanced-level humanness. He
disobeyed. Jesus’s life and death dealt with Adam’s disobedience and brought him forgiveness. Jesus’s
resurrection is his elevation to advanced-level humanness (Spirit-empowered glory life) and those in him
(with an increasing-maturity down-payment now) will come to share that Spirit-empowered glory-life at the
End.
Jesus is the model and the means. He is the pattern and the power. All eyes on him.
D. And so …
a) Because of a better understanding of the story we are able to
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cope with weakness
groan for glory
rejoice in hope
move to maturity
b) Because of a better understanding of what matters we place a higher value on
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creation, the body, physicality
people (Christians and non-Christians)
our risen, life-giving, Lord Jesus Christ
Monday, June 04, 2007
848. JOEL GARVER PCA AND NPP/FV
Joel Garver is applying some continents from his planet-sized brain to the PCA report on NPP and FV.
Some Positives - it's not all bad
A Pastoral Letter - the work of others reproduced on Joel Garver's site
Some Concerns 1 - a taste of the posts to come
Some Concerns 2 - how NPP and FV are representing by the PCA report - getting serious now.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
849. PERFECTING OURSLEVES TO DEATH
Richard Winter's Perfecting Ourselves to Death: The Pursuit of Excellence and the Perils of Perfectionism
(Downers Grove, Il.: IVP, 2005) had some interesting moments:
Distinguish the Driving Perfectionist (relentlessly pressing on, striving and straining) from the Defeated
Perfectionist (paralysed and downcast by the certainty that failure (to achieve perfection) is inevitable).
“Defeated perfectionists often become victims of their own high standards. They carry in their heads, partly
subconscious, a picture of who they want to be and who they firmly believe they can and should be: their ideal
self. When things are going well, they almost live up to this fantasy, but as soon as something goes wrong, as
soon as some flaw or failure is noticeable, then their tendency to all-or-nothing thinking takes hold.” 34
Types of Perfectionism:
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Performance Perfectionism – I achieve or I am nothing
Appearance Perfectionism – I look just right or I am nobody
Interpersonal Perfectionism – You / I should do things this way or I despise you/myself
Moral Perfectionism – You / I must behave perfectly or I despise you/myself
All-around Perfectionism – I am perfectly in control or life is horrible
Another classification:
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Self-oriented – I place high demands upon myself
Socially-prescribed – I must meet the high standards I believe others demand of me
Other-oriented – I place high demands upon others
Characteristics of perfectionists:
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Performance anxiety
Procrastination
Indecision
Obsessive-compulsion
Anger
Over-sensitive conscience
Perfectionists think digitally: black-white; all-nothing; tidy-mess; success-failure. Think of how they react to
learning a language / musical instrument, how they report their performance in a public task, how they think
of their relationships.
Dangers for perfectionists:
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Intolerance of ambiguity
Rigidity / resistance to change
Tyranny of ought / should
Fear of making mistakes
Attraction to legalism
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
850. GARVER ON BAPTISMAL REGENERATION
Amazing! Joel Garver's responses to comments on his blog are better than 99% of formally published 'serious'
pieces.
Here he sets out what he does and doesn't think could be said and should be allowed in relation to the function
and effects of baptism:
Andy. Thanks for your comments and quotations. They help me better understand the issues
that troubles you.
I can assume, then, that you agree with Hodge that, in the believing reception of baptism, the
Holy Spirit reconveys and faith reappropriates the forgiveness of sins, ingrafting into Christ,
the Spirit himself, and, in general, the benefits of Christ's mediation?
If so, then that is the primary point I was trying to affirm in my quotation of Hodge, in
agreement, I think, with FV authors and certainly with my own views.
The real sticking point for you then seems to be "regeneration" and its relationship to
baptism.
Let me try to say something constructive here.
First, let's stipulate that by "regeneration" we mean the result of effectual calling, a sovereign
work of the Spirit, renewing and renovating the heart, so that a person is enabled to put actual
faith in Gospel so to receive and rest upon Christ for salvation.
Second, I want to be absolutely clear that I believe that this regeneration can be enjoyed quite
apart from baptism and that there are many who are baptized who are never regenerated.
Third, I would whole-heartedly affirm that this regeneration is something ordinarily wrought
by the Spirit through the preaching of the Word.
None of that is in dispute in what I am saying nor, as far as I can see, in what FV proponents
are saying.
None of that, however, is in the least conflict with the following affirmations:
[1] While infants are incapable of experiencing actual regeneration and the exercise of faith in
particular acts, infants are nonetheless capable of having the seed and root of regeneration
and faith, that is to say, the Holy Spirit at work in their lives.
[2] In infant baptism, faithful parents should have the hopeful expectation that the Holy Spirit
is present and active, so that, whatever prior operations of the Spirit may have been present in
the infant, the Spirit ordinarily (re)conveys himself to our children in baptism as the seed and
root of their regeneration and faith.
[3] We should, therefore, also expect that in the ordinary process of Christian nurture of
children by faithful parents, the Spirit will use the preaching and teaching of Word to bring
the seed and root of regeneration and faith to fruition in actual regeneration and the exercise
of faith. That's to say, even our baptized children need to hear the Gospel and be called to
repentance and faith, as do all God's people.
[4] Thus, following from the previous points, it is perfectly natural to say, with respect to our
children, that "we baptize in order that the one who is baptized be made regenerate." That is
to say, baptism is among the ordinary means at God's disposal by which he works in the lives
of our children along the way to regeneration and faith, which are properly and ordinarily
wrought by the Word.
[5] In the case of adult converts, they are presumably already believers before they come to
baptism and thus are already regenerate.
[6] Nonetheless, as Hodge says, "the benefits of redemption, the remission of sin, the gift of
the Spirit, and the merits of the Redeemer, are not conveyed to the soul once for all. They are
reconveyed and reappropriated on every new act of faith, and on every new believing
reception of the sacraments."
[7] That's to say, in baptism, faith is strengthened and increased so that we more and more die
to sin and walk in newness of life, which is the progress and increase of regenerating grace
(WCF 31.1; WLC 167).
[8] Thus, following from these points, it is perfectly natural to say, with respect to an adult
convert, that "we baptize in order that the one who is baptized...might grow in his
regeneration." That is to say, baptism is among the ordinary means at God's disposal by which
he works in the lives of converts to strength and increase their faith unto newness of life.
[9] There are other complicating cases, of course, such as the adult who is baptized in unbelief
but subsequently comes to faith or the child who dies in infancy prior to being able to be
called through the preaching of the Word. But I'll set those aside for present purposes.
[10] Since we cannot look upon the heart, we extend the judgment of charity to all the
baptized who profess faith and who are not living scandalously. That is to say, we have a
hopeful expectation that what God has signified and sealed sacramentally is actually true in
fact. Thus we speak to and about such baptized professors as "regenerate." Moreover, this
judgment of charity is grounded in what Reformed theology has typically termed
"regeneration" in a "merely external, sacramental, and conditional" sense.
Okay, I hope that is all relatively clear.
Now, how does all of that intersect with what you quoted from Hodge and Miller?
First, I certainly do not at all affirm that "baptism regenerates" in the sense that Hodge denies
that "baptism regenerates." We are coming at the question and terminology from different
angles and with different meanings.
Second, I don't know the details of Hodge well enough to say, but I suspect he probably would
not agree with what I believe about baptized infants of faithful parents. The way he speaks of
baptized children as needing to "ratify that covenant by faith" suggests this perhaps, though I
certainly could agree with that statement in the sense that children need to grow up into
repentance and faith through the preaching of the Gospel.
Third, I'm convinced that my probable disagreement with Hodge here is part of a historic and
ongoing difference of opinion within the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition, going back to
the Westminster Assembly itself and before. There were conservative 19th century American
Presbyterians who essentially agreed with what I've said above and there were those who
didn't. All of our views are well within the bounds of the Westminster Standards and this is
historically demonstrable.
Fourth, I fail to see how what I have outlined above bears any direct relationship to the kind of
Anglo-Catholic sacerdotalism that Hodge describes and opposes. I'm not an Anglo-Catholic
and my views come largely out of the Puritans and 17th century Reformed scholastics - not
Pusey or Newman.
I expect we'll disagree on some of these details, and that's okay. I think our confessional
tradition is broad enough to include a healthy spectrum of opinion, but we probably disagree
about that too. Alas.
I hope at least this might clarify where I, at least, am coming from.
07 June, 2007 20:52
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
851. GARVER ON WRIGHT ON IMPUTATION/JUSTIFICATION
THIS PIECE is just wonderfully clear in setting out Tom Wright's views on imputation, righteousness of God,
and justification. It's part of Joel Garver's third response to the PCA report on NPP/FV. Here are some of
the crucial paragraphs:
... a "denial of imputed righteousness" is ambiguous and could have several distinct meanings.
First, a "denial of imputed righteousness" could mean a rejection of a particular construal of
either what is meant by "imputed" (e.g., seeing it as primarily a bookkeeping metaphor) or
what is meant by "righteousness" (e.g., seeing it primarily in terms of meritorious law-keeping
or moral accomplishment) or both. But rejecting these construals does not entail a rejection of
the view that believers have legal title to Christ's righteousness in other senses.
Second, it could mean that the specific New Testament texts typically seen as teaching
imputed righteousness (e.g., those that use the terms "impute" or speak of the "righteousness
of God") are not in fact speaking of such an imputed righteousness. But this does not preclude
us from deriving a doctrine of imputed righteousness from the New Testament by other
exegetical routes.
Third, it could mean that Wright does indeed deny any sort of imputed righteousness
altogether. But, even if that were the case (and I'm not convinced it is), this would not mean
that Wright's wider exegetical proposals, even if accepted, necessarily require us to come to
the same conclusion. That's to say, it seems to me that one could be deeply sympathetic with
Wright's overall treatment of justification and yet come to a different conclusion on imputed
righteousness.
Having set out these distinctions, I shall argue that Wright's "denial of imputed
righteousness" falls under the first and second sense of what that might mean. Therefore,
there is nothing in Wright's views that entails a denial of imputed righteousness understood in
a different way from the sense he rejects and upon a somewhat different exegetical grounds.
But let's examine the way in which the report arrives at its apparently more sweeping
conclusion: that Wright rejects imputation altogether.
It seems to me that the report goes astray when it takes Wright's arguments against particular
understandings of dikaiosune theou and logizomai as uses them as lenses through which to
view his theology more generally. In doing so, it misunderstands the precise target of Wright's
criticisms of "imputation" and, I think, mistakenly concludes that Wright would reject "any
understanding" of "transfer language" in the New Testament.
Let's consider the details here.
Paul uses the phrase "righteousness of God" (dikaiosune theou) on several occasions in
Romans and elsewhere. In much traditional exegesis this is taken to refer primarily to a
righteousness that God has and which he gives over to human beings for their justification (by
infusion in the case of Roman Catholic understandings and by imputation in the case of
Protestant understandings).
Building upon earlier exegesis (including Reformed figures such as Ridderbos and Cranfield,
as well as Lutherans such as Kasemann), Wright suggests that "righteousness of God" needs
to be read against the Old Testament use of the phrase and similar phrases. In that context,
according to Wright, it means something more like "God's righteous character as creator and
redeemer, particularly as manifest in his faithfulness to his covenant promises."
So, for Wright the argument in Romans has to do in part with the question of how it is that
God can be righteous given that he has promised salvation through Israel, but Israel is an
unfit and faithless vessel for this promised salvation. How will God come through on his
promises of salvation in the face of human sin? How will God vindicate himself as just and
righteous, particularly given that divine justice would seem to have to punish sin rather than
pardon it as promised?
Paul's answer, as Wright reads him, is that the "righteousness of God" is manifest in the
person and work of Jesus as the Messiah, by which God's promises to Israel for the salvation
of humanity are indeed kept, but sin is also dealt with definitively.
The difficulty with all of this for traditional readings, however, is that one of the customary
proof texts for "imputation of God's (or Christ's) righteousness" is taken away.
When the report cites Wright as rejecting the view that "the righteousness of God" is imputed
to sinners, it refers to Wright's lexical conclusion about the meaning of dikaiosune theou and
not a general theological stance against the notion of imputed righteousness per se (2219:1329). The report's argument appears to overreach here by using Wright's lexical comments as a
lens through which to consider his theology of justification.
It's worth noting at this point, that Wright's understanding of dikaiosune theou here is not
without some precedent in either the Reformation or wider catholic tradition. Ambrose, for
instance, took the "righteousness" here to be "the mercy of God pardoning and forgiving
sins...For it is the righteousness of God because he bestows what has been promised." Bucer
argues along similar lines, while nonetheless holding to imputation.
The question, then, is whether the doctrine of imputation requires a particular interpretation
of dikaiosune theou or whether one can provide a biblical case for imputed righteousness
apart from this "proof text." It seems to me that the biblical doctrine of imputation does not
rest upon so slim an exegetical basis, so that one's interpretation of dikaiosune theou need not
count against a commitment to the doctrine of imputed righteousness.
A further issue is how Wright interprets logizomai.
Wright seems to suggest that none of the passages that actually use the word "impute"
(logizomai) really talk about an imputed righteousness, in the sense of some kind of transfer
of Christ's righteousness from his account to ours. The word does mean to "account" or
"regard" or "reckon," but in context Wright suggests that it is, for instance, Abraham's faith
that God sees and that faith which he reckons to Abraham as righteousness. If there's an
imputation of Christ's righteousness here, it's not directly on the surface of the text (2220:19).
So part of the difficulty is that the biblical use of "impute" doesn't match up exactly with how
"impute" is used in our systematic theology. D.A. Carson agrees, by the way, in a essay where
he interacts with Wright's view, where Carson sees "imputation" (in the traditional systematic
theological sense) as a theological implication of the New Testament text - a way of expressing
and filling out the forensic character of justification in dogmatic language - rather than
something that is directly taught by Scripture using the term in its lexical meaning.
So what does Wright actually believe about justification? Allow me to set this out in some
detail, because many of Wright's own summaries often end up, I think, being too succinct and
thus liable to confusion.
Wright believes that justification, in the context of the Old Testament, referred to God's
eschatological judgment (see, for instance, his brief "The Shape of Justification"). In this
judgment, all persons would be brought before the divine law-court and judged - either
condemning them to eternal death or finding them to be "in the right" before the court,
rendering a verdict of "not guilty."
According to Wright, this justifying verdict was promised to God's people throughout the Old
Testament as part of the covenant he made with them. Moreover, God promised (particularly
in the prophets) that this verdict would take the form of vindicating restoration: the enemies
of God and of his people (ultimately sin and death) would be judged and destroyed, and God's
people would be restored and raised to everlasting life, constituting them, thereby, as his one
true, righteous covenant people, redeemed and forgiven.
Thus, in the broadest terms, for Wright justification is both forensic and covenantal. It is
forensic in that it is a vindicating verdict of "righteous" before the divine court. It is covenantal
in that it is the fulfillment of God's covenant promises to Israel and, through Israel, the whole
world. It is also covenantal in that God's verdict is spoken over those who, in that verdict, are
constituted as his righteous covenant people.
The difficulty with the Old Testament picture, Wright suggests, is that it is unclear how God
could possibly come through on his promises. Israel was unfaithful and deserved the same
judgment as her enemies. Even the seemingly faithful remnant of Israel was plagued by
unfaithfulness. And, besides, God's promise had always been that his salvation would go out
into all the world and among all nations, through the vessel of Israel. But now the vessel
proved unfit.
This is where Jesus fits into the plan of God, as Wright understands it.
Where Israel was unfaithful, Wright notes that Jesus remained faithful, taking up the identity
and vocation of Israel for the sake of the whole world, living out the truly human identity and
vocation as Son of God incarnate. Jesus' vocation led to the cross as the place where God deals
with and condemns sin and death once and for all, thereby, enabling God to come through on
his covenant promise even in the face of human unfaithfulness. In raising Jesus from death,
God's pronounces his verdict over Jesus' faithful life and death, granting him the
eschatological justification that had been promised.
Again, justification here is, for Wright, both forensic and covenantal. In raising Jesus from the
dead, God declares him to be in the right - to be righteous - before the divine court and,
moreover, that sin and death have been dealt with through the cross. This verdict is, at the
same time, God's fulfillment of his covenant promises and the declaration that Jesus, as
Messiah, is the true eschatological covenant people of God.
But the office of Messiah is, as Wright repeatedly insists, a legally representative office of king,
so that what is true of the king is true of his people. All who put their faith in Jesus as the
Messiah - and in what God has accomplished through him - are incorporated in the Messiah's
people. Thus, what is true of the Messiah (legally and otherwise), is true of them.
Wright sums it up this way:
the basis of justification is God’s covenant-faithful action in and through the
death and resurrection of Jesus both as Israel’s Messiah and as the
incarnation of the one true God. Since what is true of the Messiah is true of
his people, all those who are "in the Messiah" by baptism and faith have his
death and resurrection reckoned to them so that when God looks at them he
sees Calvary and Easter ("Answers" March 2004)
That is to say, the condemnation of sin that Jesus experienced on the cross and the verdict
pronounced over Jesus in his resurrection are reckoned to all who, through faith, are united to
Jesus as Messiah and Son of God. Our sin is dealt with in him and his resurrection status as
"righteous" (a result of his life of faithfulness unto death) is accounted to us.
Wright, therefore, does not reject the idea of "God's reckoning Christ' righteousness to us" but
re-configures it.
Thus, while there's a sense in which Wright "rejects imputation" (in terms of the meaning of
dikaiosune theou and logizomai in the New Testament), there is another sense in which
Wright's views are quite open to more imputational understandings, in terms of theological
exposition and filling out of the biblical picture.
Wright might also reject the notion of a "transfer" of Jesus' life of faithfulness unto death (i.e.,
his righteousness) to our account as the basis for God's separate verdict over us. But that
rejection involves Jesus' righteousness only insofar it is abstracted from God's verdict over
Jesus in the resurrection and the reckoning of that verdict to all who are in Christ by faith.
By focusing in upon Wright's lexical analysis of Pauline terminology and by latching onto
Wright's qualms concerning "transfer" language, the report seems to obscure the positive
content of Wright's account of justification that, as far as I can see, accomplishes the very
same thing as traditional understandings of imputation.
I apologize for taking up so much space expositing what I understand of Wright's views. But
there is so much confusion afoot over these matters that I thought they deserved more
extensive attention.
Even if I am mistaken about the details of Wright's own views, I hope I have demonstrated
that such an interpretation of Wright is not implausible and, moreover, that an account of
justification that is deeply sympathetic with Wright's emphases is not in any way hostile
towards a robust affirmation of imputation. ...
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
852. PSALM 68.6 AND GENESIS 2.18
In seventeenth century England and New England it was regarded as "not good that a man should be alone"
and so the authorities took it that the Lord wanted "to settle the solitary in a home". From David Hackett
Fischer's book, Albion's Seed, p.73:
So important was the idea of a covenanted family in Massachusetts that everyone was
compelled by law to live in family groups. As early as 1629 the Governor and Deputies of the
colony ordered that:
For the better accommodation of businesses, we have divided the servants
belonging to the Company into several families, as we desire and intend they
should live together. … Our earnest desire is, that you take special care, in
settling these families, that the chief in the family (at least some of them) be
grounded in religion; whereby morning and evening family duties may be
duly performed, and a watchful eye held over all in each family … that so
disorders may be prevented, and ill weeds nipped before they take too great a
head.
The provinces of Connecticut and Plymouth also forbade any single person to “live of himself.”
These laws were enforced. In 1668 the court of Middlesex County, Massachusetts,
systematically searched its towns for single persons and placed them in families. In 1672 the
Essex County Court noted:
Being informed that John Littleale of Haverhill lay in a house by himself
contrary to the law of the country, whereby he is subject to much sin and
iniquity, which ordinarily are the companions and consequences of a solitary
life, it was ordered … he remove and settle himself in some orderly family in
the town, and be subject to the orderly rules of family government. One
stubborn loner, John Littleale, was given six weeks to comply, on pain of
being sent to “settle himself in the House of Correction.”
This custom was not invented in New England. It had long been practiced in East Anglia.
From as early as 1562 to the mid-seventeenth century, The High Constables’ Sessions and
Quarter Courts of Essex County in England had taken similar action against “single men,”
“bachelors,” and “masterless men.” The Puritans took over this custom and endowed it with
the spiritual intensity of their faith.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
853. JESUS, ISRAEL, TYPOLOGY, MATTHEW
There's much enjoyment, education and edification to be had HERE - a paper by Peter Leithart on "Jesus as
Israel: The Typological Structure of Matthew's Gospel"
Friday, June 08, 2007
854. LAST TWO FROM JOEL GARVER ON PCA NPP/FV REPORT
What a splendid, careful, moderate and yet devastating, precise, insightful, educational piece of work this has
been.
Joel Garver's last two posts can be seen HERE and HERE.
Friday, June 08, 2007
855. KINGDOM NOW - GERALD COATES
What's the point of having a cyber-common-place book if you can't capture old stuff on it?
Gerald Coates, the apostolic postman, wrote some fun / provocative things in his 1993 book, Kingdom Now!
Here are some that caught my attention back then. Yeah, yeah, he's all over the place on some things but - a
billion times more important - he is radically committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. I love this man's spirit:

Maturity is "aiming for the ideal while living with the actual" 20

Our role is to bring heaven to earth, the kingdom of heaven, through our personal lives, our
relationships, and the various structures that are set up ... 33

Maybe when our so-called civilization has caved in, like all others who went this liberal way, a new
civilization will emerge ... 47

The root of worldliness is exposed when someone asks, "Can I borrow your car?" 74

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's" is among the
most profound of Jesus's teachings. But our role in life is to ensure that Caesar is stopped from
making off with the lot! Caesar now runs most of our schools, hospitals, and just about every other
area of life. The government does have a responsibility before God to maintain law and order and to
defend our nation. But it does not have the right or responsibility to educate our children, care for the
sick, and legislate on matters without reference to God. We must deal with worldliness and make our
faith in God (not things) public! In Britain, I am told, we live in a post-Christian era. I believe we live
in a pre-Christian era. 76

Self-disillusionment is the key to spiritual maturity. 86

Passing the buck started in the garden of Eden. 86

New Year's Eve 1990: "I stood on the steps between two of our living-rooms and we raised our glasses
"to the King and the Kingdom". 95

Modern practice is effectively to allow baptism as a reward for good conduct ... "In the NT they were
baptised almost immediately, which led to 'newness of life' but in the twentieth century, newness of
life must be demonstrated for some considerable time beforehand" 97 [DF 2007 comment - and the
same criticism applies in relation to the Lord's Supper to those paedo-baptists who deny paedocommunion]

The signal of delayed baptism to new Christians is, "Prove yourself, do well, fit into the pattern of
things and we will bless you." 97

It is absurd to be breaking bread together when the only 'communion' is between you and the Lord!
The whole thing is a farce. 98

We get disillusioned with one another because we have illusions about each other. 106

An agreement-keeping God, a covenant-keeping God, can only be seen clearly among an agreementkeeping, covenant-keeping people. 110

We in the Protestant church ... have relegated the arts, including drama, to the world. And we should
not be surprised that the world has filled them up with what only the world could fill them up with.
128

If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans. If you want to hear him laugh even louder, tell him
what you know. 131

The Kingdom of God is not a celestial utopia to be aimed at but an ever present reality to be lived in.
140

When that Kingdom comes through the holy lives of believers, the private sharing of the gospel and
the public proclamation and preaching of the gospel; when the prophetic word lights a flame in the
hearts and minds of individuals and people groups and signs and wonders are done, proving that the
gospel is not simply a set of rational propositions and moral idealism - war is declared. Two groups
claiming the same piece of territory are always engaged in war. 140
Monday, June 11, 2007
856. WHY THE REFORMATION STILL MATTERS
Follow the link HERE to hear George Grant on "Why the Reformation still matters". This was a simple
message delivered (3rd June 07, Christ Church, Leyton) with charm, erudition, and passion (and without a
single note and barely a hesitation - an astonishing 'performance').
In brief, as I recall, it went something like this:
1. Our situation is like Luther's:
- crusty, oppressive old church structures
- anti-formalist pietistic reaction
- sacred/secular divide
- threat of advancing Islam
2. Our response should be like Luther's:
- Christ alone (as mediator/saviour)
- Scripture alone (as ultimate authority)
- Grace alone (as grounds for hope)
- Faith alone (as means of appropriating the benefits of Christ's work)
- Glory of God alone (as ultimate end)
Conclusion: Be confident. Don't get distracted.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
857. INFINITY AND THE ZERO-SUM GAME
Perspectivalism, analogy, anti-pantheism - it's all here in one paragraph of Charles Hodge's. Systematic
Theology, I.V.A:
The Infinite not the All
A thing may be infinite in its own nature without precluding the possibility of the existence of
things of a different nature. An infinite spirit does not forbid the assumption of the existence
of matter. There may even be many infinites of the same kind, as we can imagine any number
of infinite lines. The infinite, therefore, is not all. An infinite spirit is a spirit to whose
attributes as a spirit no limits can be set. It no more precludes the existence of other spirits
than infinite goodness precludes the existence of finite goodness, or infinite power the
existence of finite power. God is infinite in being because no limit can be assigned to his
perfections, and because He is present in all portions of space. A being is said to be present
wherever it perceives and acts. As God perceives and acts everywhere, He is everywhere
present. This however, does not preclude the presence of other beings. A multitude of men
even may perceive and act at the same time and place. Besides, we have very little knowledge
of the relation which spirit bears to space. We know that bodies occupy portions of space to
the exclusion, of other bodies; but we do not know that spirits may not coexist in the same
portion of space. A legion of demons dwelt in one man.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
858. WHAT IS THE "FEDERAL VISION"?
At the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America yesterday, a report on the "Federal Vision"
(and the "New Perspective on Paul") was accepted.
I think that the report is flawed in many ways (see HERE and links from HERE) and that it's pretty shameful
that it wasn't booted out.
(The committee which produced it was made up of men most of whom had published hostile
comments to the Federal Vision before they began their committee work; the main FV
protagonists were not consulted; the report does not deal sufficiently with the biblical
arguments of the FV men; it misrepresents their views; it is ham-fisted in its treatment of
theological language - both confused (it fails to distinguish) and worrying (the Bible is read
through and under the Confession rather than the other way around); and more.)
As to what the "Federal Vision" is, here are some leads:

A superb short statement of some central concerns - AAPC Baptism

A single page blogpost "What is the Federal Vision?" - David Cassidy

A very brief clarifying response - AAPC Heterodoxy

Another - brief and clear - set of explanations - Lusk Covenant

In more detail - Steve Wilkins replies to common questions - Wilkins response

Further resources HERE and HERE.
But, thinking about the PCA GA, just remember that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone*
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
859. A DIFFERENT SORT OF LIBERAL DEMOCRAT
I've no idea how many others in the Liberal Democrat party share his views (two? three?) but for a month now
I've been popping back to Tom Papworth's site, LiberalPolemic, and over and over I find myself applauding
his small government instincts.
Of course, I despise the whole political game as played these days (HERE) but it's refreshing to stumble
across classical liberalism in such an unlikely place as amongst the Liberal Democrats.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
860. PETER LEITHART CONFESSES
I admit that the doings of the PCA are a bit of a minority interest amongst UK Christians but Peter Leithart has
responded to the acceptance of the PCA report on NPP and FV by writing to the stated clerk of his presbytery.
He has posted his letter HERE and I think it makes an interesting and instructive read. After the opening
paragraph of Leithart's letter I have placed below the relevant "Declarations" of the PCA report and then
Leithart's responses/comments.
Leithart:
To the Stated Clerk:
I don't know if I'm technically required to send this letter, but following the GA's vote on the
Federal Vision study committee yesterday, I thought it would be helpful for the Presbytery if I
laid out my views on the specific subjects covered in the study committee report. I am happy
to discuss this further with the Presbytery, and will also cheerfully submit to any decision the
Presbytery might make concerning my fitness to continue as a PCA Teaching Elder. I have
tried to be clear and precise, but no doubt I've failed at various point, and I am happy to
provide clarification.
I deal with the nine recommendations of the committee report in turn.
PCA Report:
1. The view that rejects the bi-covenantal structure of Scripture as represented in the
Westminster Standards (i.e., views which do not merely take issue with the terminology, but
the essence of the first/second covenant framework) is contrary to those Standards.
Leithart:
1. Bi-covenantal structure: There is discontinuity between the Adamic covenant and the postlapsarian covenants, though I do not believe the discontinuity lies in the manner of
communion with God. God sovereignly created Adam in a state of favor, and Adam was to
walk in that favor by faith that expressed itself in obedience. So also, God sovereignly brings
us into a state of favor through His Son, and we walk in that favor by faith expressed in
obedience. The differences between Adamic and post-lapsarian covenants are not at a
"soteriological" level (i.e., not a contrast of a "legal" versus a "gracious" covenant), but at the
level of covenant administration.
PCA Report:
2. The view that an individual is “elect” by virtue of his membership in the visible church; and
that this “election” includes justification, adoption and sanctification; but that this individual
could lose his “election” if he forsakes the visible church, is contrary to the Westminster
Standards.
Leithart:
2. Election by baptism: The committee statement is ambiguous, since "election" can refer to
the general election that applies to all who are members of the chosen new Israel or to the
special, eternal election of the eschatological Israel. In either case, though, I don't believe that
election is "by virtue of" baptism. Election, in both its general and special senses, is an
unconditional sovereign act of God. Baptism may express God's election to membership in the
church; but election is not dependent on baptism.
I suspect that the committee meant to deal with a view of this sort: Baptism expresses God's
eternal sovereign choice of an individual to be a member of the people of God; and those who
are members of the church stand righteous before God, are holy, and are sons because they
are members of the body inseparably joined to the Son of God, who is the righteous and holy
Son (1 Cor 6:11; Gal 3:28-29); these benefits of baptism, however, belong finally only to the
baptized who respond to God's grace in faith; there are some who are made sons by baptism
who fall away. That does express my view of baptism, and I refer you and the Presbytery to my
recent book, The Baptized Body, for elaboration.
In saying this, I am trying to reflect the biblical usage of various terms. The Standards use
terms like justification, sanctification, union to Christ, and adoption in a stipulated way;
according to the standards, these blessings, by definition, belong only to the elect. But the
Biblical usage is more elastic. Peter describes people who have been "rescued" from the world
"by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Pet 2:20), but the next verses show
that he is not talking about elect people. Paul talks about Israelites baptized into union with
Moses, who drink from Christ the Rock, and yet later fall in the wilderness (1 Cor 10:1-4).
Clearly, in these passages, rescue from the world and union with the covenant head are not
blessings that belong only to the elect.
I believe that the elect, and only the elect, will stand before God on the last day as righteous,
holy, forgiven sons. The elect will receive these benefits of Christ, and cannot lose them. But
that's not the only way these terms are used in Scripture.
PCA Report:
3. The view that Christ does not stand as a representative head whose perfect obedience and
satisfaction is imputed to individuals who believe in him is contrary to the Westminster
Standards.
Leithart:
3. Imputation of obedience: This is an issue I am still thinking about, and on which I don't
have a settled position. I affirm that Christ's obedience was necessary for our salvation, and
affirm too that Christ's history of obedience becomes the life story of those who are in Christ.
I'm not sure that "imputation" is the best way to express this. It's not clear to me that the
Westminster Standards require belief in the imputation of Christ's active obedience.
PCA Report:
4. The view that strikes the language of “merit” from our theological vocabulary so that the
claim is made that Christ’s merits are not imputed to his people is contrary to the
Westminster Standards.
Leithart:
4. Merit: I don't believe that Adam or any human being could merit anything before God. God
doesn't owe anything to man as wages earned. Nor do I believe that Jesus, the incarnate Son,
had to do anything to receive the favor of His Father. He is eternally favored by His Father,
and that favor is the starting point of His incarnate work not the end point. Yet, because the
eternal Son is the equal of the Father, He and His work have an inherent worth that no
creature has before God. If this is what "merit" expresses, I do not disagree.
PCA Report:
5. The view that “union with Christ” renders imputation redundant because it subsumes all of
Christ’s benefits (including justification) under this doctrinal heading is contrary to the
Westminster Standards.
Leithart:
5. Union with Christ: I do believe that all of Christ's benefits are "subsumed" under the
heading of union with Christ. This renders imputation "redundant" if imputation is seen as a
separate moment of justification, parallel to but distinct from union with Christ. We are
united with Christ; Christ is righteous; therefore, God regards us (considers us, counts us) as
righteous. This is imputation, but it is not a distinct act of imputation.
PCA Report:
6. The view that water baptism effects a “covenantal union” with Christ through which each
baptized person receives the saving benefits of Christ’s mediation, including regeneration,
justification, and sanctification, thus creating a parallel soteriological system to the decretal
system of the Westminster Standards, is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
Leithart:
6. Baptism and covenantal union: I do believe that baptism unites the baptized in covenant
with Christ. The import of this I've already discussion in point #2 above. I don't see this as a
"parallel" soteriological system to the decretal system. Rather, God works out His decrees in
history through the various covenantal structures of biblical history.
PCA Report:
7. The view that one can be “united to Christ” and not receive all the benefits of Christ’s
mediation, including perseverance, in that effectual union is contrary to the Westminster
Standards.
Leithart:
7. Union with Christ and benefits: I do believe that some are united to Christ yet do not
persevere (John 15). During the time they are branches in the vine, they do receive benefits
from Christ through the Spirit and may enjoy real, personal, and deep communion with Jesus
for a time. Yet, their relationship with Christ is not identical to the relationship of the elect.
Put it this way: Some are united to Christ as members of the bride but are headed for divorce;
others are united and headed for consummation. Marriages that end in divorce are not the
same as marriages that end happily. I have discussed this at further length in chapter 4 of The
Baptized Body.
PCA Report:
8. The view that some can receive saving benefits of Christ’s mediation, such as regeneration
and justification, and yet not persevere in those benefits is contrary to the Westminster
Standards.
Leithart:
8. Temporary benefits: I have already described my views on this above in #2 and 7. Biblically,
I am convinced that some are united to Christ but do not persevere (John 15; 2 Pet 2:20-22).
PCA Report:
9. The view that justification is in any way based on our works, or that the so-called “final
verdict of justification” is based on anything other than the perfect obedience and satisfaction
of Christ received through faith alone, is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
Leithart:
9. Justification by works: We are righteous before God by faith because we are united to Christ
the Righteous. James says that we are "justified by works." I don't know precisely how to take
James, but I believe we must, in faithfulness to Scripture, affirm that we are justified by works
in whatever sense that James means it.
As for judgment according to works, WCF 33.1 clearly teaches that we will receive according to
what we have done: "In which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise
all persons that have lived upon earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an
account of their thoughts, words, and deeds; and to receive according to what they have done
in the body, whether good or evil." Of course, our works are acceptable in Christ, but the
Confession states that we receive according to our works. I don't see how the committee's
statement on this subject is compatible with the Confession.
Please let me know if you require clarification on any of these points.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
861. DISSERTATIONS FOR LIFE
Entering the fourth year of your MTh and wondering about dissertation topics, you should definitely apply as a
criterion the degree to which
a) a possible topic excites you. If you don't want to get up and go to the library and start working on it
straightaway then something may be wrong
b) this may change your life. Ideally, sometime in the future you will look back and say
"Ah, yes ... 2007/08 - the year that

I got to know Ephesians by heart in Greek because I lived and breathed it all year for my work on its
chiastic structure

I began my lifelong relationship with Baxter's Christian Directory by immersion in his Ecclesiastical
Cases of Conscience

I got right through Bavinck's 4-vol Reformed Dogmatics because I compared it with Turretin to say,
"just what changed on in 225 yrs of Reformed Thought?"

I wrote "Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology: A preliminary evangelical appreciation and critique"

I got my head round the covenant by transcribing and expounding Thomas Blake's hugely important
but neglected 1658 work

I fixed for ever a key component of my preaching style by an examination of "rhetorical questions
addressed to the conscience in the application sections of sermons" "
Monday, June 18, 2007
862. PSALM CHANT PROMPTS
Of no use to you at all unless you possess the RSCM Common Worship Psalter with Chants (available HERE
or HERE), I have put online a deliberately imperfect set of Psalm Chant Prompts (see the attached notes
for explanations) which will help me as I get more serious about mastering hearty renditions of the Psalms in
Anglican Chant. If they help two other people in the world then I'm glad.
PSALM CHANT PROMPTS
.
Monday, June 18, 2007
863. GUILT BY ASSOCIATION (2)
See HERE.
The question:
Give biblical and theological guidelines on when and why an association with a sinner
becomes culpable involvement with their sin.
Notes: In your essay show familiarity with (but do NOT simply expound or critique) Bernard
Häring’s section “Complicity in the Sins of Others” in The Law of Christ, vol II, pp.494-517)
(Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1963/66). Copies of this section will be available in the
Academic Office but please do not take a copy unless you know that you are going to attempt
this essay.
Here are a few instances which are given to clarify the question but are NOT to be addressed
singly as though that itself would constitute an answer to the question.







buying a loaf of bread from an atheist baker;
setting up a business with a Buddhist;
attending the wedding of a Christian friend who is marrying a non-Christian;
taking the Lord’s Supper from a resurrection-denying minister;
co-signing a letter to the Times along with Muslims who, with you, wish to maintain
ideological freedom for “faith schools”;
putting a long-standing but unmarried couple to sleep in the same room when they
visit you;
continuing a conversation with your lesbian friends while they hold hands and kiss.
And - gathered from the students' answers:
100 Biblical passages of relevance to a consideration of
complicity, co-operation, and culpability
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
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50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
Genesis 3 if in authority and don’t restrain sin – guilty
Genesis 18.22-33 can lived surrounded by wicked(ness) and not be guilty
Exodus 32.21 Aaron brings sin upon them
Exodus 34.7 punished for the sins of the fathers
Leviticus 4.3 priest brings guilt on people
Leviticus 5.1 required to bear testimony of witnessed evil
Leviticus 11-15 cleanness laws teach about separation
Leviticus 20.4-5 refusal to deal with sin may be sin
Leviticus 25.44 trading with the surrounding nations
Numbers 14.18 // Ex 34.7
Numbers 16.20-24 congregation judged for siding with rebels
Deuteronomy 7.1-6 destroy, don’t intermarry (but Joseph and Egyptian; Moses and Midianite;
Samson and Philistine; Boaz and Moabite)
Deuteronomy 19.13 sinning brings sin on the land
Deuteronomy 22.23-27 show less consent means less culpable – rape
Deuteronomy 24.4 failure to punish brings sin on the land
Deuteronomy 24.16 every man shall be put to death for his own sin
Deuteronomy 28.12 trading with the nations
Joshua 2 faithful Rahab doesn’t leave the doomed city
Joshua 7 what knowledge / consent from Achan’s family?
Joshua 23.12 intermarriage forbidden
1 Samuel 2-4 Eli guilty in relation to his sons’ disobedience
1 Samuel 6.4 punishment of Philistines as community
1 Kings 7.13ff Solomon’s relationship with Hiram
1 Kings 16.13, 19 kings ‘made Israel to sin’ see also, e.g. 15.30
1 Kings 18 Elijah present at Baal worship!
1 Kings 21 Ahab’s ignorance of the detail of Jezebel’s action does not excuse him
2 Kings 3.13-14 associating with a sinner for the sake of another relationship while still bearing
witness to the truth
2 Kings 5.17-19 Naaman in the house of Rimmon
2 Kings 17.21 made Israel sin a great sin
2 Chronicles 18.1-19.2 Jehoshaphat’s sinful relationship with Ahab – see esp 19.2
2 Chronicles 20.35-37 Jehoshaphat’s sinful relationship with Ahaziah
2 Chronicles 24.18 whole community sins
Ezra 9.6 corporate guilt
Ezra 10.10-11 intermarriage forbidden
Nehemiah 13.26 intermarriage forbidden
Nehemiah 13.26 Solomon’s wives caused him to sin
Psalm 1 careful of company you keep
Psalm 24.1 material objects are not themselves evil
Proverbs 13.20 keeping company with the wicked is harmful
Proverbs 22.24-25 keep away from hot-headed man
Proverbs 24.21-22 careful of company you keep
Proverbs 29.24 partner of a thief hates his own soul
Isaiah 52.11 depart, touch no unclean thing
Jeremiah 32.18 // Ex 34.7
Ezekiel 3 see sin and not warn - culpable
Ezekiel 18 each die for own sin
Daniel 1 not eating but not refusing education/training
Hosea 1 Hosea told to marry a harlot
Amos 3.1 corporate guilt
Matthew 9.10-11 Jesus associated with sinners even when others offended
Matthew 11.19 accusations against Jesus because of the company he keeps
Matthew 18.6 you can “cause” others to sin
Matthew 22.21 pay taxes – hand money over to sinners some of which will be used sinfully
Matthew 23.29-36 honouring sinners implies some alignment with their sin
Matthew 24 get out of the way when judgment is about to fall
Mark 2.15 // Matt 9
Mark 7 the evil is from within not without
Mark 14.18 ate with Judas knowing he wd betray him
Luke 5.30 // Matt 9
60. Luke 7.37 sinful woman
61. Luke 15.2 muttering at Jesus
62. Luke 17.1 you can “cause” others to sin
63. Luke 19.7 muttering at Jesus - Zacchaeus
64. Luke 23.50-51 Joseph didn’t consent
65. John 4 Jesus associates with sinful woman
66. John 13.27 Jesus tells Judas to get on with it
67. John 17.15ff in world, not of it
68. Acts 10.28 don’t separate from anyone wrt to gospel announcement
69. Acts 12.21ff punished for not disowning blasphemous remarks
70. Romans 1.32 don’t approve of those who practise sin
71. Romans 5.12-21 Caught up in Adam’s sin; benefit from Christ’s obedience
72. Romans 12.2 don’t be conformed to the world
73. Romans 13.1 obey authorities
74. Romans 14.23 don’t go against conscience
75. Romans 16.17 note and turn away from those who cause division
76. 1 Corinthians 5.10 don’t associate with excommunicated; you may associate with wicked
77. 1 Corinthians 7 Christian not leave unbelieving spouse
78. 1 Corinthians 7.39 don’t marry unbeliever
79. 1 Corinthians 8-10 can buy meat from idolaters / offered to idols and not sin
80. 1 Corinthians 9.21ff all things to all men to win some
81. 1 Corinthians 10.33 // 9.21ff
82. 1 Corinthians 15.33 bad company corrupts good morals
83. 2 Corinthians 5.21 Jesus “became sin”
84. 2 Corinthians 6.14-18 do not be yoked with an unbeliever
85. Galatians 2.11-14 sometimes sinful NOT to associate with someone
86. Galatians 6.1 associate to restore but don’t sin yourself
87. Ephesians 5.7 don’t be sharers / partakers with evildoers
88. 2 Thessalonians 3.6 avoid the disorderly / rebellious
89. 2 Thessalonians 3.14-15 avoid those who disobey apostles’ commands
90. 1 Timothy 4 material objects are good not evil
91. 1 Timothy 5.22 don’t share in others’ sins
92. Hebrews 7.26 Jesus was separate from sinners
93. James 4.4 friendship with world is enmity to God
94. 1 Peter 1.1-2 exiles / sojourners
95. 1 Peter 4.4 avoiding wickedness
96. 2 Peter 2.7 Lot in the thick of wickedness - distressed
97. 1 John 2 do not love the world
98. 2 John 10-11 avoid false teachers
99. Jude 23 save, snatching from fire, hating the uncleanness
100.
Revelation 18.4 coming out – have no fellowship in her sins
Monday, June 18, 2007
864. NOT ALTOGETHER DISCHUFFED TO BE BRITISH
Apart from reading a couple of news articles and watching 90 seconds of Paul Potts on YouTube, I know
nothing about "Britain's Got Talent".
But, romantic middle-aged Torygraph reader that I am, I was warmed and gladdened by Stephen Pile's
characterisation of the whole thing HERE.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
865. PETER GOLDING'S "COVENANT THEOLOGY"
is an enjoyable read. It's well put together, achieves good coverage, and is easy to read.
Details: Peter Golding: Covenant Theology: The Key of Theology in Reformed Thought and Tradition
(Mentor, 2004).
Chapter headings:
1. Origins – Historical and Ecclesiastical
2. Subsequent Development and Formulation during the Seventeenth Century: ‘The Golden Age of
Covenant Theology’
3. Modern Understanding of the Covenant Concept
4. The Import of the Covenant – Three Perspectives
5. The Covenant of Works
6. The Covenant of Grace
7. The Development of the Covenant of Grace in Scripture: A Study in Biblical and Reformed Theology
8. Covenant Theology – Concluding Perspectives and Reflections.
Nice moments:
A couple of quotes from L. Berkhof:

“They realised very well that a covenant of grace, which in no sense of the word included others than
the elect, would be purely individual, while the covenant of grace is represented in Scripture as an
organic idea. They were fully aware of the fact that, according to God’s special revelation in both the
Old and the New Testament, the covenant as a historical phenomenon is perpetuated in successive
generations and includes many in whom the covenant life is never realised. And whenever they
desired to include this aspect of the covenant in their definition, they would say that it was established
with believers and their seed.” quoted on p.128

"It should be noted that, while the covenant is an eternal and inviolable covenant, which God never
nullifies, it is possible for those are in the covenant to break it. If one who stands in the legal covenant
relationship does not enter upon the covenant life, he is nevertheless regarded as a member of the
covenant . His failure to meet the requirements of the covenant involves guilt and constitutes him a
covenant breaker, Jer 31:32; Ezek 44:7. This explain hows there may be, not merely a temporary, but a
final breaking of the covenant, though there is no falling away of the saints.” qouted on p.128 (ST 289)
Worries:

What feels like special pleading in relation to Calvin's views. He seems overly keen to claim that Calvin
really thought exactly the same way as the Westminster divines but just hadn't got around to saying it
aloud. He goes further than Lillback in this.

A disappointing summary moment: “The original covenant between God and man is a covenant of
works, whose principle of inheritance is antithetical to that in the covenant of grace.” 59

Seriously inadequate referencing for some extracts. Compare pp.132-137 with Murray on "Covenant
Theology" in Collected Works 4: Studies in Theology, pp.229-234. Or compare pp.51-53 with Vos's
Selected Shorter Writings pp.240-41. Phenomenal.
PS [5th July 2007] Dr Golding graciously acknowledges the problem raised in relation to inadequate
referencing.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
866. FAITH AND UNION WITH CHRIST
“According to the “old perspective”, the Holy Spirit first generates faith in the sinner who
temporarily still remains outside of union with Christ; then justification follows faith and only
then, in turn, does the mystical union with the Mediator take place. Everything depends on
this justification … The Wrightian outlook is the reverse. One is first united to Christ, the
Mediator of the covenant, by a mystical union, which finds its conscious recognition in faith.
By this union with Christ, all that is in Christ is simultaneously given.”
Well, not really.
The quote comes from Geerhardus Vos on "The Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology" (p.256 in
Selected Shorter Writings).
Replace the words "old perspective" with the word, Lutheran. Replace the word, Wrightian, with the word,
covenantal. You then have the original.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
867. CHILDREN AND THE COVENANT OF GRACE
Long entries don't get read but then this is MY cyber-common-place book.
So here's Vos's account of children and the covenant of grace in Reformed thought. Reformed thinkers
"proceeding fearlessly" and then beginning to lose their nerve. What follows can be found on pp.262-67 of his
Selected Shorter Writings:
With respect to children no less than for adults, it is clear from the above that besides the two
elements of the offer of the covenant and the obligation of the covenant, there is still a third
element present. This consists of the expectation that covenant children will enter into the
fellowship of the covenant. This expectation is based on the promise of God to believers that
He desires to be their God and the God of their seed and that He also desires to continue His
covenant in their seed and to make it a living reality. This does not merely hold true for some
promises under certain restrictions, but also for the promises of the covenant, as they span all
of life and include every gift of grace. It is, we think, striking how strongly just in this respect
the comprehensive character of the covenant is applied by Reformed churches. All of them
assume it to be a totality and do not hesitate to unfold it in all its fulness in their liturgical
writings. As a promissory covenant its total content is brought into contact with the individual
already as an infant. When that infant later enters into covenantal consciousness by active
faith, this faith sums up all that is included in the covenant, so that the wide, rich world of
God’s works of grace is opened up to his sight, a perspective looking backwards and forward.
It is just this beautiful outlook which leads one to call the idea of the covenant of grace a
“mother-idea.” The covenant is a mother because it spiritually bears sons and daughters by
the power of divine grace and the promises, a mother because its children have received
everything from it, because it has given birth to them, sustains them, feeds, and blesses them.
Reformed theology has certainly realized that the church has two sides, and that besides being
the assembly of believers and the revelation of the body of Christ, she must also be the means
by which new believers are added. But it [p.263 begins] has not separated these two sides;
rather it has kept them in organic connection. Just because the promises of God have been
given to the assembly of believers, in its entirety, including their seed, this assembly is also a
mother who conceives sons and daughters and is made to rejoice in her children by the Lord.
The name “mother” signifies this truly Reformed point of view in distinction from other terms
such as “institution of salvation."
As far as we can discover, the leading spokesmen of Reformed theology are completely agreed
on this. They all recognize that the church has received such promises for her offspring. They
equally recognize that the consideration of these promises is the heart of the fruit of comfort
which her view of the covenant offers. And they insist that remembrance of the promise must
function as an urgent reason for rousing the seed of the church to embrace the covenant in
faith. On both sides, parents and children, this conviction provides strength. Strength was
provided in the days of old, in the golden age of the churches, a glorious comfort, finding its
most beautiful fruition in the doctrine of the salvation of the children of covenant who die in
infancy.
Only in the working out of these principles did the theologians diverge to a greater or lesser
degree. One could not but expect that a conscious appropriation, an entering into the relation
of the covenant by faith and conversion, would be revealed in each member of the covenant
who comes to the age of responsibility. The whole tendency of the doctrine of the covenant, as
we have tried to present it, led to that demand. One could hardly be satisfied with the thought
that a nonrejection of the covenant, where all expression of life was missing, would be
sufficient. Here they collided with the discovery, as they also knew from the Scriptures, that
not all belong to the seed of the promise. In comparing the statements of theologians at this
point, it is clear that the older theologians generally proceeded more fearlessly than the later
ones in the individualization and general application of the promises.
Beza writes :
“The situation of children who are born of believing parents is a special one.
They do not have in themselves that quality of faith which is in the adult
believer. Yet it cannot be the case that those who have been sanctified by birth
and have been separated from the children of unbelievers, do not have the
seed and germ of faith. The promise, accepted by the parents in faith, also
includes their children to a thousand generations. If it is objected that not all
of them who are born of believing parents are elect, seeing that God did not
choose all the children of Abraham and Isaac, we do not lack an answer.
Though we do not deny that this is the case, still we say that this hidden
judgment must be left to God and that normally, by virtue of the promise, all
who have been born of believing parents, or if one of the parents believes, are
sanctified" (Confessio Christianae Fidei, IV, 48).
In [p.264 begins] general Martyr agrees with him:
“We do not ascribe this (the enjoyment of the benefits of the covenant) to
birth in the flesh as the principle and true cause, for our children’s salvation is
only by the election and mercy of God, which often accompanies natural
birth. ... This is not out of necessity, for the promise is not generally
applicable to the whole seed but only to that seed in which election converges.
. . . But because we must not curiously investigate the hidden providence and
election of God, we assume that the children of believers are holy, as long as
in growing up they do not demonstrate themselves to be estranged from
Christ We do not exclude them from the church, but accept them as members,
with the hope that they are partakers of the divine election and have the grace
and Spirit of Christ, even as they are the seed of saints. On that basis we
baptize them. We do not need to respond to those who object and ask
whether the minister is deceived, whether perhaps the infant is in truth no
child of the promise, of divine election and mercy. Similar diatribes could be
adduced with regard to adults, for we do not know whether they come
deceptively, whether they truly believe, whether they are children of election
or perdition, etc.” (Loci Communes, IV, 8, 7).
The children of believers must be baptized, according to Polanus,
“because they have been purchased by the blood of Christ, have been washed
from their sins, and possess therefore by the work of the Holy Spirit the thing
signified. ... Because the Holy Spirit is promised to them, they possess the
Holy Spirit” (Syntagma, VI, 55).
Others, especially the later theologians as we have already noted, expressed themselves less
fearlessly and preferred rather to be satisfied with the general judgment that there is a seed
for the Lord among the seed of believers, for whom the covenantal promises hold without
limitation. Heidegger serves as an example :
“Not to all the children of believers particularly, but only to the elect baptism
seals regeneration and the total contents of spiritual grace. Though it is good
and proper to hope for the best for each one in particular according to the
judgment of love, it is not permitted in regard to all collectively” (Heppe,
Dogmatik der evangelisch-reformierten Kirche, p. 496).
Another point of difference concerns the time when the promises of the covenant are usually
realized by regeneration in the children of the covenant. Three schools of thought can be
identified: the first school (including Ursinus, Polanus, Junius, Walaeus, Cloppenburg,
Voetius, and Witsius) not only assumes that the children of the covenant who die before they
reach the age of discretion, possess the Holy Spirit from their earliest childhood and so are
born again and united to Christ, but also maintains this thesis as generally valid for the seed of
the promise without distinction. They use it as an argument in defense of infant baptism in
their polemics with the Anabaptists. Ursinus says:
“This is sure and certain, that God instituted [p.265 begins] his sacraments
and covenant seals only for those who recognize and maintain the church as
already made up of parties of the covenant, and that it is not His intention to
make them Christians by the sacraments first, but rather to make those who
are already Christians to be Christians more and more and to confirm the
work begun in them. ... Hence, if anyone considers the children of Christians
to be pagans and non-Christians, and damns all those infants who cannot
come to be baptized, let him take care on what ground he does so, because
Paul calls them holy (I Cor. 7), and God says to all believers in the person of
Abraham that He will be their God and the God of their seed. . . . Next let him
consider how he will permit them to be baptized with a good conscience, for
knowingly to baptize a pagan and unbeliever is an open abuse and
desecration of baptism. Our continual answer to the Anabaptists, when they
appeal to the lack of faith in infants against infant baptism, is that the Holy
Spirit works regeneration and the inclination to faith and obedience to God in
them in a manner appropriate to their age, always with it understood that we
leave the free mercy and heavenly election unbound and unpenetrated”
(quoted in Südhoff, Olevianus und Ursinus, pp. 633f.)
And in the Larger Catechism, the question “Are infants, since they have no faith, properly
baptized?” is answered:
“Yes, faith and the confession of faith are required of adults, since they can in
no other way be included into the covenant. For infants it suffices that they
are sanctified by the Spirit of Christ in a manner appropriate to their age” (Q.
291). [DF - which catechism?]
Compare the above quotation of Polanus, which also relates to this issue. Junius argues
against the Anabaptists:
“We call it false to argue that infants are completely incapable of faith; if they
have faith in the principle of the habitus, they have the Spirit of faith. ...
Regeneration is viewed from two aspects, as it is in its foundation, in Christ,
in principle, and as it is active in us. The former (which can also be called
transplanting from the first to the second Adam) is the root, from which the
latter arises as its fruit. By the former elect infants are born again, when they
are incorporated into Christ, and its sealing occurs in baptism” (Theses
Theologicae, LI, 7).
Walaeus writes in his disputation on baptism:
“We reject the opinion of the Lutherans who tie the regenerating power of the
Holy Spirit to the external water of baptism in such a way that, either it is
present in the water itself or at least the principle of regeneration will only
work in the administration of baptism. This, however, is opposed to all the
places in Scripture, where faith and repentance and hence the beginning and
seed of regeneration are antecedently required in the one who is baptized. ...
Therefore, we do not bind the efficacy of baptism to the moment in which the
body is sprinkled with external water; but we require with the Scriptures
antecedent faith and repentance in the one who is baptized, at least according
to the judgment of love, both in the infant children of covenant members, and
in adults. For we maintain that in infants [p.266 begins] too the presence of
the seed and the Spirit of faith and conversion is to be ascertained on the
basis of divine blessing and the evangelical covenant” (Synopsis Purioris
Theologiae, XLIV, 27, 29).
Similarly Cloppenburg argues against the Anabaptists :
“We posit that the children of believers are incorporated into Christ by the
immediate secret work of the Holy Spirit, until, whether in this life or at the
moment of death, the period of infancy is completed, so that, whether in the
flesh or not, they may confess by faith or sight what God has given them and
us together by grace” (Exercitationes, I, 1097).
Voetius expresses his agreement with the distinction Burges made between regeneration in
principle and active regeneration. He ascribes the former to the elect children of covenant
parents, but rejects Burges’ position, in which this regeneration in principle follows from
baptism as an outworking of the latter.
“This is not proven by the Reformed theologians cited by him. It is known
that in their opinion the effect of baptism does not lie in the causation of
regeneration, but in the sealing of regeneration which has already been
brought about.”
A little earlier he writes,
“The seventh opinion is the general point of view of Reformed teachers, in
which regeneration is acknowledged in each of the children of the covenant in
particular, namely those who are elect, whether they die in infancy or are
brought to faith when growing up, etc.” (Selectarum Disputationum, II, 410412).
Finally, Witsius writes:
“I acknowledge that thus far I agree with this opinion” (Miscellaneorum
Sacrorum, II, 634).
He also thinks that this view has been accepted in the baptismal formula of the Dutch
churches.
Besides this school there is still another. Those in this group hesitate to make any stipulation
as to the time of regeneration in the children of the promise. Zanchius, Ames, and Fr.
Spanheim the elder appear to take this approach. Zanchius, however, thinks of regeneration
as given at the time of baptism, rather than occurring long after baptism. He says:
“Some infants, as well as some adults, are given the Spirit of faith, by which
they are united to Christ, receive the forgiveness of sins and are regenerated,
before baptism; this is not the case with others, to whom these gifts are given
in baptism” (De Baptismo, III, 3 1 , in Commentarius ad Ephesios, Caput V).
Ames states:
“We do not deny that God infuses the habitus or principle of grace in some at
the time of their baptism; but God can communicate this same grace both
before and after baptism” (Bellarminus Enervatus [1628], III, 68).
Spanheim:
“Baptism serves regeneration, which precedes in adults and which follows in
infants. It takes effect, at times in the present and at other times in the future,
according to God’s pleasure” (Dubia Evangelica, III, 27, 6).
Finally, there is a third school. It held that the preaching of the Word is the usual means by
which regeneration takes place as an accompaniment. It held that God does not depart from
this rule without necessity, and that [p.267 begins] in those children who are destined to live
to the age of discretion, re generation bides its time until they can be brought to a conscious
possession of the sealed blessings of the covenant, Beza, who was not always consistent on
this point, says:
“As for the children born in the church, elected by God ... and who die before
coming to the age of discretion, I can easily assume on the basis of the
promise of God, that they are united to Christ at birth. However, apart from
plain audacity, what can we ascertain concerning the rest other than that they
are only regenerated when by hearing they receive the true faith?” (Ad Acta
Colloquii Mompelgartensis, p.106).
Another representative of this school was Ussher, who asks as follows:
“What must we think of the effect of baptism in those elect infants whom God
allows to mature to years of discretion?”
He answers:
“There is no reason ordinarily to promise them an extraordinary work of God,
if God purposes to give them ordinary means, Though God can at times
sanctify from the womb, as in the case of Jeremiah and John the Baptist, and
at other times in baptism, it is difficult to determine, as some are accustomed
to do, that each elect infant ordinarily before or in baptism receives the
principle of regeneration and the seed of faith and grace. If, however, such a
principle of grace is infused, it cannot be lost or hidden in such a way that it
would not demonstrate itself” (Body of Divinity, p.417).
But apart from these two points just discussed, all these schools are agreed in relating infant
baptism to the promise of God, given to the church, that from her seed He intends to raise up
a seed for Himself.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
868. PROFESSIONALLY AGGRIEVED GRIEVANCE PROFESSIONALS
There are one or two nonsense moments but Mark Shea's article HERE (linked from LewRockwell) brings
together a fine set of examples of outrageous outrage.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
869. PETER LIGHTHEART
Peter Leithart is having fun. Since the PCA General Assembly acceptance of a report on Federal Vision and
NPP, Peter has been merrily posting clarifications and provocations, teasers and questions on baptism and
justification and judgment and the like.
Spend a day or two HERE and get yourself a holiday and an education at the same time.
For starters, here's a nice example on Luther's doctor/patient justification picture.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
870. DEATHLY HALLOWS ENDING
Who needs a hacker to reveal it when a good friend - Don Donovan of Baker Street Solutions - has already
worked it out?
Perhaps ...
The Final Horcrux
.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
871. "A MAN OF TOWERING INTEGRITY"
... is how John Morrill describes Oliver Cromwell.
Professor Morrill himself is a giant among seventeenth century scholars and a Christian gentleman of deep
grace, humour, wisdom and warmth. The concluding paragraph of his 67 page entry on Cromwell in the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is a perfect delight:
He could never make the adjustment from war where the objective was always clear and the
victory unambiguous. The pragmatism and compromise of the political arena constantly
dismayed him and ground him down. All this cost him in personal terms. He yearned to ‘keep
a flock of sheep under a woodside’, to emulate Gideon who led the armies of Israel and then
returned to his farm. But God would not let him go. God would have him serve. And still there
was before him the mirage of a perfected humanity. He had seen that corrupted institutions
could not deliver a humanity more obedient to the will of God. He was called to overthrow
tyranny and pride and replace it with humility and a common concern to share the fragments
of truth that so many men of goodwill had been granted. But instead pride and self-interest
kept on taking over. As he climbed another barren hill and peered over the next sun-baked
valley, the mirage reappeared. What makes Oliver Cromwell endlessly appealing and endlessly
alarming is that he was true to his own vision. He never doubted his call to service or to
salvation. He knew enough of the Bible to know that all those whom God called, he chastened.
The fierceness of his determination to free all those whose sense of God shared elements of his
own experience drove him into uncomfortable action. He was not wedded and glued to forms
of government. He was not bound by human law. If God called upon him to be the human
instrument of his wrath, he would not flinch. His sense of himself as the unworthy and
suffering servant of a stern Lord protected him from the tragic megalomanias of others who
rose to absolute power on the backs of revolutions. Cromwell’s achievements as a soldier are
great but unfashionable; as a religious libertarian great but easily mis-stated; as a statesman
inevitably stunted. No man who rises from a working farmer to head of state in twenty years is
other than great. To achieve that and still to be able to say that ‘if here I may serve my God
either by my doing or by my suffering, I shall be most glad’ is a man of towering integrity. He
was to himself and to his God most true, if at great cost to himself and others.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
872. A CHRISTIAN CONSTITUTION
Far from perfect (ahem ... RCs and Prelatists are Christians whose liberty is also to be recognized!) yet a
thousand times better than the current situation.
The Instrument of Government (1654)
Articles XVII, and XXXV - XXXVII:
XVII. That the persons who shall be elected to serve in Parliament, shall be such (and no other
than such) as are persons of known integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation, and
being of the age of twenty-one years.
XXXV. That the Christian religion, as contained in the Scriptures, be held forth and
recommended as the public profession of these nations; and that, as soon as may be, a
provision, less subject to scruple and contention, and more certain than the present, be made
for the encouragement and maintenance of able and painful teachers, for the instructing the
people, and for discovery and confutation of error, hereby, and whatever is contrary to sound
doctrine; and until such provision be made, the present maintenance shall not be taken away
or impeached.
XXXVI. That to the public profession held forth none shall be compelled by penalties or
otherwise; but that endeavours be used to win them by sound doctrine and the example of a
good conversation.
XXXVII. That such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ (though differing in judgment from
the doctrine, worship or discipline publicly held forth) shall not be restrained from, but shall
be protected in, the profession of the faith and exercise of their religion; so as they abuse not
this liberty to the civil injury of others and to the actual disturbance of the public peace on
their parts: provided this liberty be not extended to Popery or Prelacy, nor to such as, under
the profession of Christ, hold forth and practise licentiousness.
Friday, June 22, 2007
873. OLIVER CROMWELL CHAT
I've put online a few lightweight notes on "Oliver Cromwell and the Puritan Revolution" as item 52 HERE.
I've enjoyed spending time at http://olivercromwell.org in putting them together.
Friday, June 22, 2007
874. THE CHARGES AGAINST CROMWELL
In the document HERE I list nine charges against Cromwell.
Specific actions



Iconcoclasm
Regicide
The massacres in Ireland
Political/governmental failures



Moralistic authoritarianism
Too much influence to the Army
Military rule
The man



Impulsive piety
Providentialism
Proud hypocrite
In general, I think that there are seven things to be considered in relation to these charges:
1) counter-evidence - ask whether all the evidence has been taken into account (for example, on
iconoclasm, Christmas and adultery, the Irish campaign)
2) context - ask about the appropriateness of judging seventeenth century spelling or constitutional
arrangements by twenty-first century standards / preferences
3) alternatives - ask what else might have been done in November 1640, in August 1642, in autumn 1647, in
December-January 1648-49, in September and October 1649, in April 1653, in December-January 1653-54?
4) comparisons - how much religious liberty was there in the 1630s and 1660s compared to the 1650s, for
example? (answer: very, very little)
5) ad hominem - ask who is making the charges and why?
6) the benefits column - consider the restriction of autocratic monarchy, the cause of proper religious
liberty, the advance of models of parliamentary government, astonishing commercial growth, the return of the
Jews, a standing example of a premature yet important endeavour after national moral discipline, astounding
moral control in the army, and godly self-doubt in the man himself
7) acknowedgement - yes, with those qualifications in place, we acknowledge that Cromwell was far from
perfect.
Friday, June 22, 2007
875. BMA PETITION
.
is HERE
Friday, June 22, 2007
876. JIM PACKER LECTURES ON ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
I'm not the world's biggest fan of some of the material at the huge and often helpful www.monergism.com but
I'm delighted to discover that the site hosts lectures by Jim Packer on the Attributes of God.
Packer is not the most scintillating lecturer in the world. He is, however, one of the finest popular Reformed
theologians of our time. His writing is utterly wonderful, his influence, happily, has been enormous, and he
remains one of my all-time heroes.
Packer on the Attributes of God.
Friday, June 22, 2007
877. PACKER ON THE PURITANS
A couple of audio lectures by Jim Packer on the Puritans can be found - with a lot of other good material HERE.
Monday, June 25, 2007
878. PRECISELY WHAT I DON'T BELIEVE
I love and respect David McKay very much indeed, not least because I adored his contribution to Tales of
Two Cities.
However, near the beginning of what promises, overall, to be a splendid book, The Bond of Love, he states
his understanding of the covenant of works and the imputation of the active obedience of Christ SO clearly and
in terms which I think are SO off the mark that I want a record of this:
In the most general way, we can say that His [Christ's] work was to undo the results of Adam's
failure to keep the Covenant of Works. To be more specific - two elements were involved in
His saving work. On the one hand, He was to make atonement for the sins of His people, thus
dealing with their liability to eternal punishment. On the other hand, He was to keep the Law
of God perfectly on behalf of His people, thus securing for them eternal life.
Both of these elements may be seen in Christ's designation as 'surety' ... A surety is one who
undertakes to be responsible for the meeting of another party's legal obligations. It was
therefore necessary for Christ to bear the punishment due to the sins of His people, and it is
remarkable how often in the Gospel records He speaks of the necessity of His sufferings ...
This element of His work is described in 1 Peter 2:24, 'He Himself bore our sins in his body on
the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness.'
The work of Christ also entails meeting His people's obligation to obey God's Law. It is not
just that their past sins are wiped out, leaving them in a neutral position before God: they are
constituted positively righteous in God's sight. The obedience of Christ, which was perfect in
every detail, is counted as belonging to Him (sic). Thus believers are said to 'become the
righteousness of God' (2 Cor. 5:21) in Christ who is 'our righteousness' (1 Cor. 1:30).
Errrm 1. "a neutral position position before God"?
Errrm 2. ... and the resurrection?
This is precisely what I don't believe - as is clear from these earlier posts:




Imputation
Imputation again
JBJ on double imputation
Merit and non-merit schemes
Monday, June 25, 2007
879. GUILT BY ASSOCIATION (3)
See HERE.
Give biblical and theological guidelines on when and why an association with a sinner becomes
culpable involvement with their sin.
Notes: In your essay show familiarity with (but do NOT simply expound or critique) Bernard Häring’s section
“Complicity in the Sins of Others” in The Law of Christ, vol II, pp.494-517) (Westminster, MD: Newman Press,
1963/66). Copies of this section will be available in the Academic Office.
Here are a few instances which are given to clarify the question but are NOT to be addressed singly as though
that itself would constitute an answer to the question:

buying a loaf of bread from an atheist baker;






setting up a business with a Buddhist;
attending the wedding of a Christian friend who is marrying a non-Christian;
taking the Lord’s Supper from a resurrection-denying minister;
co-signing a letter to the Times along with Muslims who, with you, wish to maintain ideological
freedom for “faith schools”;
putting a long-standing but unmarried couple to sleep in the same room when they visit you;
continuing a conversation with your lesbian friends while they hold hands and kiss.
There are some relevant moments in:
1. Aquinas – Gormally in Watt (ed.) Co-operation (see below) derives these possibilities of
“contributory responsibility” from ST 2a2ae 62.7 on restitution. (pp.13-14):







“first, one can be an accomplice in the actual doing of the wrong, as someone
providing assistance;
secondly, one can give one’s agreement to the wrongdoing, where prior agreement is
required;
thirdly, one can advise the principal agent to carry out the wrong;
fourthly, one can fail to advise the principal agent against the wrongdoing when one
could and should do so;
fifthly, one can fail to order the principal agent not to act as he intends when one
could and should do so;
sixthly, one can provide support or concealment of a kind without which the principal
agent could not carry out the wrong he proposes; and
seventhly, one can fail to provide support of a kind which would have prevented the
wrongdoing when one could and should provide such support.”
2. Richard Baxter – Several sections in Christian Directory are of interest – esp. pp. 442; 44748; 599; 632; 800-814; 841-45
3. Austin Fagothey – Right and Reason
4. R C Mortimer – The Elements of Moral Theology. He takes from St Alphonsus (look on
Catholic Encyclopaedia) the following principles:
1. The gravee the sin, the more urgent must be the excuse for your co-operation
2. The more probable it is that without your co-operation the sin will not be done, the
greater must be your excuse
3. The more proximate and less remote your co-operation is, the greater reason you
must have for co-operating
4. The less general right you have to perform the particular action in which your cooperation consists, the greater reason you must have for performing that action on
this particular occasion
5. The more the rights of others are violated by the sinful act, the greater must be your
excuse for co-operating in it. 151-52
5. Additionally, some bright sparks got to Helen Watt (ed) – Co-operation, Complicity, and
Conscience (2006). Highly relevant and essays by Gormally and Fisher particularly helpful.
6. William Ames’ Marrow of Theology (II.XVI.45). “A man is said to be partaker of another’s
sin in nine ways, indicated by the following: Command, counsel, consent, flattery, retreat,
participating, nodding, not opposing, not making public.”
7. Catechism of the Catholic Church (2287) showing how our actions in relationship to the
sins of others may themselves cause a third party to stumble – and thus our actions would be
sinful as scandal: “Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads
others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly
or indirectly encouraged.”
Monday, June 25, 2007
880. GUILT BY ASSOCIATION (4)
See HERE.
In relationship to the sin of others:
1. It is always a sin on our part to approve, desire, or condone the sins of others. Whatever
physical actions we do or do not take (such as not moving away physically from the
performance of a sinful action) we are never permitted formally to share in the sin.
2. Sin is not something that can be “transmitted” through geographical proximity. (The
example of Jesus is particularly relevant here.) That is a good thing because we inhabit the
same universe as lots of sinning sinners. Additionally, a person may be sinning badly in my
company without my knowing it.
3. Nor does sin attach to particular material objects or physical locations as such.
4. We are therefore concerned to deal with our relationship with the sins of others of which we
are (or should be aware) and in which, it is assumed, we have no formal share (we oppose and
hate that sin).
5. We distinguish, in handling some of the biblical texts, between suffering the consequences
of others’ sins and sharing their culpability.
6. The real question before us ethically, then, (leaving aside questions of the ways in which
and the reasons for which we have Adam’s guilt imputed to us) actually comes to


There are various ways in which we associate with or relate to the sinful actions and
persons of others. Some of those ways are themselves sinful and some not. Which are
which?
That is, wrong associations with the sins of others are to be considered less as sharing
in their sins than in committing sins of our own.
7. In so far as “separation” from sin is part of the issue, we need to understand a biblical
theology of separation. What sort of separation from sin does God, in his holiness, have? Why
does he require his people to be separate from some sinful people?
8. The biblical passages indicate a wide range of responses to the sins of others and to sinful
others. Trading with pagans; marrying foreigners; destroying foreigners; eating with
“sinners”; not preventing the worst sin ever committed or lots of others; ‘causing’ people to
sin; bringing guilt on others; guilt for not warning/ rebuking; don’t associate with
excommunicate; responsibility for the use of my property; hierarchical relationships etc.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
881. GUILT BY ASSOCIATION (5)
See HERE.
Some questions to ask:
1. Who is doing the sinning?
1.1 A Christian?
1.2 A non-Christian?
2. What is the sin?
2. 1 How serious?
2. 2 How public?
3. Who is affected by that sinning?
4. What is my relationship with the person sinning – at the time of the sin and more generally?
4.1 Is there an authority structure to our relationship?
.......4.1.1 Am I in relevant authority over the person?
...............4.1.1.1 Have I the power to restrain the sin?
...............4.1.1.2 Have I the responsibility to warn against the sin?
.......4.1.2 Is the person in relevant authority over me?
4.2 What is the relational proximity between us?
.......4.2.1 Are we complete strangers who happen to be on the
..............street or long-standing friends and members of the same
..............church and prayer-triplet? Or something in between?
4.3 How may I distinguish between my relationship with the
.......person-in-action and the person more generally?
4.4 In what direction in the relationship might it be said that “moral
.......influence” flows?
5. Have I been directed or counselled by those in institutional or moral authority over me (by instruction or
example) to react in a particular way?
6. What are the various responses I can make / relationships I can sustain / associations I can have to that
person / sin?
6.1 Active or passive?
6.2 Public or private?
6.3 What are the different levels of “expressed disapproval of sin” or “moral distancing”?
7. Are any of the following responses relevant – possible good (re)actions / possible bad (re)actions? These are
some of the main ways – but by no means all – that might clarify a person’s options.
• Physical restraint to prevent the action
• Calling upon others to physically restrain
• Warning of the bad consequences of this sin
• Mild and private rebuke of the sin
• Public rebuke / protest against the sin
• Calling upon due authorities to
• Bearing legal witness against the sin
• Calling upon God to act
• Going quiet / not laughing or smiling at the sin
• Command / prohibition
• Join in the sin
• Encourage the sin
• Applaud / praise the sin
• Resource to make the sin possible
• Resource to make the sin easier
• Provoke the sin
• Excuse the sin
• Condone the sin
• Give permission for the sin
• Understate seriousness of the sin
• Change subject from the sin
• Vote in favour of the sin or what may lead to it
• Be physically present / absent when the sin is committed / continued
• Conceal the sin
• Give advice to make the sin easier to commit or to avoid
• Receive / refuse ‘benefits’ of the sinful action
8. What impact will these various responses have upon the doing of the sin itself?
8.1 Render it impossible?
8.2 Make it more difficult?
8.3 No discernible impact?
8.4 Make it easier?
9. What are the possible consequences of those various responses/relationships/associations upon me?
9.1 Does this entice me to sin or dilute my hatred of sin?
9.2 What true / false motives might I have for reacting in this or that way?
10. What are the possible consequences of those various responses/relationships/associations upon the person
sinning?
10.1 Will response X or Y be taken as condoning / approving of the sin?
10.2 How might response X or Y impact my relationship with the person sinning?
11. What are the possible consequences of those various responses/relationships/associations upon various
third parties?
11.1 In their relationship to this sin?
11.2 In their relationship to this sinner?
11.3 In their relationship to me?
11.4 In their relationship to the gospel and to the church?
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
882. CHRISTIAN RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT
God be thanked for the enormous good which is being done through the work of Christian relief and
development agencies. When I think about these matters in a provocative mood then, to be edgy and
prescriptive about it, I think we need to
1) recover kingdom confidence






postmillennialism – global, long-term, Jesus-centred vision for humankind
the inescapably political gospel
the necessity of a confessional basis of the state
the biblical basis for law
there is no neutrality in language – be explicit that Jesus is Lord, we are seeking the kingdom of God
etc
the bankruptcy of the alternatives
2) take personal responsibility - stop talking about how "we" should give to the poor and start giving to the
poor; stop talking about how "children should be taught X" and start teaching your children X
3) purge our rhetoric - (social) justice, rights, inequality, fair, sustainable, for example, are all words which
have a place in our discourse about matters of poverty but not by the humanists' definitions nor on the
humanists' terms
4) distrust government - it is humanist-pluralist, incompetent (unintended consequences), corrupt, and
coercive
5) free trade (where 'free' is a verb); urge private property, the rule of law, and voluntary economic exchange
6) get off of the climate change bandwagon
7) recover kingdom methods


worship is central - Lord’s Supper, singing Psalms; Bible teaching
evangelism and culture change
Sunday, July 01, 2007
883. THIS "COURTING" BUSINESS
I'm a bit confused about this "courting" business. There are various ways of putting it together.
I'm assuming a ton of stuff:
1.
2.
3.
4.
sincere Christian commitment
submission to biblical criteria
recognition of the father's covenantal headship / responsibility
recognition that the introduction of exclusivity into a boy-girl relationship is a step down a path which
has a marriage at its other end - you don't step on that path as a leisure pursuit or for reputation or
merely for fun
Because I’m a father of daughters I will, for the moment, make the funny assumption that all is well with the
girl and will simply address what needs to be considered in relation to the chap.
What's needed is
A. Substance: things about the boy before the boy gets the girl and
B. Process: things about the relationship for the boy to get the girl.
On A., substance, we further distinguish:
1.1 - what is required for the boy to get any girl
1.1.1 - character
1.1.2 - circumstances
1.2 - what is required for the boy to get this girl - chemistry/mutual attraction/personal fit
On B., process, we further distinguish:
2.1 - knowledge
2.2 - commitment
Thus we find ourselves with 3 substance questions about the chap ...
3.1. does the boy have the character to marry?
3.2. is the boy in the circumstances to marry?
3.3. is there mutual attraction/chemistry/personal fit?
And with 2 process questions about the relationship ...
4.1. is there sufficient knowledge to answer the substance questions?
4.2. in what way and in what order and in what degree is commitment developed and given?
And commitment - before engagement - has various levels. Here are some of them:
5.1 - the boy is allowed in her company as any other human being is
5.2 - the boy is allowed to spend more time, in company, with the girl than might normally be the case - but
there is no exclusivity whatever to this (at this stage the girl may or may not know)
5.3 - the boy is allowed to spend more time, in company, with the girl than might normally be the case - and he
is the only one of whom this is true (at this stage the girl will almost certainly know - and consent)
5.4 - the boy and girl know that they are positively and exclusively spending more time together (though still,
perhaps, in company) and with the express purpose of discerning the personal fit
5.5 - the boy and girl positively, exclusively and expectantly spend more time together, knowing that there is a
mutual attraction and seeking clarity as to whether this should lead to engagement So we come to what we
mean by "courting".
And the key questions, for our purposes, revolve around the relationship between knowledge and chemistry on
the one hand and between chemistry and different levels of commitment on the other.
Obviously 1.1.1 and 1.1.2 need to be in place before "courting" even becomes an issue.
And, to my mind, the crux is the relationship between,
- on the one hand the combination of 4.1 & 3.3 - knowledge of chemistry/mutual attraction/interest/personal
fit and
- on the other hand the appropriateness of 5.2 and 5.3 - the point at which exclusivity enters the relationship.
And that, in turn, boils down to this question: "Which comes first ...
a) knowledge (however faint - it may just be an inkling) of chemistry OR
b) a commitment level which carries exclusivity?"
In my mind, "courting" implies exclusivity. That is, a boy cannot legitimately court two girls at once nor can a
girl court two boys at once.
So the two possibilities are:
6.1 exclusive commitment precedes knowledge (however faint) of chemistry OR
6.2 knowledge (however faint) of chemistry precedes exclusive commitment.
I think that normally we should expect 6.2).
So imagine the situation in which the boy asks the father if he can court the daughter. Imagine, too, that 1.1.1
and 1.1.2 are in place. Assume also,
7.1 - the girl is nicely self-aware, well-motivated, and operating according to Biblical criteria:
Then, when the father consults his daughter, his daughter will say one of the following 8.1 - I feel sick at the thought and would rather court a lizard.
8.2 - How could I possibly react to that? I simply don't know him well enough to know what I think.
8.3 - What a very delightful thought.
Any of these reactions (with all their gradations) could come from
9.1 - I've thought long and hard about this
9.2 - this thought has never occurred to me before
or lots of places in between.
If we are at 8.1 then we'd need very, very, very powerful reasons to take things further (other than at 5.1).
If we are at 8.3 then we'd move to something between 5.2 and 5.3 depending on the strength of response and
the strength of the "objective fit" in the view of the father
If, however, we are at 8.2 then I think that normally we should move with 6.2. And 6.2 would imply 5.2 not
5.3. By the time the father allows a commitment level which implies exclusivity, there should be some real
(though not necessarily great) sense of personal fit / mutual attraction / chemistry. Where this is absent
through ignorance (rather than contradicted by repugnance) then the answer is not a (premature)
introduction of exclusivity but the encouragement of the healthy non-exclusive increased knowledge. In other
words, just get to know each other normally for a while and see what happens.
And if 'normally' doesn't allow for getting to know each other better then courting (with its exclusivity) is not
the answer. Rather, it might be that there's something not quite right about the ordering of social matters. And
/ or it might be necessary to be prayerfully imaginative and proactive but still without introducing exclusivity.
Final question: what's the biblical basis for this "attraction" or "chemistry" piece? Why make it normal that
chemistry should precede exclusivity? In brief:
1. the place of the affections in human life - read Religious Affections by Edwards
2. the place of the will in moral choice - an unconsented action is not my action, "chemistry" or desire is
part of consent, and so distaste modifies voluntariness
3. this moral choice is one of the greatest a person takes and should, therefore, be as fully "owned" as
possible. An analogy is that of adult conversion to Christ.
4. related to 1) above, the place of desire/delight in later stages of human relationships would make it
odd if the seeds or stirrings of such desire/delight were not given due regard in earlier stages.
These are tentative, exploratory, early musings, not settled conclusions.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
884. THIS "COURTING" BUSINESS - SUMMARY
1. Although each and every relationship is unique, and although knowledge and commitment and affection
spiral upwards together, the "exclusivity" of "courting" should build upon, rather than seek to discover, a real
initial sense of objective and subjective fit. In the absence of such a sense then there are proper ways of
exploring relationship which do not require exclusivity.
2. Whether my daughters like or are attracted to a man will matter a very, very great deal to me in considering
these matters. If that sounds as though it's stating the obvious then you've been spared some of the aspects of
"courting" which trouble me.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
885. PROGNOSTICATIONS
Can the following - equally strong - instincts be reconciled?

Britain is already under judgment and is heading for much worse. In many ways the church is a mess
and our national apostasy has put us under the curse of God. We are a piddling irrelevance in terms of
the kingdom of God for the next 3-4 or 10 generations. It's currently unclear whether, as judgment
proceeds, we will suffer most from secularist societal and moral collapse or from Islamist conquest or from each in turn. There will be British Christian martyrs before the end of the twenty-first century
and quite possibly even before 2050. (Martyrdom, of course, may over this time-period include the
extermination of the person by nano-technological re-programming.)

Some wonderful things are happening in the church in the UK. There are growing churches in lots of
different streams of the church. I could moan for hours about what's wrong with the British church
but God be praised for Co-mission and for St Helens and that fine crowd; HTB and Alpha; All Souls
and Christianity Explored; Barnabas Fund and Tear Fund; Christian Institute and Christian Medical
Fellowship; EEFC's Bush Hill Park church plant; Oak Hall Expeditions and Soul Survivor and UCCF;
books and CDs and conferences and camps; Christian MPs and Jay Smith; WEST and HTC;
apprentice-training schemes and some great advances in Biblical studies. And hundreds and hundreds
of faithful local churches and thousands and thousands of sincere Christian disciples. From my teeny
vantage point and with my partisan agenda I praise God for Oak Hill College; homeschooling /
Christian education; increased covenantalism amongst Reformed Christians; raindrops of worldaffirming, transformationist blessing; greater clarity about antithesis; appreciation of what's best in
our American brothers and sisters and concern for what's hardest for our persecuted global south
brothers and sisters.
Yes, of course these instincts can be reconciled. Having finished Peter Leithart's commentary on 1 and 2 Kings
this morning (see previous post), I'm reminded that you only need to say the words, "Joash" and "Josiah" to
recognise that renewal may prepare for or postpone God's judgment rather than avert it. One of the Lord's
reasons for blessing the church in some of the ways that he is doing, may well be in order that there are
martyr-candidates when the time comes. This in turn means that resurrection the other side of judgment is
guaranteed - the carcasses of the two witnesses won't lie in the street forever.
And, since our prognostications are deeply fallible, the key thing about all that's good in the UK church is to
press ahead in dependence on God, grateful for every mercy received. We plan and work for growth without
taking our plans or ourselves too seriously. We prepare our children and grandchildren for martyrdom (or equally faithfully for some - we leave the country), not least by teaching them how good and joyous a thing it
is, even in the darkness or the battle, to be the Lord's. We remain cheerfully confident about the global
advance of the gospel even as we lament the judgment falling upon our nation. We preserve and share the
gospel, and we fast and pray, and sing and serve, and work and wait, and die and rise. And, so to say, we do all
of that in our sleep! (Mark 4.27).
Sunday, July 01, 2007
886. LEITHART ON I AND II KINGS
Dear Ruth,
Thank you for the nice book you gave me for Christmas. It was nice. I liked it. I also got some handkerchiefs. I
finished reading it today. It was nice.
Love Dad
~~~~~
I'll jot down some of my favourite moments from Peter Leithart's astoundingly rich commentary on I and II
Kings (HERE) a week or two or ten from now.
For the moment, here's a slightly expanded contents page. After the introduction, the commentary has 39
chapters, each covering approximately one chapter of the Bible. Each chapter in the commentary has
comments on the details of the text; observations on the structure of the passage under consideration;
explorations of patterns and parallels within Kings, within the OT and across the Bible; and attention to
typology towards Christ and his Body. And, sometimes in the form of a mini theological essay, sometimes as
scattered paragraphs throughout the chapter, there are theological and practical reflections which are so good,
thoughtful, insightful and fresh that it's positively funny. How does one man do this? (I know ... by the sheer
and generous grace of God.)
Anyhoo, here's my contents page of the theological reflections contained in this commentary:
1 Kings 1 - political theology, historiography, providence
1 Kings 2 - atonement, violence, establishing the kingdom
1 Kings 3 - wisdom
1 Kings 4-5 - images of God, wisdom, plenty, temple prep
1 Kings 6 & 7.13-51 - images, architecture, temple, ecclesiology
1 Kings 7.1-12 - impossibility of secularized politics
1 Kings 8 - temple Christology and spirituality
1 Kings 9 - human art and creativity
1 Kings 10 - ambiguity of 'public'; wisdom and folly
1 Kings 11 - selfhood, centering, identity
1 Kings 12 - idolatry leads to division but division is God's plan
1 Kings 13 - various reflections
1 Kings 14 - beginnings and ends; vulgarity and scatology; responding to announced judgment
1 Kings 15 - 16.14 - idolatry as boring and repetitious; acedia
1 Kings 16.15-34 - various; some closing thoughts on election
1 Kings 17 - remnant ecclesiology; crossing boundaries to save; prayer
1 Kings 18 - the problem of evil
1 Kings 19 - various reflections
1 Kings 20 - enmity; 3 falls
1 Kings 21 - idolatry and politics (conspiracy; blood and scapegoat)
1 Kings 22 - God the uncomfortable trickster
1 Kings 22 / 2 Kings 1 - older and younger brothers; scientific oracle; ascending and descending
2 Kings 2 - various reflections
2 Kings 3 - the faithful God of traps and surprises
2 Kings 4 - God's incarnate life in a culture of death
2 Kings 5 - baptism; gentile inclusion; abusing privilege
2 Kings 6.1-23 - ethical marcionitism; angels
2 Kings 6.24 - 7 - the gospel: victory, life, food, outcasts
2 Kings 8 - delays in the fall of announced judgment
2 Kings 9-10 - Jesus, the mad-with-zeal atoning avenger
2 Kings 11-12 - true and false (conceptions of) priesthood; physical temple
2 Kings 13 - divided post-Reformation Christendom; prophetic ministry limited by death
2 Kings 14 - chronology; parable-riddle; rewards and punishment
2 Kings 15-16 - empire; the true model for worship
2 Kings 17 - law and gospel: the first commandment, continuity and discontinuity
2 Kings 18-20 - comparative religion
2 Kings 21 - memory and forgetfulness
2 Kings 22.1 - 23.30 - reform and the impotence of the law
2 Kings 23.31 - 25 - chronology is sovereignty; modernity is Babylon
Monday, July 02, 2007
887. THE IDEOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT
William Easterly HERE. Ra, ra! (HT - Adam Smith).
Some extracts:

A dark ideological specter is haunting the world. It is almost as deadly as the tired ideologies of the
last century — communism, fascism, and socialism — that failed so miserably. It feeds some of the
most dangerous trends of our time, including religious fundamentalism. It is the half-century-old
ideology of Developmentalism. And it is thriving.

Like all ideologies, Development promises a comprehensive final answer to all of society’s problems,
from poverty and illiteracy to violence and despotic rulers. It shares the common ideological
characteristic of suggesting there is only one correct answer, and it tolerates little dissent. It deduces
this unique answer for everyone from a general theory that purports to apply to everyone, everywhere.
There’s no need to involve local actors who reap its costs and benefits. Development even has its own
intelligentsia, made up of experts at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and United
Nations.

In the Middle East, $154 billion in foreign aid between 1980 and 2001, 45 structural adjustment loans,
and “expert” advice produced zero per capita GDP growth that helped create a breeding ground for
Islamic fundamentalism.

So the admirable concern of rich countries for the tragedies of world poverty is thus channeled into
fattening the international aid bureaucracy, the self-appointed priesthood of Development. Like other
ideologies, this thinking favors collective goals such as national poverty reduction, national economic
growth, and the global Millennium Development Goals, over the aspirations of individuals.
Bureaucrats who write poverty-reduction frameworks outrank individuals who actually reduce poverty
by, say, starting a business. Just as Marxists favored world revolution and socialist internationalism,
Development stresses world goals over the autonomy of societies to choose their own path. It favors
doctrinaire abstractions such as “market-friendly policies,” “good investment climate,” and “pro-poor
globalization” over the freedom of individuals.

Development also shares another Marxist trait: It aspires to be scientific. Finding the one correct
solution to poverty is seen as a scientific problem to be solved by the experts. They are always sure
they know the answer, vehemently reject disagreement, and then later change their answers. In
psychiatry, this is known as Borderline Personality Disorder. For the Development Experts, it’s a way
of life. The answer at first was aid-financed investment and industrialization in poor countries, then it
was market-oriented government policy reform, then it was fixing institutional problems such as
corruption, then it was globalization, then it was the Poverty Reduction Strategy to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals.

Unfortunately, Development ideology has a dismal record of helping any country actually develop. The
regions where the ideology has been most influential, Latin America and Africa, have done the worst.
Luckless Latins and Africans are left chasing yesterday’s formulas for success while those who ignored
the Developmentalists found homegrown paths to success. The nations that have been the most
successful in the past 40 years did so in such a variety of different ways that it would be hard to argue
that they discovered the “correct answer” from development ideology. In fact, they often
conspicuously violated whatever it was the experts said at the time. The East Asian tigers, for instance,
chose outward orientation on their own in the 1960s, when the experts’ conventional wisdom was
industrialization for the home market. The rapid growth of China over the past quarter century came
when it was hardly a poster child for either the 1980s Washington Consensus or the 1990s
institutionalism of democracy and cracking down on corruption.

Few realize that Americans in 1776 had the same income level as the average African today. Yet, like
all the present-day developed nations, the United States was lucky enough to escape poverty before
there were Developmentalists. In the words of former IMF First Deputy Managing Director Anne
Krueger, development in the rich nations “just happened.” George Washington did not have to deal
with aid partners, getting structurally adjusted by them, or preparing poverty-reduction strategy
papers for them. Abraham Lincoln did not celebrate a government of the donors, by the donors, and
for the donors. Today’s developed nations were free to experiment with their own pragmatic paths
toward more government accountability and freer markets. Individualism and decentralized markets
were good enough to give rise to penicillin, air conditioning, high-yield corn, and the automobile—not
to mention better living standards, lower mortality, and the iPod.
Monday, July 02, 2007
888. AFFIRMATIONS FOR A RISING STAR
If there were a male Christian politician who'd just been given additional responsibility then we'd probably
want to give him some incantations (affirmations with rhythm) in the hope that repeated over and over and
over again, day after day after day after day, they might become his heartbeat, the "tune" he can't get out of his
head. This sort of thing ...

Each minute with my children is worth ten thousand pounds

I'd rather cherish (wife's name) than get to Number Ten

I'm a servant, I'm a servant and my master is the Lord

Jesus is King over all whom I meet

Godliness, not business, is the thing makes the difference

However hard they try to mould me, I always remain Jesus's man

My every word is heard in heaven

Honour Jesus, tell the truth, love my family, serve, serve, serve
Monday, July 02, 2007
889. SAMSON AGONISTES - ONE LINERS
The first time I ever preached on Samson (Dec 1990), I used Milton as my text. Samson Agonistes - so rich, so
gnomic, so evocative.

O mirror of our fickle state … (Samson's role in relation to Israel)

my crime, Shameful garrulity. (one of Samson's failings)

I cannot praise thy Marriage choices, Son. (Manoah told him so)

His might continues in thee not for nought. (there's hope and purpose yet)

Ere I to thee, thou to thyself wast cruel. (Delilah speaks truly)

Lords are Lordliest in their wine ...

Tell us the sum, the circumstance defer. (Manoah says, "Spare the detail, what's the bottom line?")
Read Milton's Samson Agonistes
Monday, July 02, 2007
890. SAMSON AGONISTES - TASTERS 1
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke;
O impotence of mind, in body strong!
But what is strength without a double share
Of wisdom
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total Eclipse
Without all hope of day!
Which shall I first bewail,
Thy Bondage or lost Sight,
Prison within Prison
Inseparably dark?
Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!)
The Dungeon of thyself …
Immeasurable strength they might behold
In me, of wisdom nothing more then mean;
This with the other should, at least, have paired,
These two proportiond ill drove me transverse.
................of what now I suffer
She was not the prime cause, but I my self,
Who vanquisht with a peal of words (O weakness!)
Gave up my fort of silence to a Woman.
................on their whole Host I flew
Unarm'd, and with a trivial weapon fell'd
Their choicest youth; they only liv'd who fled.
But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt,
And by their vices brought to servitude,
Than to love Bondage more than Liberty,
Bondage with case than strenuous liberty ...
Read Milton's Samson Agonistes
Monday, July 02, 2007
891. SAMSON AGONISTES - TASTERS 2
O miserable change! is this the man,
That invincible Samson, far renown'd,
The dread of Israel's foes, who with a strength
Equivalent to Angels walk'd their streets,
None offering fight; who single combatant
Duell'd their Armies rank't in proud array,
Himself an Army, now unequal match
To save himself against a coward arm'd
At one spears length. O ever failing trust
In mortal strength! and oh what not in man
Deceivable and vain! Nay what thing good
Pray'd for, but often proves our woe, our bane?
Appoint not heavenly disposition, Father,
Nothing of all these evils hath befall'n me
But justly; I myself have brought them on,
Sole Author I, sole cause:
..............................................servile mind
Rewarded well with servile punishment!
The base degree to which I now am fall'n,
These rags, this grinding, is not yet so base
As was my former servitude. ignoble,
Unmanly, ignominious, infamous,
True slavery, and that blindness worse than this,
That saw not how degeneratly I serv'd.
..............................................perhaps
God will relent, and quit thee all his debt;
Who evermore approves and more accepts
(Best pleas'd with humble and filial submission)
Him who imploring mercy sues for life,
Than who self-rigorous chooses death as due;
Which argues over-just, and self-displeas'd
For self-offence, more than for God offended.
At length to lay my head and hallow'd pledge
Of all my strength in the lascivious lap
Of a deceitful Concubine who shore me
Like a tame Wether, all my precious fleece,
Then turn'd me out ridiculous, despoil'd,
Shav'n, and disarm'd among my enemies.
But what avail'd this temperance, not compleat
Against another object more enticing?
What boots it at one gate to make defence
And at another to let in the foe
Effeminatly vanquish't?
Read Milton's Samson Agonistes
Monday, July 02, 2007
892. SAMSON AGONISTES - TASTERS 3
I thought where all thy circling wiles would end;
In feign'd Religion, smooth hypocrisie.
Boast not of what thou wouldst have done, but do
What then thou would'st ...
.........................these locks unshorn,
The pledge of my unviolated vow.
All these indignities, for such they are
From thine, these evils I deserve and more,
Acknowledge them from God inflicted on me
Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon
Whose ear is ever open; and his eye
Gracious to re-admit the suppliant ...
I was no private but a person rais'd
With strength sufficient and command from Heav'n
To free my Countrey; if their servile minds
Me their Deliverer sent would not receive,
But to their Masters gave me up for nought,
Th' unworthier they; whence to this day they serve.
Much more affliction than already felt
They cannot well impose, nor I sustain;
If they intend advantage of my labours
The work of many hands, which earns my keeping
With no small profit daily to my owners.
But patience is more oft the exercise
Of Saints, the trial of their fortitude,
Making them each his own Deliverer,
And Victor over all
That tyrannie or fortune can inflict,
Commands are no constraints. If I obey them,
I do it freely; venturing to displease
God for the fear of Man
Read Milton's Samson Agonistes
Thursday, July 05, 2007
893. SAMSON AGONISTES - TASTERS 4
Happ'n what may, of me expect to hear
Nothing dishonourable, impure, unworthy
Our God, our Law, my Nation, or my self,
The last of me or no I cannot warrant.
Chor. Go, and the Holy One
Of Israel be thy guide
To what may serve his glory best, & spread his name
Great among the Heathen round ...
And I perswade me God had not permitted
His strength again to grow up with his hair
Garrison'd round about him like a Camp
Of faithful Souldiery, were not his purpose
To use him further yet in some great service,
Not to sit idle with so great a gift
Useless, and thence ridiculous about him.
Yet e're I give the rains to grief, say first,
How dy'd he? death to life is crown or shame.
The building was a spacious Theatre
Half round on two main Pillars vaulted high,
With seats where all the Lords and each degree
Of sort, might sit in order to behold,
The other side was op'n, where the throng
On banks and scaffolds under Skie might stand;
I among these aloof obscurely stood.
The Feast and noon grew high, and Sacrifice
Had fill'd thir hearts with mirth, high chear, & wine,
When to thir sports they turn'd.
Oft he seems to hide his face,
But unexpectedly returns
Read Milton's Samson Agonistes
Thursday, July 05, 2007
894. THE INVOLUTED NOVEL
Harry Levin summarizes André Gide's The Counterfeiters:
"the diary of a novelist who is writing a novel [to be called The Counterfeiters] about a novelist
who is keeping a diary about the novel he is writing".
(M.H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms)
Thursday, July 05, 2007
895. THE ONE GREAT BOOK
From Luther's Table Talk, DCCCCXI:
The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no measure or limit to this fever for writing;
every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name;
others for the sake of lucre and gain. The Bible is now buried under so many commentaries,
that the text is nothing regarded. I could wish all my books were buried nine ells deep in the
ground, by reason of the ill example they will give, every one seeking to imitate me in writing
many books, with the hope of procuring fame. But Christ died not to favour our ambition and
vain-glory, but that this name might be glorified.
The aggregation of large libraries tends to divert men's thoughts from the one great book, the
Bible, which ought, day and night, to be in every one's hand. My object, my hope, in
translating the Scriptures, was to check the so prevalent production of new works, and so to
direct men's study and thoughts more closely to the divine Word. Never will the writings of
mortal man in any respect equal the sentences inspired by God. We must yield the place of
honour to the prophets and the apostles, keeping ourselves prostrate at their feet as we listen
to their teaching. I would not have those who read my books, in these stormy times, devote
one moment to them which they would otherwise have consecrated to the Bible.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
896. LOUISIANA PRESBYTERY OF THE PCA
Now who on earth would be in the slightest bit interested in that?
Answer, those presby-nerds who follow the ins and outs of how Federal Vision and New Perspective on Paul
and wonderful people like Pastor Steve Wilkins are doing in that tiny sector of the Christian world which likes
to think of itself as "Reformed".
Unfortunately, I've not been paying sufficient attention. Because, in relation to THIS, on 21st April this year,
the Louisiana Presbytery said to the PCA central (or whatever it's called), "We've talked lots and prayed lots
and read lots and we can give you the happy assurance that Steve Wilkins is a nice, fine, orthodox teaching
elder (who has not always been as clear as he might have been (which of us has?)) and that those who say
otherwise are confused in the head or making mischief". Something like that anyway.
Well, hurray, hurrah and halle-loo-jah!
HERE is their report - and it's an education on this "Federal Vision" dooberry in its own right. And I've pasted
below the summary and conclusions.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
1. Louisiana Presbytery recognizes that Teaching Elders have a great responsibility to be clear
as they teach theology to the people of God (James 3:1).
2. Louisiana Presbytery acknowledges that TE Wilkins’ teachings have caused confusion and
controversy, and that he has approached certain doctrines from a perspective many in the
PCA are not used to.
3. Louisiana Presbytery acknowledges that TE Wilkins has not always been careful to be clear
and perhaps at times has failed to qualify his teaching properly, especially given the fact that
he sometimes articulates theology and defines terms in ways unusual in Reformed circles
today. For example, TE Wilkins teaches that, in some sense, “salvation can be lost”, that
baptism “saves”, and that there is a covenantal union with Christ brought by baptism that may
fall short of final eschatological union with Christ. Given the way the Reformed faith has
defined these terms, it is doubly important that a teaching elder properly clarify and qualify
his meaning so that the flock of God not misunderstand. But being unclear is not grounds to
condemn a man. If that were the case, all Teaching Elders would be subject to discipline. Also,
while it may not be wise to define terms differently from the current norm, it is hardly fair to
condemn a man for attempting to define terms biblically.
4. Extraordinary charges require extraordinary evidence. A man is innocent until proven
guilty. This is not simply American jurisprudence: it is articulated in WLC 145. Louisiana
Presbytery sees no convincing evidence that TE Wilkins is out of accord with the system of
doctrine taught in the Standards. Lack of clarity is not the same as lack of conformity. Every
Teaching Elder could be accused of causing confusion at times.
5. When a Bible teacher uses terminology different from the Standards, it does not necessarily
follow that he is teaching that which is contrary to the Standards. If it were a chargeable
offense for a minister to use theological language differently from the Confession, every
Teaching Elder would be deposed.
6. Some wording in the Standards represents compromise language written in order to
achieve agreement. There was not unanimity among the Westminster Divines in every
formulation in the Confession. Thus some of the wording is intentionally ambiguous. Also, the
case could be made that points made in one part of the Standards are apparently inconsistent
with points made at others. Some statements in the Confession are ambiguous and open to
differing interpretations.
7. Much of this “Federal Vision” controversy stems from a failure to understand that the Bible
teaches the doctrine of salvation from two perspectives: the covenant (Biblical Theology) and
the decree (Systematic Theology). These two perspectives are different but not inconsistent
with each other.
8. The Bible, in both Testaments, describes the visible covenant community with all the
language of salvation. (See Isa. 43:1-4 and I Cor. 6:11-20 as representative examples). When
addressing the covenant people, the Bible never addresses one group within the covenant
community as “truly” saved and another group within the covenant community as not saved.
Instead, the Bible addresses the covenant people as a saved community and exhorts them to
be faithful. That many within the covenant community will not be in heaven is certain. But
men are not given the prerogative to peer into the secrets of God’s decree. As ministers and
elders, we must deal with people on the basis of the objective reality of the covenant. As long
as they are being faithful, we do not question their salvation. It is the Presbytery’s view that
TE Wilkins is seeking to accentuate this truth when he teaches on covenant issues. But just as
we believe that the Confession is not inconsistent with Scripture, we also believe TE Wilkins is
not inconsistent with the Standards.
9. Although some members of Presbytery disagree with the way TE Wilkins interprets some
passages of Scripture and some portions of the Confession, and while it is certainly fair to
question whether or not TE Wilkins teaches Bible doctrine with the same emphasis found in
the Westminster Standards, Louisiana Presbytery finds that the views of TE Wilkins are well
within historic Reformed theology and are not inconsistent with Westminster.
10. TE Wilkins vehemently denies the assertions made against him in the Central Carolina
Memorial. After a thorough examination of Rev. Wilkins, the Louisiana Presbytery finds no
legitimate reason to sustain any of the allegations raised in the memorial. After carefully
weighing the issues raised by the Central Carolina Memorial and the responses of TE Wilkins
during five hours of questioning, the Louisiana Presbytery does not believe that TE Wilkins is
in violation of ordination vow No. 2: that is, we judge his views to be within the “fundamentals
of the system of doctrine” taught in the Westminster Standards.
11. It is incumbent upon Christian gentlemen always to represent fairly those people with
whom we may disagree. We find that the memorial from Central Carolina unfairly
misrepresents many of the views held by TE Wilkins. We exhort Central Carolina Presbytery
to consider their duty as per WLC 144 and 145.
Friday, July 06, 2007
897. WHY CHRISTIAN EDUCATION?
Luther tells us why ... well, as spun by those fine people at the Acton Institute anyway.
HERE.
Friday, July 06, 2007
898. AMAZING BODIES
1 Corinthians 15.35-49 again:
Four contrasts in verses 42-44. How do we characterize these?
1) "corruption" is what we see / experience when the body of a sinner meets time and pressure
2) "dishonour" is what we see / experience when the body of a sinner meets sin and temptation
3) "weakness" is what we see / experience when the body of a sinner meets the high demands of God for a life
lived entirely to his glory.
All three of these contrasts relate to human fallenness.
The fourth contrast - which is introduced in verse 44a and then developed in 44b-49 - is not a "shame to glory"
contrast but a "glory to greater glory" contrast. This is not an "Adam sinned but Christ redeemed" contrast but
an "unfallen Adam was immature but the risen Christ is exalted, transformed, elevated, matured, glorified"
contrast.
The first three contrasts are

sin-spoiled humanity contrasted with Christ-redeemed humanity
The fourth contrast is

stage one (earthy, naked, ordinary) humanity contrasted with stage two (heavenly, robed, Spiritempowered) humanity.
Friday, July 06, 2007
899. RESURRECTION BODIES
HT - David Moss.
I can't for the life of me find this hymn online and will take it down straightaway if I discover that I'm breaking
copyright. (I think that it might be by E. Margaret Clarkson.) But there are so few hymns celebrating the hope
of bodily resurrection that I wish this were known more widely:
"In Resurrection Bodies"
In Resurrection bodies
like Jesus' very own,
we'll rise to meet our Saviour
in joy around his throne:
we'll marvel at the mercy
that bids poor sinners come,
be welcomed at his table,
and share his heavenly home!
O, Joy of resurrection,
all sin and sorrow past,
to see the face of Jesus,
to be like Him at last!
Made perfect in His image,
complete in Christ the Son,
in resurrection glory
we'll share the life he won.
O, resurrection body,
set free from pain and death,
sin's curse forever vanquished
by Christ's victorious breath!
Lord teach us in our trials
your hidden ways to trace,
to walk by faith discerning
your mysteries of grace!
O, resurrection body,
young, radiant, vibrant, free,
with powers unthought, undreamed of how rich your joys shall be!
Through endless years to marvel,
design, create, explore,
in resurrection wonder
to worship, serve, adore!
With holy joy, Lord Jesus,
we sing the life You give,
the hope You hold before us the strength by which we live!
Lead on in sovereign mercy
through all life's troubled ways,
till resurrection bodies
bring resurrection praise!
Monday, July 09, 2007
900. THE EYRE AFFAIR
HT - Ros Clarke
I'd never heard of Jasper Fforde until reading Ros's post last Friday. Ros claimed
If you haven't yet discovered the joy and delight and sheer silly fun that is reading a Jasper
Fforde novel, then you have a treat in store. Fforde writes about books, about reading books,
about the world within the book, about the interaction between text and reader (not so much
author) and does it all with utterly hilarious jokes.
And she was right. I'm already a fan - I loved The Eyre Affair and am looking forward to the other "Thursday
Next" novels as soon as I can lay my hands on them.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
901. WILL I EVER FINISH KIUCHI ON LEVITICUS?
.
Kiuchi on Leviticus.
Having just finished chapter 2, I'm further troubled.
1) A good point: minchah (can't seem to do proper transliteration here) is at least translated "loyalty offering"
which is a lot better than meal / cereal / grain offering. "Tribute" might be better still.
2) Another good point: azkarah is recognized as being a "reminder to the Lord". (Azkarah, you'll remember
(!), goes with minchah in Lev 2.2, 9, 16 and 6.15; with the minchah of jealousy in Num 5.26; and with the poor
man's hatta't in Lev 5.12)
3) BUT ... no reference is made to the fact that "atonement" is not explicit (or even in view?) in the tribute
offering. (It is similarly not explicit (or even in view?) in the peace/fellowship offerings of chapter 3; whereas it
is explicit in the ascension/burnt offerings of chapter 1, the purification offerings of chapter 4, and the
reparation offerings of chapter 5).
4) WORSE ... what on earth is going on in sentences like these?

"Honey and leaven symbolize material blessing; hence the potential for corruption ... in so far as
honey and leaven symbolize human corruption, their prohibition excludes any human elements or
humanism in Israel's relationship with God."

"The offering focuses on restoring the broken relationship in terms of the human soul ..."

"Since the covenantal relationship between the Lord and the Israelites essentially lies in the heart and
mind of the latter ..."

"Considering that the grains are to be burnt, albeit only partly, they represent the egocentric nature of
the offerer's soul (nepesh, v.1); the doomed 'life' of the offerer should be replaced by true life brought
about by visibly burning the grain. In other words, the ritual expresses that true bread must come
from the Lord."

"Grain is not as expensive as animal sacrifices. This is also in keeping with the offering's function.
Since it concerns a person's inner being, not only can the material afford to be simple and modest, but
this must be so."

"NT believers do not need to offer the loyalty offering to the Lord, because his wrath is appeased by
Christ's death on the cross." [see 3) above]

"As Israel would continue within the covenant by embodying the relationship initiated at the Passover,
so the way forward in the Christian life is to maintain strenuously the initial spiritual condition one
had upon first believing in Christ."

"In the OT it was the priest who burned the token portion to the Lord. In NT times it is the risen Jesus
Christ and the Holy Spirit who take care of this vital aspect of the human soul. The connection with
Christ is faith in him only: other things or persons are unnecessary. Indeed things and persons other
than Christ may become hindrances to faith. Rather, as stated above, it is because humans tend to
trust in objects and people, which amounts to idolatry, that they lose the Lord's presence. The loyalty
offering is one that deals with this kind of spiritual longing for the Lord's presence, or for the
confirmation of the never-failing relationship between ourselves and the Lord."
I know very little about this stuff and but this feels to me like a combination of a governing [semi-marcionite]
spirituality, an undeveloped systematic and NT theology, and a reaching for originality. I don't know how
much further I'll get with this book.
Why do I post this?
1. because this is my cyber-commonplace-book
2. because I wish that I had spent an hour or two with this book in the library before buying my own
copy. While I may yet become a fan of the book (and I hope that I do), others could learn from my
haste.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
902. PAY CAREFUL ATTENTION ... TO ALL THE FLOCK
It's a familiar situation. You're having a conversation with a young father after the Sunday morning church
service. The young children are his responsibility at that moment.






They act rudely - and he ignores it.
They resist his authority - and he gives way.
They wander away - and he doesn't notice.
They hurt themselves or others - and he is unaware of it.
He knows - vaguely - that they are out of control - and he chooses to ignore it.
An intervention becomes unavoidable - and he acts with resentment, impatience, or anger.
Since there is a clear relationship between a man's 'pastoral care' of his family and his fitness to hold pastoral
responsibility in the Church, what happens to the young children when they are under their father's care is a
very, very, very simple test to apply.
There may be all sorts of reasons why he is not paying proper attention to his little ones ...







absent-mindedness
tunnel-focus on your conversation
generalized confidence that 'they'll be OK'
avoidance of confrontation
regarding caring for little children as beneath him
neglect as a passive-aggressive way of telling his wife to look after them
...
But, let's be honest, NONE of these augur well for the exercise of pastoral care in the Church.
Next time a father of youngsters is up for office in your local church, have a conversation with him after the
service one Sunday when the little ones are his responsibility. After five minutes you'll know whether you trust
him to give "careful attention ... to all the flock".
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
903. GLOBAL WARMING, A SCIENTIFIC FORECAST?
I've no more idea about the technical validity of THIS than Tim Worstall has but I'm very interested indeed.
HERE is Green and Armstrong's paper. It makes fascinating reading not least because of the authors' evident
commitment to openness, transparency, and accountability. The ignorance and neglect of scientific forecasting
principles which marks Chapter 8 of the IPCC WG1's 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (the
predictions/scenarios chapter) is astonishing.
This is the abstract:
In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group One, a panel of
experts established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations
Environment Programme, issued its updated, Fourth Assessment Report, forecasts. The
Report was commissioned at great cost in order to provide policy recommendations to
governments. It included predictions of dramatic and harmful increases in average world
temperatures over the next 92 years. Using forecasting principles as our guide we asked, are
these forecasts a good basis for developing public policy? Our answer is “no.”
To provide forecasts of climate change that are useful for policy-making, one would need to
forecast (1) global temperature, (2) the effects of any temperature changes, (3) the effects of
alternative policies, and (4) whether the best policy would be successfully implemented.
Proper forecasts of all four are necessary for rational policy making.
The IPCC Report was regarded as providing the most credible long-term forecasts of global
average temperatures by 31 of the 51 scientists and others involved in forecasting climate
change who responded to our survey. We found no references to the primary sources of
information on forecasting methods despite the fact these are easily available in books,
articles, and websites. In our audit of Chapter 8 of the IPCC’s WG1 Report, we found enough
information to make judgments on 89 out of a total of 140 forecasting principles. The
forecasting procedures that were described violated 72 principles. Many of the violations
were, by themselves, critical.
We concluded that the forecasts in the Report were not the outcome of scientific procedures.
In effect, they were the opinions of scientists transformed by mathematics and obscured by
complex writing. Research on forecasting has shown that experts’ predictions are not useful.
Instead, policies should be based on forecasts from scientific forecasting methods. We have
been unable to identify any scientific forecasts of global warming. Claims that the Earth will
get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder.
And some fun moments:
Experts’ forecasts of climate changes have long been popular. Anderson and Gainor (2006)
found the following headlines in their search of the New York Times:




Sept. 18, 1924: “MacMillan Reports Signs of New Ice Age”
March 27, 1933: “America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776”
May 21, 1974: “Scientists Ponder Why World’s Climate is Changing: A Major Cooling
Widely Considered to be Inevitable”
Dec. 27, 2005: “Past Hot Times Hold Few Reasons to Relax About New Warming”
Roger Pielke Sr. gave an assessment of climate models in a 2007 interview (available here):
You can always reconstruct after the fact what happened if you run enough
model simulations. The challenge is to run it on a independent dataset, say
for the next five years. But then they will say “the model is not good for five
years because there is too much noise in the system”. That’s avoiding the
issue then. They say you have to wait 50 years, but then you can’t validate the
model, so what good is it?
…Weather is very difficult to predict; climate involves weather plus all these
other components of the climate system, ice, oceans, vegetation, soil etc. Why
should we think we can do better with climate prediction than with weather
prediction? To me it’s obvious, we can’t!
I often hear scientists say “weather is unpredictable, but climate you can
predict because it is the average weather”. How can they prove such a
statement?
Thursday, July 12, 2007
904. WE NEED MORE FOOTBALLS
[PS - with many thanks to AD - please replace the word "paper" with the phrase "clarinets and furniture"
below. Others may be guilty of "plain economic ignorance" but I'm more simple than that, I have "plain
ignorance"]
1. In a free market, if you want football production to increase, then play more football.
2. In a free market, if you want more fields given over to wheat, then eat more bread.
3. In a free market, if you want more houses built, then get more people (single-parent households because of
divorce, a longer-lived population, more (highly welcome, in my view) immigrants).
4. In a free market, if you want more rainforest, then use more paper.
On 3. the problem is that we don't have a free market - government gets in the way with planning laws, thereby
guaranteeing under-supply. The price then goes up and government tries to "solve" the problem which it has
created by forcibly taking some people's money and giving it to its clients ("affordable housing for keyworkers" I think they call it).
On 4. the problem is that economic sense and environmental concern so rarely go hand in hand. The gut
reaction is, "but you can't get rainforest overnight" and/or "but owners of rainforests want this because then
the price of their product will rise". The first ignores the fact that markets are a thousand times better at
thinking ahead and putting discounts/premiums on things according to the likely future demand and supply
than governments or environmental researchers are. The second is just plain economic ignorance. The
moment that other owners of land on which rainforest can grow see that current rainforest owners are heading
for fantastic margins, they will switch use of their land. This is why - in spite of the repeated claims - we simply
do not see long-term exploitative monopolies develop in free markets. It just doesn't happen.
Want more wheatfields? Eat more bread.
Want more rainforests? Use more paper.
Want more footballs? Play more soccer.
Want more houses? Get more people.
But for all of these, you'll need a free market. Government distortions can ruin pretty much anything.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
905. M.H. ABRAMS' "A GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS"
I have, at last, finished this fine book and what an education it has been. It's a noddy guide to the history of
ideas and to hermeneutics, to modern philosophy and to the art and science of interpretation, to culture and
speech, to author, text and reader. I shall post some favourite moments and label them "Abrams" over the next
weeks.
For the moment, however, I need to think a bit about Samson for a talk I'm giving. And in doing so (since Jim
Jordan has written and lectured on Samson!) I shall further experience something similar to what Harold
Bloom calls the "Anxiety of Influence". Here, to illustrate Abrams' way with things, is what the "Glossary" says
on this phenonomen. Whether Harold Bloom's analysis is accurate and whether his pessimism is warranted,
the fact is that he is getting at something which we all experience:
"Bloom's own view is that in the composition of any poem, influence is inescapable, but that it
evokes in the author an anxiety that compels a drastic distortion of the work of a predecessor.
He applies this concept of anxiety to the reading as well as the writing of poetry.
In Bloom's theory a poet (especially since the time of Milton) is motivated to compose when
his imagination is seized upon by a poem or poems of a "precursor". The "belated" poet's
attitudes to his precursor, like those in Freud's analysis of the Oedipal relation of son to
father, are ambivalent; that is, they are compounded not only of admiration but also (since
any strong poet feels a compelling need to be autonomous and original) of hate, envy, and fear
of the precursor's preemption of the descendant's imaginative space. The belated poet
safeguards his sense of his own freedom and priority by reading a parent-poem "defensively,"
in such a way as to distort it beyond his own conscious recognition. Nonetheless, he cannot
avoid embodying the distorted parent-poem into his own hopeless attempt to write an
unprecedently original poem; the most that even the best belated poet can achieve is to write a
poem so "strong" that it effects an illusion of "priority" - that is, a double illusion that it has
escaped the precursor-poem's precedence in time, and that it exceeds it in greatness."
There's more about different distortive reading processes and their relation to Freudian defense mechanisms,
about the inevitability of misreading and the different sorts of misreading, and about the development of
"antithetical criticism". Thought-provoking even when wrong. (And what would Bloom say about that!)
Friday, July 13, 2007
906. ACADEMICS AND CHURCHES
Louis Jonker and Douglas Lawrie call them "faith communities" but "the Church" or "believers" would have
been better:

Academics strive for novelty; faith communities need continuity

Academics prize creativity; faith communities need cohesion

Academics privilege criticism; faith communities have to be loyal to a calling

Academics speak to experts; faith communities have to address the world

Academics seek theoretical understanding; faith communities seek guidance for life

Academics defer to reason; faith communities live by faith.
Yeah, the last one is pretty silly, though you can read it charitably. But the overall point is well-made and welltaken.
Believers in the academy have got their work cut out if they are to live faithfully and seek first the kingdom.
Praise God for Christian academics (so long as they operate in a kingdom manner). They need much prayer.
As for the seminary, remember, it is not the academy. And woe betide seminary teachers or students who
think that it is. Yes, the seminary pays attention to what goes on in the academy (and sometimes makes the
odd contribution to academic discussions) but always for the sake of the Church.
The seminary is established by the Church, for the Church, and under the Church. The seminary should be
staffed by pastor-teachers of the Church who have been set apart for the specialised task of contributing
particular expertise to the preparation and formation of those whom the Church has decided should
themselves be trained as potential pastor-teachers of the Church.
The seminary should be accountable to the Church, funded by the Church, prayed for by the Church, and at
the service of the Church.
And as the kingdom continues to come and the Church continues to grow then the academy will be reformed
and transformed and conquered for and by the Lord Jesus Christ so that what is unfaithful in Jonker and
Lawrie's list of "academic" characteristics will be replaced by Christian intellectual and academic graces.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
907. LOST IN A GOOD BOOK
Please put on your "charitable reading-glasses".
If you have ever got "into" a book then the paragraph below will make perfect sense to you.
If you are a Christian who knows that appetite for the Word increases because in it you taste the kindness of
the Lord then the paragraph below will make perfect sense to you.
If, theologically, you are convinced that to encounter the word of a person is to meet that person (to say that
you trust a person but doubt his word or that you obey a person but disobey his word is nonsense), then the
paragraph below will make perfect sense to you.
(And, OK, a bit of Plato and The Wizard of Oz wouldn't hurt.)
If it makes perfect sense then Jasper Fforde's work will intrigue you.
If it doesn't make sense then it's possible that your soul is a void!
I blinked twice but Osaka was far behind. I closed the book, carefully placed it in my pocket
and looked around. I was in a long, dark, wood-panelled corridor lined with bookshelves that
reached from the richly carpeted floor to the vaulted ceiling. The carpet was elegantly
patterned and the ceiling was decorated with rich mouldings that depicted scenes from the
classics, each cornice supporting the marble bust of an author. High above me, spaced at
regular intervals, were finely decorated circular apertures through which light gained entry
and reflected off the polished wood, reinforcing the serious mood of the library. Running
down the centre of the corridor was a long row of reading tables, each with a green-shaded
brass lamp. The library appeared endless; in both directions the corridor vanished into
darkness with no definable end. But this wasn't important. Describing the library would be
like going to see a Turner and commenting on the frame. On all the walls, end after end, shelf
after shelf, were books. Hundreds, thousands, millions of books. Hardbacks, paperbacks,
leather-bound volumes, uncorrected proofs, handwritten manuscripts, everything. I stepped
closer and rested my fingertips lightly on the pristine volumes. They felt warm to the touch, so
I leaned closer and pressed my ear to the spines. I could hear a distant hum, the rumble of
machinery, people talking, traffic, seagulls, laughter, waves on rocks, wind in the winter
branches of trees, distant thunder, heavy rain, children playing, a blacksmith's hammer - a
million sounds all happening together. And then, in a revelatory moment, the clouds slid back
from my mind and a crystal-clear understanding of the very nature of books shone upon me.
They weren't just collections of words arranged neatly on a page to give the impression of
reality - each of these volumes was reality. The similarity of these books to the copies I had
read back home was no more than the similarity a photograph has to its subject - these books
were alive!
I walked slowly down the corridor, running my fingers along the spines and listening to the
comfortable pat-pat-pat sound they made, every now and then recognising a familiar title.
After a couple of hundred yards I came across a junction where a second corridor crossed the
first. In the middle of the crossway was a large circular void with a wrought-iron rail and a
spiral staircase bolted securely to one side. I peered cautiously down. Not more than thirty
feet below me I could see another floor, exactly like this one. But in the middle of that floor
was another circular void through which I could see another floor, and another and another
and so on to the depths of the library. I looked up. It was the same above me, more circular
light wells and the spiral staircase reaching up into the dizzy heights above. I leaned on the
balcony and looked about me at the vast library once again.
'Well,' I said to no one in particular, 'I don't think I'm in Osaka any more.'
Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book, pp.160-62
Monday, July 16, 2007
908. I PETER 1.22 - 2.3
Ordination sermon notes - 14th July 2007
1 Peter 1.22 – 2.3: By his living word God is producing a loving family
1.22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your
brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. 1.23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed,
but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 1.24 For, "All men are like grass, and all
their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, 1.25 but the word of the Lord
stands forever." And this is the word that was preached to you. 2.1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and
all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2.2 Like newborn babies, crave the pure milk of the
word, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 2.3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
1. The world must be peopled!
2. Getting to know the passage:
a) Main strands:







Word (1.22a)
Love (1.22b)
Love (1.22c)
Word (1.23-25)
Love (2.1)
Word (2.2)
Lord (2.3)
b) Main commands


love the family (1.22)
crave the word (2.2)
3. Some things from these verses about love




it goes with being cleaned up - having been purified
it’s a new family phenomenon - brothers, born, babies
it’s genuine goodwill - deeply from the heart
it reflects the character of God - connection between 22 and 23-4



it excludes certain behaviours - 2.1
it grows ever deeper - 1.22
it flows from the kindness of Jesus - 2.2-3
4. Some things from these verses about the Word




it is God’s power - creation language
it is necessary nourishment for God’s children - milk
it requires action and response - preaching, obeying, craving
it ‘contains’ Jesus - Jesus is the main ingredient in the Word and so the Word tastes of Jesus
5. Connecting the two in DT’s ministry


as you show love to the family, people will taste the kindness of the Lord and develop an appetite for
the word
as you (crave and) release the word, the Lord will use it to produce babies and nurture children in
order to grow his family of love
6. And so God produces a people


born and nurtured by the Word (so, DT, meeting the Lord Jesus Christ in the Word yourself, make it a
priority prayerfully to bring people into contact with the life-giving, nurturing Word in which they
meet Christ)
of ever-deepening love (so, DT, tasting over and over the kindness of Jesus, make it a priority, in the
power of the Holy Spirit, to love the family of Jesus with the self-giving, beautiful and powerful love of
Jesus)
That's the way to be a real servant/minister of the church, of the word, of Christ.
Monday, July 16, 2007
909. WAGES AND THE SUPPORT OF CHRISTIAN WORKERS
A few years ago I was involved in putting together some briefing notes on "Wages and the Support of Christian
Workers" in order to help a local church consider how much it should "pay" its pastors and other workers. A
recent conversation reminded me about this. Here are those notes.
A. GENERAL MATERIAL ABOUT WAGES IN THE BIBLE
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Free market – no legislation on wage rates; no alternative modes of calculation; basic assumption of
owners’ rights
Recognition that employers could be in a position to oppress – and that it is wrong for them to do so
Treat your slaves justly and fairly for you know you have a master in heaven - Col 4.1
God is against those who oppress the worker in their wages - Malachi 3.5
Pay promptly - Leviticus 19.13 - applies in NT - James 5.4
Be content with your wages - Luke 3.14
Woe to those who get labour without paying for it - Jeremiah 22.13
B. MATERIAL RELEVANT TO THE QUESTION OF SUPPORTING CHRISTIAN WORKERS
(i) OT examples
1. Deuteronomy 18.1-8 - God makes sure they get provided for
2. Deuteronomy 12.19 - must be cared for
3. Leviticus 18.12 (8-20) - get the best
Levite stuff is relevant because Paul quotes it in I Corinthians 9
Levites owned houses - I K 2.26 Jer 32.7 Acts 4.36
(ii) NT principles
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
those receiving good things spiritually should share good things materially Romans 15.27 I Cor 9.11
Gal 6.6
the labourer is worthy of his hire - Matt 10.10, Luke 10.7
those proclaim gospel shd get their living by the gospel I Cor 9
the preaching/teaching elders are worthy of double honour - I Tim 5.17-18
Christian workers are not be motivated by material gain – I Peter 5
Christian workers may choose, for the sake of the Gospel, to forego material provision which they
might legitimately have ‘demanded’ – I Cor 9, I Thess 2, 2 Thess 3, Philemon
the pattern for the Christian worker’s motivation is that of the Lord Jesus Christ – for the glory of God
and the good of others, in self-forgetful, sacrificial service, trusting in God for provision and reward –
John 4.34, 8.29, 17.1-4; John 10.11, Mark 10.45, 2 Cor 8.9, Heb 12.2, Matt 20-24-28, John 13.3-4, 1415
C. CONCLUSIONS
1. Those labouring in the Gospel/ for the church are to receive




the best – the Lord’s portion, the first fruits of grain, wine, oil
a living
a material recompense reflecting their spiritual contribution
a material recompense reflecting the double honour in which they are held
2. Those labouring in the Gospel / for the Church are to do so



in a spirit of self-forgetful sacrifice
with a willingness to forego what they might legitimately demand
with a confidence in God’s power to provide and reward
“It is the church’s responsibility to be generous and the worker’s responsibility to be sacrificial. It is not for the
worker to demand ‘generosity’ on the part of the church nor for the church to demand ‘sacrifice’ on the part of
the worker.”
D. RELATED CONSIDERATIONS
In addition to the Biblical principles outlined above, the following principles and reflections appeared to us to
be relevant.

Due recognition of the sacrificial giving of time and money by church members in the ongoing life of
the church;

The importance of these matters being dealt with sensitively and in such a way as protects, so far as
possible, the privacy and dignity of the individuals concerned;

‘Affordability’ may mean all sorts of things and could be wrongly used as an excuse for meanness or a
refusal to take ‘risks’ and initiatives while trusting God. Nevertheless careful and responsible
stewardship requires us to include ‘affordability’ in our consideration of these matters;

While it is clear that inordinate desire for money is a motivation utterly unworthy of those engaged in
Christian ministry, there does not appear to be grounds for reckoning relative material privation
somehow to be of the ‘essence’ of such ministry. No Christians are to be motivated by an inordinate
desire for money and all Christians are to seek first the Kingdom and bear whatever sacrifice that
entails in their particular circumstances;

The danger of double standards in the support of Christian workers – we expect them to cheerfully
tolerate what we would not tolerate for our families – and because they do just that there is an inbuilt
inertia in the system;

There are other claims upon the resources of God’s people than generous support of Christian workers
– such as the importance of giving to the poor or to mission or to training and sending others. In a
world of limited resources not all things that are important, biblically supported and eminently
reasonable can be done immediately and simultaneously;

The possibility that the way we support Christian workers may send a signal about the value we place
upon mothers of pre-school children being at home with their children, children of dependent elderly
parents being able to care for them and (?) wives of senior church staff being able to support / be
involved in their husbands’ work;

In spite of the effort to move away from merely supporting Christian workers according to their
‘needs’ (defined by whom? by what standard?), there may be times when support levels are affected by
‘needs’. (One example would be that a man comes to be Pastor of the church relatively late in life but
with no housing provision having been made for him – his needs may be higher than the suggested
pay bands. At the other end the Church may find itself in a position of extreme financial difficulty and
thus give a man the bare minimum of what he ‘needs’ to continue as Pastor – and this may be lower
than the suggested pay bands.)

The Biblical material about the support of Pastors is relatively clear. The starting point is the question:
What looks and feels like an appropriate and generous expression of the honour in which we hold our
Pastors and of our gratitude to God for the spiritual blessings we receive through them?

The importance of bringing people with us if substantial changes are recommended. The need for such
changes may flow from an historic failure of understanding of the Biblical material on the honouring
of pastors on the part of the Christian church. We want to be radically Biblical without leaving the
flock behind.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
910. ADMONISH ONE ANOTHER
A teeny-weeny word-study
A. The noutheteō verses:

Acts 20.31 - So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped admonishing each of
you night and day with tears.

Rom 15.14 - I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in
knowledge and competent to admonish one another.

1 Cor 4.14 - I am not writing this to shame you, but to admonish you, as my dear children.

Col 1.28 - We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may
present everyone perfect in Christ.

Col 3.16 - Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all
wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

1 Thess 5.12 - Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you
in the Lord and who admonish you.

1 Thess 5.14 - And we urge you, brothers, admonish those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the
weak, be patient with everyone.

2 Thess 3.15 - Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.
B. Thinking about these verses:
1.
Who is admonishing whom? What is their relationship? Is authority involved? Is being in the right /
in the wrong involved?
2. What are the associated verbs?
3. What are the accompanying attitudes / feelings?
4. What is the goal of the admonition?
5. Can we guess what the content of the admonition is?
C. Some further application:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Examples of admonition in the past
Examples of admonition now?
Why is admonition difficult?
How can we help make this happen as it should?
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
911. CHARITABLE GIVING
A couple of items which go together:
Emasculated by the Political Class
and
Sir Tom Hunter makes record £1bn donation
If political A holds a gun to property-holder B's head, takes money from him, and gives it to poor man C then,
so far as I can tell and on the basis of that action alone, A would be wrong to accept praise for his "generosity".
If property-holder B chooses to give to poor man C then, morally, that's an altogether different matter.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
912. THEOLOGIA
There is SO much good material on the THEOLOGIA site that I am really glad to see that Mark Horne has
resumed work on it. If ever you feel the need for a compelling demonstration that Reformed soteriology and
Reformed ecclesiology are mutually informing and enriching (and, indeed, perspectivally related insofar as
there is no salvation apart from the Church) then just go spend an hour or two at THEOLOGIA
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
913. R.T. FRANCE ON MATTHEW
R.T. France on Matthew in the NICNT series (1233pp) is likely to be very good news. His work on Divine
Government, his Tyndale Commentary on Matthew, and his NICGNT on Mark were all, to my mind, truly
excellent. (HT - Euangelion)
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
914. SINGING THE PSALMS
Matthew Mason, whose new blog is HERE, directs his readers to Paul Buckley's wonderful post, "Sing
Psalms". There, in a few short paragraphs, you have a compelling case for giving serious and sustained
attention to Psalm-singing.
Particularly telling moments included:
The answer to the “worship wars” is in the back of the pew in front of you. There, languishing
between the storied suffering of Job and the royal wisdom of Proverbs, lies the Book of Psalms
– one hundred and fifty of the greatest praise and worship songs ever.
How many churches squabbling over music have sung even one, first verse to last? How many
have even considered it?
...
That singing them never occurs to many “Bible-believing” Christians uncovers a baffling
irony: The churches that claim to make the most of the Bible in their theology make the least
of the Bible in their worship. For all their emphasis on the authority and God-givenness of
Scripture, evangelicals have the least biblical worship in Christendom.
There are churches – even some that bear the name “Bible” – in which the Scriptures are a
closed book, liturgically speaking. They aren’t sung. They aren’t prayed. They often aren’t even
read, save as an aperitif before the sermon.
...
One stumbling block is obvious. Many churchgoers aren’t accustomed to chanting, which is
the kind of singing that best suits the shape of the Psalms. But the success of chart-topping
chant CDs proves that such music retains its appeal. Of course Gregorian chant isn’t the only
way to sing Psalms. But the key thing is that chant, in all its various forms, adopts a posture of
humility before the text. It seeks only to give the inspired word pre-eminence, to be
conformed to it, and to glorify it. Ideally, it bends the singer to do the same.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
915. THE END OF HARRY POTTER
Now we know how Deathly Hallows finishes, I have to say that I definitely still prefer THIS VERSION.
If you don't know how Deathly Hallows finishes and can't be bothered to read the book then I'm told by
someone who has read both book and summary that the Wikipedia summary HERE is accurate and balanced.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
916. DOCTORS OF THE CHURCH
I really ought to read Calvin and the Puritans before writing on this but I was asked recently what I thought
about "doctors of the church" and my answer, from the hip, was along these lines:
1. there are two orders - deacons and elders
2. there are two sorts of elders - ruling elders and teaching elders
3. all elders are "pastors" in a generic sense
4. more often than not, a teaching elder is the pastor-teacher of a local congregation
5. the pastor-teacher role has various components - the boundaries are very fuzzy. (Obviously, all pastorteachers are "pastors" generically - see 3. above)
5.1 - there is the "pastor" component which consists of
5.1.1 - a leader dimension and
5.1.2 - a healer dimension
5.2 - there is the "teacher" component
Let me repeat that the boundaries are fuzzy, that pastoring (leading and healing) is done by teaching, that all
who teach in some sense lead and heal etc. Nevertheless, the distinctions have some practical use.
6. some teaching elders may take on specialized roles which mean that they are not functioning as "generalist"
pastor-teachers
7. examples include:
7.1 - a teaching elder on local church session who is not the overall pastor-teacher of the local church but is a
dedicated "teacher" in the life of that local church (runs small gps / runs the training of others / writes etc) or
for a group of churches
7.2 - a teaching elder on local church session who is not the overall pastor-teacher of the local church but is a
dedicated "theologian" in the life of that local church - or for a group of churches (by working in a seminary)
7.3 - a teaching elder on local church session who is not the overall pastor-teacher of the local church but is a
dedicated "counsellor" in the life of that local church - or for a group of churches
[8. I also think that "evangelist" in the Rico Tice sense fits this model, too (even though it's confusing in terms
of the lingo), - i.e. a teaching-elder set aside for specialist work]
9. in so far as 7.1 and 7.2 are teachers who do not necessarily have the gifts of leading and healing which are
part of being a pastor-teacher, then it makes sense to call these people "doctors of the church" (doctor means
teacher)
10. you could also say that the counselling experts, 7.3, should be called "doctors" too - either on the basis that
theirs is a specialized teaching-elder role without the generalist pastor-teacher demands and requirements or
(this would be confusing, though, because you'd be using the word "doctor" with a medical rather than didactic
connotation!) on the basis that theirs is a healing ministry
All of which amounts to recognizing specialist teaching-elder roles within the church which may be filled by
elders who are not themselves pastor-teachers (either a) because they are not fitted to be pastor-teachers,
lacking as they may, leadership gifts, for example or b) because, though they are fitted to be pastor-teachers,
they have been set aside for this specialist ministry for which they, but not many others, are particularly
suited).
This is where seminary teachers, Christian counsellors, canon theologians, and maybe "music leaders" or (but
not "directors of liturgy" - that's part of the pastor-teacher's job) fit in the life of the church.
Monday, July 23, 2007
917. DRIER SUMMERS
There's absolutely nothing in these articles to suggest that if you believe that man-made global warming is
happening then you ought to be surprised at record rainfalls in UK in the summer of 2007.
But that doesn't stop me feeling childishly amused by last year's headlines:

July 22nd 2006 - Drought, gales and refugees: what will happen as UK hots up

February 27, 2006 - Global Warming Brings Severe Drought to UK

October 5th, 2006 - Global Warming Could Spread Extreme Drought
And, from The Guardian on 23rd April 2007:
In northern Europe and the UK, summer drought will alternate with extreme winter flooding
as torrential rainstorms sweep in from the Atlantic - perhaps bringing storm surge flooding to
vulnerable low-lying coastlines as sea levels continue to rise.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
918. KIUCHI ON LEVITICUS 3
Why am I doing this to myself? Each time I read a section of Kiuchi on Leviticus I get more fed up about it.
David Baker and Gordon Wenham (series editors) are fine fellows but what on earth were they doing when
they allowed this to go through?
What do we have here?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Aaargh.
K thinks that the peace/fellowship offerings of chapter 3 are seeking peace with the LORD. (That the
three mentioned occasions – thanks / vows / freewill – presuppose relationship with God doesn’t
appear to count with K.) “The fellowship offering is thus offered when the offerer seeks fellowship with
the Lord as a man or a woman needing to relinquish all earthly desires. Thus they cannot approach
and offer a sacrifice with egocentricity or complacency, since this conflicts with the very idea of this
sacrifice. Unless they die spiritually, which means giving up their investiture of hope in earthly
matters, they are not entitled to offer the fellowship offering.”
After a brief discussion (in which he mentions that “fat” is used for “the best” elsewhere), K concludes
that “fat symbolizes something the Lord detests. Therefore the offerer must completely destroy it by
fire and, of course, its destruction is inevitably pleasing to the Lord. The burning of fat symbolizes the
destruction of detestable things within a human’s inner being. Since the above-cited passages indicate
a connection with … heart, these detestable tings probably reside in the human heart: a person’s
egocentricity.”
Because of this, for K, it is “the destruction of his [the offerer’s] egocentricity [which] is food for the
Lord.”
And “all the fat belongs to the LORD” “obliged the offerer not to withhold the fat from the Lord for to
do so symbolized one’s reluctance to destroy one’s egocentric nature.”
Again, “fat symbolizes the unnecessary parts of the human heart, the egocentric nature, while the
kidneys symbolize the innermost part of the human heart. The two elements are sinful and abhorrent
to the Lord.”
Subjectivist soteriology. After the comment quoted above (1.), K. adds, “One naturally wonders if such
a requirement could have been met, even temporarily, by the Israelites.” Again, “In so far as one's
whole existence before the Lord is symbolised by the offering, it is not just salvation from a particular
predicament but salvation of one's soul that is at stake. As for the burnt offering, one wonders what
the human reality is before the Lord when a person does not offer this sacrifice (cf. Ps. 50:13-14).
Thus, while the Israelites offered fellowship offerings on particular occasions, seeking fellowship with
the Lord, the existential transformation symbolised by the burning of fat is unlikely to have taken
place on each occasion. It is doubtful, for instance, if they really had fellowship when they offered the
offering at Sinai (Exod. 24:5), as is evidenced by the golden-calf incident soon afterwards (Exod. 32).”
K tells us that, “the bull is related to the divine sphere”, “the sheep is … a symbol of helplessness”, and
“the goat is … intrinsically associated with human sinfulness”. He concludes from these observations
that, “Thus it may be that two types of human beings (sheep and goats) are seen before God the judge
(bull): helpless and dependent sheep, and relatively strong and stubborn goats.”
“… this chapter requires that the worshipper, being a wholehearted, should willingly destroy his own
selfishness and hidden parts of heart. It seems, however, that this is hard even for NT believers.”
Thursday, August 02, 2007
919. THE BAPTIZED BODY
Peter Leithart, The Baptized Body.
What a wonderful book. This is superb.
Now we have a Leithart trilogy on the Christian vision for renewed human life:
a) Against Christianity - Christian civilization, public theology; the gospel as renewal of all of life
b) Deep Comedy - the gospel and literature/philosophy; how the character and actions of God in history are
inescapable in all human thought and cultural endeavour
c) The Baptized Body - the trinitarian, creationist, covenantal, personalist understanding of how God relates
to and renews humankind and how that shapes and informs our thinking about and practice of baptism.
These three books amount to a presentation of consistent, thoughtful, engaged, far-reaching Reformed
covenantalism. God is taking the world from glory to glory (and, within that, from shame to glory too) and the
vision of relational, social-and-individual, all-of-life trinitarian transformation which the Gospel
communicates and makes reality goes as deep and wide as reality itself.
~~~~~~~
As for The Baptized Body itself, what we have is
1. "Starting Before the Beginning". The main reasons for diluting the Bible's teaching about the efficacy of
baptism spring from faulty views of God, communication, sacrament, grace, salvation,and ritual. Signs and
symbols are rituals/actions which do things; identity is relational; grace is personal; God is inescapable.
2. ""Baptism" is Baptism". "When the New Testament writers use the word "baptism" they normally mean the
water rite of entry into the church." Leithart comments upon all of the relevant NT texts in order to establish
this proposition.
3. "The "Body of Christ" is the Body of Christ". Leithart regards this is as the key chapter in the book and
(incidentally, because the book is about far, far more than one current controversy) regards this as the "central
affirmation" of the so-called "Federal Vision". The proposition for which he argues is that "When the New
Testament writers call the church the "body of Christ," they mean the visible or historical church. This is
powerful, persuasive work.
4. "Apostasy Happens". Those who really have, by baptism, been made members of the body of Christ really do
fall away. Leithart discusses varieties of apostasy, "temporary" faith, God and time, the path to assurance and
much more.
5. "A Tale of Three Servants" - the even-more-fun, five page version of what has preceded.
Appendix: "The Sociology of Infant Baptism" - an essay from 1996 (?) which blew my mind when I read it at
the time (I'd only been committed to paedo-baptism for two years at the time and still felt a little hesitant
about it but this essay shows that paedo-baptism is consistent with "how the world works" as well as with
"what the Bible teaches". Funny that.)
~~~~~~~
Throughout the book Leithart clearly affirms what careless or ill-willed readers would otherwise claim he
denies - whether about God as unchanging, the hypostatic union as unique, the perseverance of the saints, the
possibility of assurance.
But at all points, his concern is faithfully to expound Scripture rather than to force it to fit pre-set dogmatic
conclusions.
It's a marvellous, readable, persuasive, insightful, mind-and-heart-expanding experience to read this book.
Favourite moments to follow in a few weeks, perhaps, (blogging is lower down the list of priorities than usual
for a while) but here are my two favourite sentences from the whole book:

"When we turn from the personal to the corporate body of Jesus, however, Nestorianism is rampant."
(We just about cope with saliva and blood and bodily functions with the personal body of
Christ but we can't cope with partiality and particularity and earthiness and incompleteness
with the corporate body of Christ and so we divide the historical church from the body of
Christ by means of concepts like the "invisible" church which, while not without some
usefulness, is a loose thread and if you pull it hard then the whole fabric of God's renewing
work as Creator-Redeemer begins to unravel.)

"Apostasy doesn't sneak up on people who are keeping faith."
(You can't think about perseverance and assurance and apostasy and reprobation in isolation
from who you are and what you're doing today. Live trustingly today.)
What a wonderful book. This is superb.
Peter Leithart, The Baptized Body.
Monday, August 13, 2007
920. A THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION
Reformed Theological Seminary has put a vast number of high quality theological lectures online HERE. (HT Mark Horne). Remember this too.
Here we have ...
John Frame on Pastoral and Social Ethics - 42 tracks
John Frame on History of Philosophy and Christian Thought - 36 tracks
John Frame on Christian Apologetics - 26 tracks
Douglas Kelly on Systematic Theology - 96 tracks and a great accent
Richard Pratt on Introduction to Pastoral and Theological Studies - 23 tracks
Richard Pratt on Genesis to Deuteronomy - 29 tracks
John Currid - Judges through Poets - 37 tracks
Richard Belcher - Isaiah through Malachi - 34 tracks
Andrew Peterson - Practical Theology - Disabilities and the Church - 29 tracks
Knox Chamblin - Gospel and Acts - 48 tracks
Knox Chamblin - Pauline epistles - 47 tracks
Simon Kistemaker - Hebrews through Revelation - 45 tracks
What a great resource.
Monday, August 13, 2007
921. TO ISRAEL WITH OAK HALL
I've posted before (see HERE and HERE) about what a splendid organisation Oak Hall Expeditions is
and I return from another 10 day Oak Hall trip to Israel even morely firmly convinced of the high value of Oak
Hall's ministry. Here were 50+ Christians from a wide variety of church backgrounds and in all sorts of
different life circumstances coming together to enjoy an excellent visit to Israel, full of Bible education and
great fun, and to receive Bible teaching night after night throughout the trip. It's a privilege to be involved with
this fine, fine work.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
922. WWJMD?
Spending time with a widely varied group of Christians in Israel over this last 10 days and then 5 minutes back
at Heathrow has brought home to me afresh that, for those with something of a Spirit-given taste for what
"Christlikeness" means, it is an enormous help to be able to see the different graces of all sorts of fellowbelievers as embodiments or instantiations of the grace of Christ.
So, if I want to learn more about combining gentleness and kindness, then it's good to ask, "what would Judy
Mayo do?"
If I want grace and perseverance under a succession of trying problems, then, "what would D and E do?"
If courage, trust, and charity under unbrotherly and apparently malicious criticism, then, "what would S do?"
If relentless self-forgetful, self-denying, servantlike giving, then, "what would P do?"
If robust cheerfulness in the face of an immense workload and carping critics, then, "what would D do?"
and so on, and so on. The point is not the names of the Christians I'm thinking of but rather the sheer
concreteness of the different dimensions of Christlikeness as the Spirit has made them visible in particular
individuals.
This is all of the grace of God and all to the praise of God.
Monday, August 27, 2007
923. READINGS OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN
Thinking about a sermon I heard recently led me to try and classify readings of the parable of the Good
Samaritan.
1. A Lutheran reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan starts with the assumption that what is recorded in
the gospels is what is necessary for an individual to answer the question, "what must I, a sinner, do to have my
sins forgiven?" When the lawyer tried to "justify" himself that meant that he was trying to attain a status of
"righteous before God" by moral effort. The parable of the Good Samaritan is Jesus's way of preaching the law.
In effect, Jesus says, "be utterly, sinlessly perfect", knowing that when the teacher of the law tries this, he will
fail and, realizing his guilt, look for a gospel of grace. So Jesus doesn't really mean "go and do likewise".
2. A Calvinist reading of the Good Samaritan argues that Romans 2.6ff is not an "empty set" but that really and
truly the "doers of the law" will be justified. And doers of the law are those who (by grace) keep the love
command. The lawyer is asking, "what's the path of life for the (graciously redeemed) people of God - how do
they give evidence that they are the people of God and how do they enter into full enjoyment of the blessings
of the covenant?" And Jesus's answer is on the level - it is the way of Spirit-worked and radical kingdom love.
3. A New Perspective reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan de-emphasizes the singular pronouns and
the verb "do" and hears the lawyer as asking, "Given that Israel is currently in a mess and far from enjoying
the full blessings of the covenant, what should we do in order to attain such blessings? How do we enter full
possession of the inheritance of the age to come?" Jesus's reply is simply, "Obey the Great Commandments".
The lawyer doesn't like the implication that it is his generation's sins which are the current problem and so
quibbles with one of a first century Jew's biggest questions - "How do we relate to the outsider - the pagan, the
Roman, the traitor?" Still answering on the level, Jesus gives a straightforward answer - Israel should have
learned true, deep, international love, should be showing radical mercy to the needy, and should be made
ashamed by the faithful Gentiles of her day.
4. A Christological reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan can sit with any of the three other readings
and simply highlights that the need of broken humankind is for an Outsider to show intervene, to show mercy,
and to secure healing at cost to Himself.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
924. CONDITIONAL WILLS
After the new order has been established by the sequence of purification / ascension / peace-communion
offerings in Leviticus 9, there is an immediate fall.
9.24 - "fire came out from before the LORD and consumed the ascension offering ..." - God's approval of the
new creation
10.2 - "fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them and they died before the LORD" - God's
disapproval of the new fall.
Allen Ross (whose book, Holiness to the LORD, is a little bland at times but is generally very helpful and is
characterised by lucid prose, crystal clear structure, devoutness of tone, and carefulness with the text)
comments:
"Aaron's family should not mourn those whom God had judged."
It's another of those "association" questions. What connection/relationship should I have with my children
when they are under God's judgment? If they are under Church discipline (which is God's judgment) or
patently should be even though the church is failing in its God-given responsibility, then the water of
baptismal association should prove thicker than the blood of "natural" ties and I should stand with the verdict
of the family of God rather than with the sensibilities of "merely" human family.
Which is to say that in relation to persistent impenitence in scandalous sin (unrepentantly going out with or
marrying an unbeliever, for example) it is wrong for a Christian parent or friend to announce, "I don't approve
of what s/he is doing but it's not my place to condemn. I simply need to be there for him/her, maintain as
close a relationship as possible, and hope it all works out."
So, eventually, you come to conditional wills. Do not show solidarity with those who are under the judgment of
God:
"If I die before my wife then everything goes to her. If I die after my wife then please pay all
outstanding bills and debts and make the following bequests (missions, Church, the poor,
Everton FC, etc). After the above bequests have been disbursed, all remaining properties and
monies are to be equally divided between any and all of my children - and only those
children - who have been communicant members in good standing of a Biblebelieving Trinitarian church for the five years up to the date of my death. These
children should consider giving (entirely discretionary) personal gifts to any others of my
children who return to the Church (to the Lord) in the last five years of my life or at a later
time."
Thursday, August 30, 2007
925. CHANTING THE PSALMS
After years and years of being committed in theory to chanting the Psalms, I have, this year made some
progress towards being committed in practice. Nothing beats getting on and doing it and for the last three
months I have given quite a few hours to practising chanting Psalms. Put another way, I have spent a chunk of
time singing Bible words to God in praise and prayer. Additionally ...
A. I'm getting better at putting the initial argument briefly
With help, that is, from Paul Buckley and Matthew Mason and others. Of course, there's a whole raft of
arguments from the numerous and deep benefits of the practice, from the obvious appropriateness of Bible
people singing Bible words, and so on. But here are three approaches I find myself coming back to over and
over ...
1. If there were a songbook on your shelf of hymnals and songbooks entitled "The One
Hundred and Fifty Best Worship Songs Ever" and you discovered that it had been given its
title by Almighty God, how often do you think you would use that book in comparison with the
others?
2. What do you think would be the response of a congregation which was solemnly instructed
to turn to "Onward, Christian Soldiers" or "When I survey the wondrous cross" or "Amazing
grace, how sweet the sound" and then told, "Now we are all going to read this out loud
together"? Inevitably (and increasingly, the more it was done) the reaction would come, "But
these are songs ... they are meant to be sung!"
3. What do you think would be the response of a fan of Dylan or Lennon and McCartney or
Bruce Springsteen or Neil Young or Paul Simon or (how am I meant to know ...?) some such,
if I were to say to them, "I've just re-written such and such a song of your hero ... I've missed
out some words, added some others, and changed the rhythms a little and I think you'll find
it's more singable now"? No, no, no, we want these songs as they came from the head and
heart of the genius.
Now apply those three thoughts to whether and how we should sing the Psalms. It's not complicated is it?
(Yes, I realize that these thoughts also take us a) to singing lots of other Bible words and b) to singing in
Hebrew and Greek ... that's fine, but there's an easy place to start.)
B. I have overcome my four self-constructed obstacles:
1. I don't really like the sound of Anglican chant.

Well, after spending time doing the chanting rather than merely listening to it, I've
changed my mind on that.
2. It must be very difficult to learn to chant Psalms.

No, with the help of a fine someone like Andrew T and the company of a small
number of others keen to learn, it took just six 30 minute sessions for me to get the
basics in place.
3. Isn't Psalm-chanting for ruff-wearing castrati and dodgy Anglo-Catholics?

Doh. And the great thing is that the sound of a few normal blokes chanting Psalms is
utterly different from the elitist Cathedral effect.
4. Is there a modern (even half-decent) translation of the Psalms which is pointed for
chanting and printed along with the chants?

Yes, there is - see HERE.
All we need now is to change the name from "Anglican chant" to something less sectarian and we're on the
march.
Monday, September 03, 2007
926. ALLEN P ROSS ON LEVITICUS
Holiness to the LORD: A Guide to the Exposition of Leviticus is very helpful in lots of ways.
It's not a commentary but an aid for preachers who really do want to do faithful, exegetically grounded and
thoroughly applied expositions through the book of Leviticus and it does this job very well. At 496pp it is long
enough to get down to detail and both the structure and the prose style are as clear as clear can be.
Each chapter (there are 49 chapters for the 27 chapters of Leviticus) has an introductory paragraph or five,
followed by





Theological Ideas
Synthesis: Summary of the Passage and Outline of the Passage
Development of the Exposition. Here Ross gives us 3-8 pages of expository comment (with lexical,
other exegetical, biblico-theological, and systematic comments on details) and this is structured into
2-4 main points, sometimes with sub-points, as if he were going to preach on it.
Concluding Observations. Between a paragraph and a couple of pages of further reflection with what
Ross calls the "theological principle" of the passage and then more biblico-theological and other
applicatory observations.
Bibliography
Ross is sane, devout, careful, and clear. His desire to serve the church by helping ministers of the Word is
obvious and admirable.
I have two fairly significant reservations to make:
1) Methodologically, in his desire to be clear and to help preachers make application to their hearers, Ross's
formulation of the exegetical/expository procedure is wincingly simplistic to the point of misleading. The book
has lots of this sort of thing:







"timeless truths" 16
"the goal of biblical exegesis is to determine the theology of the text" 42
"the expositor must be able to identify the abiding theological truth" 62
"the goal of the method is to determine the timeless theological message in the text" 65
"typology is a divinely prefigured ilustration (DF emph) of a corresponding reality" 96
"all this procedure is designed to be a vivid picture of the great theological doctrines of the faith" 219
"a timeless theological idea of this section of the chapter could be worded as follows ..." 296
Implementing this method means that Ross operationally treats the post-pentecost individual's "spiritual"
relationship with God, "spiritual" life, and "eternal" salvation as all that really matters. Everything else is not
only subordinated to that but, worse for an exposition, flattened and generalized into that.
2) Theologically, there is something dodgy going on in Ross's attitude to a) physicality and b) the relationship
between the Testaments:








"Childbirth is blessed by God; it is part of his plan of creation. But it is very physical, very earthy or
"this-worldly" and not the usual, normal, healthy condition for the woman." 267 ("Pregnancy is a
disease by all medical standards" 269)
"God's holy nature demands that all who experience the physical aspects of this life (here the process
of childbirth) must be sanctified to enter his presence." 273
"What the church learns about God from a passage like this is the nature of holiness - its
incompatibility with and intolerance of the physical discharges and human functions." 274
"The entire world, physical and spiritual, is a corrupting influence on the people of God" 297
"The theme of the holiness of God and its incompatibility with things physical and earthy continues in
Lev 15". 304
"The nature of God is so different from our human condition that the two conflict. The law made it
clear that bodily functions prevent people from entering the presence of God - here or in the world to
come." 306
"God was teaching the household of faith the distinction between the physical and the holy" 311
On Jubilee: "It is hard to apply these principles to national economies today, even though the effort is
spiritually motivated. ... Nevertheless, the church can tell the world that God's way is better, that
someday God will balance the scales and make everything right and that in the meantime the people of
God earnestly desire equity and justice for all the people of the world. The discussion of such a jubilee
gives the Western church the opportunity to reshape its image from indifferent to caring, from selfsufficient to sharing, and from controlling to releasing." 464 [Aaargh ... the last sentence sounds like
the a Stupid Conservative Party strategy meeting]
~~~
By the time you've combined 1) - aversion to temporal specificity and particularity and 2) - aversion to spatial
specificity and physicality then you've got a bit of a problem: you're uncomfortable with time and space, with
history and embodiment. Oh dear.
However, although I think that these things are very serious, and in spite of the way that I have just reported
them, they are not pervasive. There are SO many helpful moments in this book. You are in safe hands when
Ross is summarizing and evaluating critical scholarship (though his bibliographies are a bit dated), clarifying
complex debates on lexical and historical matters, and pulling together biblical material on given themes
(atonement, trumpets, feasts, azazel, sacrifices, timing of firstfruits etc). He requires you to look closely at
what's really in front of you, he won't let you stay in Leviticus but forces you to the NT and to the lives of the
people you're teaching, and he delights to honour the Lord Jesus Christ throughout.
It's nowhere near as good as Jim Jordan on Leviticus (well, c'mon!) but it's better than Rooker or Kiuchi.
(Hartley, Milgrom, and Wenham are next).
~~~
Couple nice moments:




"Many parts of the Gospels simply assume the reader has a knowledge of Leviticus: passages that
mention purification after childbirth, washing after the healing of a leper, journeys to the feasts in
Jerusalem, separation from Gentiles in eating ..." 43
"Anytime throughout the year, expiation could be effected by the reparation and purification offerings.
By making such offerings, devout Israelites found purification or forgiveness and, in either case,
reconciliation. Then, by making the burnt offering, they were accepted by God; and by offering the
meal offering, they expressed their gratitude and dedication. Finally, they were free to celebrate being
at peace with God with the peace offering." 56
"The sweet-aroma offerings were made in communion and in celebration of communion: burnt
offering (Lev.1), meal offering (Lev.2), and peace offering (Lev.3). The non-sweet aroma sacrifices are
made for communion: purification offering (Lev.4) and reparation offering (Lev.5)." 79
"The order of the sacrifices is instructive. The purification offering was first to show that the priority
was cleansing the holy place due to defilement and sin. Then the worshippers could find full
acceptance in the presence of God through the atoning effect of the burnt offering. And this prompted
their dedication to the LORD, as expressed through the meal offering. Finally, the worshippers could
enjoy celebrating peace with God with the communal meal of the peace offering." 223
Couple of weaknesses:



pulls back from sacrifices as food for God (think about these two sentences: "Lev 3 designates the
peace offering as food, probably because of the emphasis on eating it. The term lechem 'ssheh [AR's
translits are better than I can manage here - DF] was used for the burnt offering as well.")
pulls back from azkarah and zikron as reminding God (does get a mention but is heavily downplayed see e.g. 106-7 and 426-27)
discussion of the Sabbath isn't very helpful: "Christians are not merely to give one day in seven to God,
but all seven." (405)
Monday, September 03, 2007
927. THE PRAYER BOOK OF THE BIBLE
Paul Buckley alerts us to Bonhoeffer's little piece, Prayerbook of the Bible: An Introduction to the Psalms.
Rich, rich, rich.
Step by step, the argument runs:


We want to learn to pray.
Christ must teach us to pray.



The Psalms are Christ at prayer.
In Christ we pray the Psalms.
Thus praying the Psalms we learn to pray.
A couple of paragraphs:
Now there is in the Holy Scriptures one book that differs from all other books of the Bible in
that it contains only prayers. That book is the Psalms. At first it is something very astonishing
that there is a prayerbook in the Bible. The Holy Scriptures are, to be sure, God's Word to us.
But prayers are human words. How then do they come to be in the Bible? Let us make no
mistake: the Bible is God's Word, even in the Psalms. Then are the prayers to God really God's
own Word? That seems difficult for us to understand. We grasp it only when we consider that
we can learn true prayer only from Jesus Christ, and that it is, therefore, the word of the Son
of God, who lives with us human beings, to God the Father who lives in eternity. Jesus Christ
has brought before God every need, every joy, every thanksgiving, and every hope of
humankind. In Jesus' mouth the human word becomes God's Word. When we pray along with
the prayer of Christ, God's Word becomes again a human word. Thus all prayers of the Bible
are such prayers, which we pray together with Jesus Christ, prayers in which Christ includes
us, and through which Christ brings us before the face of God. Otherwise there are no true
prayers, for only in and with Jesus Christ can we truly pray.
If we want to read and to pray the prayers of the Bible, and especially the Psalms, we must
not, therefore, first ask what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus
Christ ... It is not just tht for which we ourselves want to pray that is important, but that for
which God wants us to pray. If we were dependent on ourselves alone, we would probably
often pray only the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer. But God wants it otherwise. Not the
poverty of our heart but the richness of God's word, ought to determine our prayer.
Thus if the Bible contains a prayerbook, we learn from this that not only the word which God
has to say to us belongs to the Word of God, but also the word which God wants to hear from
us, because it is the word of God's dear Son. It is a great grace that God tells us how we can
speak with, and have community with, God. We can do so because we pray in the name of
Jesus Christ.
Monday, September 03, 2007
928. MILGROM, DORIAN GRAY, PURIFICATION OFFERING
When I said, "Milgrom" a couple of posts back, I meant, of course, the 350pp Fortress commentary not the
2700pp Anchor commentary. I like to see my family sometimes, you know.
Anyway, with any and all extracts from Milgrom in posts to come, please hear a loud "libbo alert"
(contradictions in the Bible, evolutionary view of OT "religion", Leviticus doesn't teach that all homosexual
sexual activity is sinful etc)
But it was a moment of genius when Milgrom (or his source) put together the thoughts below (libbo alert,
libbo alert!) on impurity and The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Stunning.

“The pagans secured the perpetual aid of a benevolent deity by building him/her a temple-residence in
which the deity was housed, fed, and worshipped in exchange for protective care. Above all, the temple
had to be inoculated by apotropaic rites – utilizing magic drawn from the metadivine realm – against
incursions by malevolent forces from the supernal and infernal worlds. The Priestly theologians make
use of the same imagery, except that the demons are replaced by humans. Humans can drive God out
of the sanctuary by polluting it with their moral and ritual sins. All that the priests can do is
periodically purge the sanctuary of its impurities and influece the people to atone for their wrongs.” 9

“This thoroughgoing evisceration of the demonic also transformed the concept of impurity. In Israel,
impurity was harmless. It retained potency only with regard to sanctums. Laypersons – but not priests
– might contract impurity with impunity; they must not, however, delay their purificatory rites lest
their impurity affect the sanctuary. The retention of impurity’s dynamic (but not demonic) power in
regard to sanctums served a theological function. The sanctuary symbolized the presence of God;
impurity represented the wrongdoing of persons. If persons unremittingly polluted the sanctuary, they
forced God out of his sanctuary and out of their lives.” 9

“The only fear evoked by impurity is its potential impact on the sanctuary.” 10

Because the quintessential source of holiness resides with God, Israel is enjoined to control the
occurrence of impurity lest it impinge on his realm. The forces pitted against each other in a cosmic
struggle are no longer the benevolent and demonic deities who populate the mythologies of Israel’s
neighbors, but the forces of life and death set loose by persons themselves through their obedience to
or defiance of God’s commandments. Despite all of the changes that are manifested in the evolution of
Israel’s impurity laws, the objective remains the same: to sever impurity from the demonic and to
reinterpret it as a symbolic system reminding Israel of the divine imperative to reject death and
choose life.” 13

“The rationale for the purification offering (4:1 – 5:13) has been alluded to above. The violation of a
prohibitive commandment generates impurity and, if severe enough, pollutes the sanctuary from afar.
This imagery portrays the Priestly theodicy that I have called the priestly Picture of Dorian Gray. It
declares that while sin may not scar the face of the sinner, it does scar the face of the sanctuary. …
Thus in the Priestly scheme, the sanctuary is polluted (read: society is corrupted) by brazen sins (read:
the rapacity of the leaders) and also by inadvertent sins (read: the acquiescence of the silent majority),
with the result that God is driven out of his sanctuary (read: the nation is destroyed).” 15
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
929. JIM JORDAN ON LEVITICUS
When I say that the best things I've read on Leviticus are those by Jim Jordan, I'm referring to ...

"Drawing Near" - a series of 6 lectures, with notes, available from Wordmp3.com

"Studies in Food and Faith" (450pp on Lev 11 plus, plus, plus), available from Biblical Horizons

Covenant Sequence in Leviticus and Deuteronomy

Through New Eyes

Pig Out"

Other material on zones and degrees in Biblical Horizons Occasional Papers such as,





"From Glory to Glory: Degrees of Value in the Sanctuary"
"The Whole Burnt Sacrifice: Its Liturgy and Meaning"
"The Law of Forbidden Mixtures"
"The Tabernacle as New Creation"
Other material in Biblical Horizons essays, such as numbers 142-151
There's probably a ton of other good material but this is what I have read and listened to myself.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
930. WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD
Amazing.
HT - John Barach
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
931. MORE ON CHANTING THE PSALMS
Through Daniel Newman's blog HERE I come across this post on chanting Psalms which is altogether
clear and encouraging.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
932. LUPIERI ON REVELATION
Craig Koester doesn’t like it but he reports on Edmondo Lupieri’s Commentary on the Apocalypse of John
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006). Some aspects of it (as described by Koester) look rather promising to me.
Here’s some of Koester’s description (I’ve missed out the bits I don’t like but the full review can be seen
HERE.):
The most distinctive and controversial aspect of Lupieri’s approach is that he argues that the
sinister figures in Revelation do more to critique Judaism than Roman imperialism. … The
second beast, which comes from the earth and makes people worship the beast from the sea,
is also related to Judaism in this commentary (13:11–18). Many interpreters identify the false
prophet with the individuals or groups that support the imperial cult, but Lupieri proposes
that the figure represents corrupt Judaism. Since this figure is said to come from the earth
(13:11), the suggestion is that this beast is “a savage parody of the universalistic pretensions of
non-Christian Judaism” (210). In Revelation’s visionary world, the beast from the land forces
people to put the name of the great beast on their foreheads or right hands, and this is taken
to be a parody of the Jewish practice of putting phylacteries on the forehead and hand (13:16).
… The vision of Babylon the great prostitute in Rev 17–18 is widely regarded as a critique of
Rome, but Lupieri identifies Babylon with a corrupt Jerusalem. His approach relies in large
part on the fact that the biblical prophets had denounced Israel as a prostitute, since the
people worshiped various gods. The woman is said to commit fornication with the kings of the
earth, and this is taken to mean that Israel has entered into relations with various pagan
rulers. The woman’s garish clothing is said to parody the decorations on Israel’s tabernacle
and the vestments of Aaron the high priest. The name Babylon is taken to be a parody of way
Israel’s high priest was supposed to wear God’s name on his turban.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
933. BEGINNING THEOLOGICAL STUDY
For those begining study at seminaries and theological colleges, John Frame's little booklet, Studying
Theology as a Servant of Jesus is a very, very good read. It's online HERE and HERE. (HT - Pete N).
Friday, September 07, 2007
934. COERCION AND CHOICE
If a global corporation offers wages of $1 a day to people for whom the only available alternative is starving to
death, is that corporation acting coercively?
No.
~~~~
Dear X (and Y),
I'm pretty confident that I didn't properly answer your question about coercion and choice yesterday morning.
I think it goes like this:
A. The situation described:
1. the government says to you "pay taxes or you'll die by execution"
2. the government says to you "curse Jesus or you'll die by execution"
3. the global corporation says to you "take this job at $1 a day or you'll starve to death"
Since Christians cannot be, in my view, complete anarchists, then we can eliminate 1. from consideration (that
is, not all coercion is wrong). We are comparing 2. and 3.
B. Consider 2. and 3. from the point of view of the government/corporation:

In 2. the government says "if you don't do this then we will do something, using force, to you". And the
government would be sinning in this.

In 3. the corporation says "if you don't do this then we will walk away and leave you alone". And the
corporation is not sinning in this.
That is,
2. uses real or threatened illegal force - it is sinfully coercive
3. does not use force - it is not sinfully coercive and it is a legitimate moral action
C. Now consider 2. and 3. from the point of view of the patient


in 2. before the agent arrives, the patient is blithely living his righteous life
in 3. before the agent arrives, the patient is about to starve to death


in 2. once the agent has spoken, the patient is the subject of coercion
in 3. once the agent has spoken, the patient has been given the opportunity to survive


in 2. once the agent has spoken, the patient may sin or die
in 3. once the agent has spoken, the patient may take a job or die
D. To the extent that "very limited choice" is coercive then it is God who is the coercer because God rules
circumstances. But actually, limited choice is not the same thing as coercion. When there are no available
alternatives (only one legitimate course of action) then that is God's providential rule rather than coercion.
You could say, I suppose, that


I am coerced into not buying out Microsoft - the alternative is a financial impossibility (i.e. there are
no available legitimate alternatives)
I am coerced into not being in two places at one time - the alternative is a physical impossibility (i.e.
there are no available legitimate alternatives)

I am coerced into not committing adultery - the alternative is sin and therefore should be regarded as
a moral impossibility (i.e. there are no available legitimate alternatives)
but that would be a very strange use of "coercion".
Limited choice is not coercion. Even if the choice is limited to one non-sinful course of action.
In that sense, I think, on reflection, that Y is right. "Coercion" is about the agent's relation to the patient
rather than about the patient's range of choices. Lack of alternative legitimate courses of action may be
restriction of choice but it is not coercion. Restriction of choice is simply creatureliness or finitude. And
restriction of choice down to a very small number (including 1) of unpleasant, though legitimate, courses of
action is simply living in a fallen world (as determined by God).
Does that get anywhere near addressing your question?
Friday, September 07, 2007
935. PERFECT OBEDIENCE
Alerted through an email discussion list (HT - Paul D) to Preston Sprinkle's words HERE.
I don't agree with everything in the interview (though who am I to disagree) but I very, very, very much like
the phrase, "the 'perfect obedience' view" because that seems to sum up one of my main problems with an
everything is a) legal b) all-or-nothing c) individual d) about eternal hell or eternal glory version of old
perspective. Such a view has no room for Job, David, Elizabeth and Zachariah, God's children living lives
which are "pleasing" to him, the possibility of enjoying the covenant blessings of Deut 28, the possibility of
some (but not all) of God's children being told, "well done, good and faithful servant", and so on.
In your view, does Leviticus 18:5 require that a member of the old covenant
remnant achieve perfect obedience to the law? What role does the sacrificial
system play?
No. I think that the “perfect obedience” view is extremely hard to hold. I would say, rather,
“comprehensive” or “blameless” obedience. For instance, in 1 Kings we read that, “…David
walked in integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded” (1
Kgs 9:4), that David’s heart was “fully devoted to the LORD his God” (1 Kgs 11:4), and that he
“followed the LORD fully” (1 Kgs 11:6). So, according to the Bible, you can lust after a woman
who is not your wife, have sex with her, kill her husband, then be confronted, repent and
confess your sin to the LORD, and then be described as having walked in integrity of heart,
having done all that the LORD commanded, and have been fully devoted to the LORD.
You get the point. I just think that the perfect obedience view has just not understood what it
means to be “blameless” and “upright” in OT terms. And, of course, Paul never says that the
law required perfect (sinless) obedience, just comprehensive obedience.
Are perfect obedience and the sacrificial system misunderstood in the extrabiblical Jewish literature you studied? If so, what do you think led to the
misunderstandings?
I don’t think that the majority of Early Jewish literature understood that the law required
perfect obedience either. At least in Pss.Sol. you’ve got a lot of talk about the righteous who
backslide into sin, and then the LORD pricks them and gets them back on track. Yet they are
still righteous.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
936. PERFECT OBEDIENCE (II)
Decalogue Dod on 'perfect obedience':
When thinking of those redeemed by Christ, however, we may speak in another way. Dod calls
it "a sincere (but not perfect) obedience." (p.29) The issue for the believer is no longer one of
perfect obedience or death. Rather it may be one of sincere and true obedience which enjoys
the blessing. Dod brings Scripture examples to bear:
Why then should not every Christian hope to be able to yield obedience to
God, in whatsoever God commands him? As God witnesses of David that he
was a man after his own heart in all things, save in the matter of Uriah: for
there he sinned presumptuously, his heart was upright in all things else. And
likewise as it is spoken of Zachariah and Elizabeth that they were perfect and
unblameable in all things: not that they were quit from all infirmities (or had
not their faults as well as other saints) but they were upright and sincere,
their heart was true with God and so God can and will give grace unto all his,
to obey every one of his commandments with a true and upright obedience.
(p.12)
Dod anticipates the obvious objection:
Some will object that if the love of God consist in the keeping of his
commandments then it should seem that none love him because in many
things we offend all. But for resolving of this know that there is a great
difference between these two, to keep God's commandments and to fulfil his
commandments. For keeping denotes a truth, fulfilling a perfection.
Perfection, Christ only had; but truth, every Christian must have. … This true
keeping must be known by these notes. First, we must aim at all, there must
be a full purpose and true desire to keep [each] one … Secondly, this
obedience must be done willingly, with a free and cheerful heart … Thirdly,
the end of our actions must be good, to show our loyalty to God, to approve
our hearts to him in obedience to his commandments and not for any other
end or intent of our own. (p.83)
The obedience of Christians is never perfect but this does not mean that it is not real, nor that
God is not truly pleased with it:
He requires not of his children that they should perfectly fulfill his law, for
that Jesus Christ has done for them already, but that they should constantly
and faithfully endeavour to know and keep it according to that measure of
grace and strength which God has given them. If we will stand to be justified
by our own righteousness then we must either have perfection or confusion.
But if we trust to Christ, then we are under grace and there is mercy in Christ,
rewarding all our good, pitying and passing by all our infirmities. (p.85f)
Sunday, September 09, 2007
937. THE CHRISTIAN FUTURE OF GREAT BRITAIN
Doug Wilson identifies the destination and describes something of the route HERE and it makes for
stimulating and heartening reading.
A few not unrelated thoughts of my own can be seen HERE and in the next day or two I'll pop up a longer
document with much more to say about these matters.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
938. JIM JORDAN
HT - Matthew Mason.
Utter, unbelievable, wonderful, and superb bargain on Jim Jordan mp3s HERE. Jim Jordan has been,
without a shred of doubt, the most important influence on my theological thinking over the last 20 years.
There are many other pastor-teachers who would say the same. He is an astonishingly gifted, faithful, humble,
and creative biblical theologian, systematician, and exegete and I thank God for ever causing me to come
across Jordan's work.
I already possess the material on this CD/DVD and wholeheartedly recommend it. I can think of very few
better ways of spending $75 than this.
Magnificent.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
939. OFFER TO OAK HILL STUDENTS
In relation to the previous post, I am so confident that listening to Jim Jordan's material will be a blessing to
theological students that I make this offer to those currently studying at Oak Hill or who have graduated from
here in the last seven years:
If you buy this set of hundreds of Jim Jordan lectures for $75 and listen to any
20 lectures within the space of two months and, having done so, you can say,
hand on heart, "I wish I had not bought these" then I will buy them back from
you at the price you paid.
If, on the other hand, a good number of Oak Hill students bought and listened to and absorbed this material
then I could retire happy.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
940. A DIVINE FUNNEL
A couple of nice moments from Milgrom on Leviticus 2-6.
Firstly, the basic reminder that
“Because impurity and holiness are antonyms, the identification of impurity with death must
mean that holiness stands for life. No wonder that reddish substances, the surrogates of
blood, are among the ingredients of the purificatory rites for scale-diseased and corpsecontaminated persons (Lev 14:4; Num 19:6). They symbolize the victory of the forces of life
over death.”
The reminder is that when we see "blood" we should first think "LIFE!" If that blood is flowing or shed or spilt
or poured out then we will think "DEATH!" Whose blood is it? Which direction is it flowing in? Where is it
placed? Some blood defiles and some atones and some decontaminates.
Secondly, in commenting on the altar, Milgrom comes up with the nice idea of the "divine funnel":
4.25: The altar of the burnt offering takes its name from its most frequent sacrifice, required
twice daily and at every festival. It was the only sacrifice entirely consumed on the altar.
Because this altar was part of a portable sanctuary, it was fitted with four rings and two staves.
Moreover, it was hollow and hence not burdensome. The altar was only a portable frame
because, in contrast to the incense altar, there is no mention of a roof, and at each
encampment it would therefore be filled with earth and rocks. … Israel’s altar may not bring
God to earth but it enables people, through their worship to reach heaven. This is nowhere
more evident than in the dedicatory prayer for the temple attributed to Solomon that even in a
foreign land Israel s armies or exiles need but turn to the temple and their prayer will travel to
God along a trajectory that passes through their land, city, temple and then, at the altar, turns
heavenward. The altar then is the earthly terminus of a divine funnel for human communion
with God. It is significant that later Judaism cames the tradition that the air space above the
altar is an extension of its sanctity.
And, praise God, ... "We have an altar ..." (Heb 13.10)
Thursday, September 13, 2007
941. THURSDAY 13TH SEPT, 2007
These things are not unrelated ...
1. Today is the first day of Ramadan
2. Today is Rosh Hashanah
3. Today is the Lesser Festival of John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, Teacher of the Faith, who died
1600 years ago this year.
"God of truth and love,
who gave to your servant John Chrysostom
eloquence to declare your righteousness in the great congregation
and courage to bear reproach for the honour of your name:
mercifully grant to those who minister your word
such excellence in preaching,
that all people may share with them
in the glory that shall be revealed;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen."
Thursday, September 13, 2007
942. FLASHCARD KNOWLEDGE
Matt Colvin, who knows a thing or ten thousand about classical languages, has given me permission to
reproduce (with slight editing) a response of his to a request on an email discussion list. Someone asked for
tips on learning NT Greek and Matt's reply ran ...
"A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring." - A. Pope.
"Any student who is so unfortunate as to learn New Testament Greek without first having
studied Classical Greek will be unprepared to cope with the subtleties and difficulties of the
language of the Cappadocians and their Byzantine successors (or, for that matter, with many
of the lexicographical and syntactical nuances of the New Testament Koine itself)." - Jaroslav
Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture, p. 14.
"I have known classical teachers and colleagues to engage occasionally in biblical exegesis.
They may have been Christians; they may have been agnostics. But when, without theological
parti pris, they applied to the New Testament documents the interpretative skills acquired in
their classical studies, their contributions, in my experience, have always been illuminating." F. F. Bruce
I submit that the foolishness about Greek that we see from some pastor-teachers who set
themselves up as arbiters in doctrinal and exegetical debates arises in no small degree from
the nature of their training in the language: they see the New Testament as a text to be
interpreted by means of books like BDAG and reference grammars. Imagine a native French
speaker doing scholarship on Milton's Paradise Lost without being able to read and
understand other English. He's read Milton a hundred times in English, and a thousand times
in French translation. He has a French book on "grammar of Miltonic English". He has a
lexicon of Paradise Lost. Do you trust the man?
One of the things I enjoy doing to "poke" these guys is to do surveys of the literature and
demonstrate how real Greeks used their own language. There is invariably no reply they can
give. Offer a modern North American seminary professor a copy of Plato. He won't be able to
read it. Pelikan's point is that we should not trust such men to interpret the Greek of the New
Testament. Their ability to read it is an illusion generated by the accumulation of formal
grammar training (via "rules"), memory of published English translations, and practice using
the vocabulary of the New Testament only, as interpreted by OTHER men who might or might
not know other Greek. They have "flashcard knowledge" or "I looked it up in a lexicon"
knowledge of the language. Greek becomes a mere tool to buttress their own theology which
was arrived at on other grounds. There is zero chance of them changing their views by
studying the Greek New Testament.
I feel chastened, humbled, and warned! Thanks, Matt.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
943. SERMON ILLUSTRATIONS
I really, really, really think that sermon "illustrations" are over-rated. Associations with day-to-day real life,
single sentence analogies, wider biblical reference, and vivid language do most of the job. In particular, I have
very little time for the use of the developed anecdote. If it can't be told in three or four sentences then it's
probably wasting valuable time and words.
That said, when specific and topical "illustration" is needed then a couple of resources provide more than
enough help:
a) Look through the BBC headlines for the previous week. This week, for example, yields:
- Pavarotti died
- anniversary of 9/11
- Mrs Thatcher was back in 10 Downing St
- Ramadan and Rosh Hashanah were on the same day
- even Northern Rock is shaky
b) Spend five minutes looking through the "quirkies" at ananova.com. The last two days provide these
examples:
Czech out the new lingo
A Czech speedway rider was knocked out cold during a race and woke up speaking perfect
English. Matej Kus, 18, could barely speak a word of English before he came off his bike and
another rider drove over his head. He was out cold for 45 minutes then came round and asked
paramedics where he was and what had happened - in a posh English voice. Team boss Peter
Waite said: "He sounded like a newsreader. He was speaking perfect English without any sort
of an accent." Matej had arrived in Britain only the day before, to race for Berwick Bandits in
an away fixture at Glasgow Tigers. He lost his memory for 48 hours - and as soon as it
returned, he lost the ability to speak English. He said through an interpreter: "There must be
some English deep in my head but obviously I needed a bang on the head and a crash for it to
come out. "Hopefully I can pick some English up so I'll be able to speak it without someone
having to hit me over the head." Doctors say he suffered from the extremely rare Foreign
Accent Syndrome - caused by a stroke or a blow to the head which damages the parts of the
brain that control speech.
'Nurse, I need a Wii'
Pensioners bored of knitting and bridge have got hooked on a Nintendo Wii games console at
their retirement home. Residents of the Sunrise Home in Birmingham - up to the age of 103 have become avid video game fans since a chef brought in the console. Barrie Edgar, 88, told
the Daily Mail: "It's a very pleasant distraction and it's great fun to have electronic gadgets in
the home. "I didn't know how my daughter's Nintendo games worked before, but we've all
really enjoyed playing it and the games are good for you as well." Jayne Naylor, Sunrise
Director, said she cant tear the pensioners away from the Wii, and will be organising leagues
so the fun-loving residents can make their games more competitive. She said: "We have lots of
activities going on here, but the pensioners are usually gardening, playing bridge or doing the
crossword. "They don't want to do any of those things now we've got the games console. It's
really captured everyone's imagination and bridged the generation gap. "Most of the residents
are in their 80s and 90s, a couple who play the games are even over 100. It's great because
even the residents in wheelchairs who aren't very active can have a go."
Farmer finds love - thanks to a pinta
A Welsh farmer who placed a lonely hearts advert on a milk carton hopes to marry a US
woman who answered his plea. Geraint Evans, 28, hadn't had a girlfriend for almost five years
because his long days at work often ended at 11pm, reports the North Wales Daily Post. The
dairy herdsman was one of a number of North Wales farmers who persuaded a dairy company
to put their photographs on cartons with an email address. Interior design student Laura
Allison, 21, from Chicago, was holidaying in the UK when she saw Geraint's face on a pint of
milk she bought near his Wrexham home. She said: "I'd dropped by a supermarket to pick up
some provisions and when I got to the milk racks, all I could see was this handsome guy's face
staring out at me. I think I fell in love a little right there and then." But she decided to wait
until she returned home before getting in touch. Since then the couple have exchanged
hundreds of email messages, phone calls and letters and have visited each other. Geraint said:
"I've met the girl of my dreams and I want us to marry as soon as she's finished her course in
America. "We get on so well. This is the real thing and the sooner we can get wed the better, as
far as I'm concerned. I'd marry Laura tomorrow. "We share the same sense of humour and
we're both adventurous. We must be or we'd never have met."
Italy stages pasta strike
Italians are today being asked to stage a one day pasta strike in protest at rising prices.
Consumer associations are urging people to refrain from buying or eating pasta for the day,
reports the BBC. They want the government to intervene after the price for durum flour, the
main ingredient, rose from 18p per kg to 45p per kg in two months. The leader of one
consumer association, Elio Lannutti, said the objective of the pasta strike was to forgo pasta
for one day, in order to have more of it in the days to come. But Furio Bragagnolo, the vice
president of the Italian pasta manufacturers association, said: "There is no dish that costs less.
"Whoever decides to strike against pasta will spend more on whatever they buy instead. A
plate of pasta probably costs less than an apple." Pasta is a national dish in Italy, with each
Italian eating on average 28 kg (62 lb) of pasta every year. Global warming and the growing
use of durum wheat as a bio-fuel are blamed for the steep rise in prices.
Kilogram 'losing weight'
The original prototype for the kilogram, stored under lock and key near Paris, appears to be
losing weight. The cylinder, which dates back from 1889, seems to have lost 50 micrograms,
compared with the average of dozens of copies of the original. Richard Davis, of the
International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, said: "The mystery is that they were
all made of the same material, and many were made at the same time and kept under the
same conditions, and yet the masses among them are slowly drifting apart." The one in Sevres
is the original that the kilogram is based upon. It is kept in a triple-locked safe at a chateau.
"It's not clear whether the original has become lighter, or the national prototypes have become
heavier," said Michael Borys, of Germany's national measures institute. "But by definition,
only the original represents exactly a kilogram."
Tooled up
An eight-year-old boy went to bed with a spanner stuck on his finger because he was too
embarrassed to tell his mum. Luke Reid, from Manchester, was in so much pain the next
morning he had to go to hospital, reports the Daily Mirror. Medics could not get the bike
spanner off his index finger. Firefighters then took two hours to free him using a hacksaw.
Fire chief Rick Burke said: "They gave him gas and air to make him relax and it did the trick.
He was laughing his head off." Mum Marie said: "He never said anything to us because he felt
a little bit silly."
Mugger picks on blind judo champ
A German mugger who picked on a blind man had a shock when his 'victim' turned out to be a
world judo champ. Michael Esser, 33, a world champion last year in martial arts for the
visually impaired, ended up pummelling his 17-year-old attacker into submission. Mr Esser
had just bought a packet of cigarettes outside the railway station in Marburg when the
skinheaded, jobless attacker demanded them. "Give me those, Stevie," he said in what police
said was a reference to blind singer Stevie Wonder. He lunged for the cigarettes and hit the
man in the face. The blind man then seized his arm, shoved it behind his back and kneed him
in the back of his legs. Then he twisted him around and flung him face-first on to the
pavement, pinning him to the ground with his body. "The blind Judoka used some expert
moves to wrestle the robber to the ground and pinned him down while he shouted for help,"
Marburg police said in a statement. The champion had to be treated for a bloody nose
following the incident but he said: "I may be blind but I am fit. I hope he thinks twice before
he picks on people again. "I didn't bother to go to the hospital because I was off to meet some
mates to listen to a football match. At least I still had my smokes to enjoy!"
These need retelling much more briefly and don't need introducing. Just lead in with, "You may have seen this
week that ..." or "It's like that Czech speedway rider who ..." or "Don't be like Luke Reid - the eight year old boy
I read about this week - who ..."
Total research time: around 15 minutes. And if five news stories and seven quirkies don't provide you with the
two to four topical references that will help some people's ears prick up then you have a problem.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
944. "PRINCIPLED" PLURALISM? PSHAW!
I've put online - as item 53 HERE - a 35 page pdf document which is a rough write-up of a lecture I gave in
May about "Samuel Rutherford and the Confessionally Christian State". It may or may not get published and,
if it does, I may or may not have to take it down. But it's here for the moment. I think of it as "inelegant but
true".
In the paper I address 16 objections to a nicely full-blooded, theocratic covenantal political vision and explain
why the alternatives are all awful. Here's the first paragraph of the "Summary and Conclusion" which states
what those alternatives are:
In summary, we have stated in this chapter that Samuel Rutherford’s view of government amounts to a
demand for a confessionally Christian state, a covenanted nation. We have explored a little of what that
means, responded to the most common objections to it, and evaluated the three current alternatives to a
confessionally Christian state. The first alternative, that of Islam and other false religions, is a false confession
and is idolatrous. The second alternative, that of humanistic pluralism, is no-confession and is tyrannical. The
third alternative, that of Christian “principled pluralism”, is of multiple confessions and is confused and
unstable, either giving unbelief a veto or resolving into the tyranny or idolatry of the other positions, or,
blessedly, abandoning “pluralism” and joining Christian confessionalism.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
945. A BRIEF READER'S GUIDE TO REVELATION
I was asked to provide a few lines commending Jim Jordan's little book on Revelation to a class of students
here. My pleasure:
Jim Jordan, one of the most creative and faithful biblical theologians of our generation,
manages in just over fifty pages to give enough suggestive and resonant exegetical, thematic,
structural, and theological leads to last months, if not years, of study of the book of
Revelation.
Consider this: the agents of judgment in the book of Revelation are angels. But in the new
covenant angels are subject to humans not in authority over them. It is the Old Creation (Fall
to Pentecost with a hangover 40 years till the public vindication of Jesus) which is subject to
angels. And, that being the case, the world coming under judgment in the book of Revelation
must be the Old Creation world, not the new covenant world. The book of Revelation shows us
the judgment which takes place in the "last days" - the last days, that is, of the Old Creation
which last between AD30 and AD70 and which culminate in the relief of the saints and the
vindication of Jesus in his judgment "coming" to destroy harlot Jerusalem by means of beastly
Rome.
Let me assure you that you don't get marked down in BS1.1 for disagreeing with this (I
definitely disagree with aspects of Jordan's interpretation). But let me further assure you that
watching Jordan grapple with and open up these issues is an education in its own right and
you won't regret paying money and taking time to do so.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
946. STUCK FOR READING?
Peter J (olly-well-writes-a-lot-of-great-books,-doesn't-he?) Leithart (father of many children, author of
many books, doer of many fine deeds, and, I delight to say, my daughter's theology tutor) has produced a
list HERE of what he thinks is interesting in Contemporary Theology. It amounts to a reading outline for a
course of study. Well worth a look.
Ros Clarke (Greek tutor, knitter, poet, novelist, Radio 4 fan, thorough-going Brit, all-round world-affirmer,
and author of THIS) has discovered and fallen for the seventeenth century John Lightfoot. A good example
to follow.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
947. PREACHING
Alastair makes a number of great points about preaching in his post HERE.

It has been unwarrantably come to be regarded as set the event of the church's weekly activity

Over-emphasis on preaching can lead to over-emphasis on "ideas and ever more sharply defined
theological positions, rather than around community"

"The Church has also become organized more and more around one man’s activity (and, as James
Jordan comments, that man is not Jesus Christ). Evangelical congregations are often more passive in
gathered worship than medieval ones were and this is a serious problem. The service becomes
something that the preacher does, rather than the shared activity of the body of Christ."

"Worship becomes a mere preface and epilogue to preaching. Scripture-rich liturgies are abandoned
and in some churches the congregation only open their mouths for the singing."

"The pastor becomes increasingly defined by his role as the ‘preacher’. Rather than letting the fatherlike leadership that the pastor exercises over the congregation condition our understanding of the role
and practice of preaching, other dimensions of the pastor’s role have been forgotten as his preaching
becomes all-important."

"Scripture reading in the service is often reduced to the reading for the sermon. ... Our words
gradually squeeze out God’s words. Rather than letting preaching be the handmaid of God’s Word, we
will reduce the Scripture readings far sooner than we will cut down the length of the sermon."

"Preaching has come to be understood as a great rhetorical event. I believe that significant changes in
popular evangelical preaching styles would have to take place in order to bring them more in line with
Scripture. Calm Scriptural exposition should replace many of the impassioned rhetorical displays that
one hears from evangelical pulpits (rhetorical displays that often disguise a depressing lack of
content). The pastor should teach the congregation as a father teaches his children. This means that
the ideal position is sitting, not standing, and that shouting and the raising of voice for rhetorical
effect is generally unnecessary."

"The pastor should also remember that he is like a father teaching children, something that many
evangelical preachers forget. If unbelievers attend worship they are eavesdroppers; the gathered
worship of the Church is not for their benefit, but is about the relationship between God and His
people. The fact that preaching in the Church is for children means that preaching is for the converted.
Sin and unbelief are still addressed, but they are addressed as issues in the lives of the children of God
— the baptized."

"The oratory model of preaching tends to place orator and audience at different poles. The model
presumes an initial distance between orator and audience that needs to be overcome by rhetoric."

"The pastor should address the congregation as one who already has a relationship with them. The
father or the pastor should not have to ‘win over’ their hearers in the way that the orator does. They
‘win over’ their hearers differently, by powerful truths plainly and lovingly spoken and by teaching
with a gracious authority. The pastor should teach the congregation entrusted to him much as Jesus
taught His disciples. He speaks naturally to his hearers and does not employ an affected style. The
passion and emotion that arise are natural and not exaggerated or affected."
Monday, September 24, 2007
948. IDEALISM AND DOUBLE FULFILLMENT
They ramble back and forth and you'd have to be pretty committed to reading them slowly a couple of times at
least for them to make much sense but here are some thoughts on why idealist readings of Revelation which
appeal to "double fulfillment" or "multiple fulfillment" don't work. That they started in email exchanges is
clear from time to time.
A. Preterist criticism of idealist readings
We need to distinguish between:
a) referent
b) association
c) application
Take the fall of Babylon as an example.
A preterist would say
a) the fall of Babylon is / is about / has as its referent, the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70
b) this has many associations - like the tower of Babel, the Isaiah 13-14 material, the destruction of Tyre in
Ezekiel etc. Because of this it can teach and reassure us in all sorts of ways - which have to do with how God
works by patterns and habits
c) this is turn means that there will be many applications so that when Christians after A.D. 70 see false
religion / covenant-breakers / proud Christ-rejecting privileged groups etc. giving the bride a hard time then
they can declare with confidence, “God showed us in A.D. 70 with the fall of Babylon that this sort of thing will
be dealt with”.
An idealist, in my view, collapses this so that the associations and applications are confusedly reckoned to be
referents. The idealist says either
a) that the fall of Babylon is / is about / has as its referent two, five, five hundred distinct and separate
occasions within history or
b) that the fall of Babylon is itself a higher level thing and that specific occasions (such as A.D. 70) are just
manifestations or examples of the fall of Babylon.
The trouble with the first is that it means the answer to the question “has Babylon fallen in the Rev 18-19
sense?” is “yes and no” - and at the same level of discourse. But once you say that then how can you have
prophecy and fulfillment at all?
The trouble with the second is that it is de-historicizing - it makes God’s realm of action supra-history rather
than history. Some would even call this gnostic. Because it would say that “Babylon in x manifestation has
fallen” but that this has not had the redemptive-historical impact which Revelation implies (it’s an event which
leads to the overthrow of beast, false prophet, to the 1000 year reign, the great judgment etc). So then we wait
for “Babylon in y manifestation” to fall - but this doesn”t do it either. So it’s not “Babylon” in any
“manifestation” which makes the difference but rather something beyond history. It’s as though God’s real
actions don’t take place upon the stage of history. (In a previous generation this was linked with “the scandal
of particularity” - people were embarassed about the sheer once-off-ness and located-ness of God’s actions.)
To say this another way, if the fall of Babylon is about the supra-historical reality of which historical realities
are merely particular manifestations, then you are NOT actually saying that it is about A.D. 70 and A.D. 300
and A.D. 1500 (or whenever). You cannot at the same time and in the same way say that Babylon refers to a
supra-historical general reality AND that it applies (in the same way) to an intra-historical particularity.
Thus the “double-referent” idea is inherently unstable. And - again - this is because it fails to see that referent/
association/ application are distinguishable (though not ultimately separable).
Remember, also, the very specificity of much of the book
- has Jesus “come” in the way he promised or not?
- has the male child been born yet (or is this a timeless principle with multiple referents?)
- has the dragon been cast out of heaven?
- has the beast turned against the harlot? (has Babylon fallen?)
If this is going on through all history then has heaven been opened or not? Have the kingdoms of this world
become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ?
To say “in this manifestation, yes, but in this manifestation, no” is actually to say, “in terms stated by the text
(unique, climactic, unrepeatable), no”.
Bottom-line:
If you are preterist (or indeed futurist) then you have single referent and multiple association and application.
If you are idealist and try to have multiple referent then you lose
a) ability to communicate about unique events
b) seriousness about historical particularity
c) ability to recognise that a prophecy has been fulfilled, and therefore
d) ability to declare a given interpretation (designation of referent) right or wrong.
The idealist’s desire to be inclusive and general results in incoherence. And, funnily enough, you’ve lost
coherence in an attempt to gain something which you think the preterist/futurist lacks when in fact they (so
long as they do their association/application thing seriously) not only have it but are the only ones who have
grounds for having it and holding it stably and securely.
B. Question in response to the above
Here's a quote “Because of the typological character of history, one prophetic oracle may point to more than
one future event, having a near “confirming” fulfillment and another fuller fulfillment in the New Covenant. A
clear illustration of this is Isaiah 7:1-19, which is immediately fulfilled in Isaiah 8:3-4, but receives a fuller
fulfillment in Matthew 1.” That is, there is a “confirming” fulfilment and a “fuller” fulfilment. Doesn’t that
mean that the prophecy has two referents?
C. An attempted answer to the question in B.
I think I think (!) that while someone may rightly say that prophecy X “is about” or “points to” or even “is
fulfilled by” two distinguishable things, the fact that this is so in different ways means that we’d do better to
find a distinct way of describing each of them. Let me try to explain. Our options are
1) complex or extended single referent - which I think is wholly conceivable (“I will build my church” has a
single referent but it it is realized each time someone becomes a Christian. The referent then is not to any one
conversion but to the meta-reality of a growing church. The conversion of each individual is a fulfillment
(instantiation) of the whole meta-reality prophecy - not a “partial fulfillment”.)
Why doesn't this fall foul of my criticism of idealist gnosticism above? Because that did not
deny that a prophecy may been fulfilled within history over an extended period. There are
"process-fulfillments". It denied that the referent of a prophecy which is a "point-fulfillment",
(for example a prophecy which includes near time-markers and upon the single, completed
fulfillment of which other, subsequent things depend) can be lifted out of earthly history into
a supra-historical realm.
2) partial fulfillment - this would mean that after (to use our example) A.D.70 you could not say that the
prophecy of the fall of Babylon had been fulfilled. You would say that it had been partially fulfilled. You could
only say that it was really fulfilled once (e.g.) seductive religion had been destroyed with the return of Christ.
The difficulty with this, as we have observed, is that if there is a unilinear / sequenced / once-off set of
consequences which flow from the fall of Babylon then you won’t be able to start that until the prophecy is
fulfilled (not partially fulfilled). If you move to saying, “well, fulfilled in this way (enough to kick-off the chain
of consequences) , but not in that” then you are not talking about partial fulfillment but either about distinct
prophecies or about 4) below.
3) double fulfillment in the same way at the same level - this is a non-sense because it is saying that in the
same way and at the same level prophecy X has been fulfilled and has not been fulfilled
4) double fulfillment in different ways - this is what we are talking about above
So, I think that the sort of thing you raise in your question is 4). But if we are talking about double (or
multiple) fulfillment in different ways then I think it is confusing to use the same word (fulfillment) to
describe them. [No problem for Matthew because he’s not trying to use terms in a way that divides everything
up as tightly as we try to do when striving for hermeneutical precision - though see here for what people make
of plero-o in Matthew ]. But it's more of a problem for us. This is presumably why even in the quotation you
give we have some sort of distinction – the qualifiers “confirming” and “fuller” fulfillment are introduced. I
simply think that it’s less confusing to find even more distinct vocabulary than that.
Thus far I’ve kept to “referent” (and “association”) and “application”. Now I want to distinguish a little further
by dividing “application” into two categories.
a) Application 1 – typological echo within Scripture history. This is an application insofar as it was not the
referent of the prophecy and yet that typological echo may be a thousand times more important than the
original referent and fulfillment. Think of 2 Samuel 7 or Isaiah 7 for example. The referent of each of these
prophecies was located in the near future and thus the fulfillment of the prophecies also took place in that
same near future. However, both of these prophecies, fulfilled within not many years of having been made,
had a typological echo in Christ the importance of which far outweighed the importance of the actual
“fulfillment”.
It is unsurprising if someone wants to say – in view of the fact that the Christ-centred typological echo is far
more important than the actual near-time referent and fulfillment – that the prophecy is fulfilled in Christ.
Furthermore, this is actually the way that NT writers sometimes word things. But in terms of precise
understanding of how prophecy works, it would be misleading to talk about double or multiple “fulfillments”.
It is unsurprising if someone wants to say – in view of the fact that the Christ-centred typological echo is far
more important than the actual near-time referent and fulfillment – that the prophecy was really “about” the
massive typological echo rather than “about” the single initial referent. But in terms of precise understanding
of how prophecy works, it would be misleading to say, without qualification, that the prophecy was “about”
Christ.
And it is not only “unsurprising”, it is – in motivation, though not in choice of terminology – often highly
desirable because it is stressing what the NT stresses and what all Christians should want to stress, namely
that OT prophecy is always (in the loose sense) “about” Christ and “fulfilled” in Christ. I’d rather have
someone asserting those things in terms which I think lead to confusion when turned into a theory of double
or multiple fulfillment than missing the NT’s glorious obsession with Christ.
But let's get back to where this started – with a Revelation-preterist’s criticism of a Revelation-idealist. It
remains the case that as soon as this theory of double or multiple fulfillment, which arises out of a failure to
distinguish OT prophecies’ near-time referent and fulfillment from their Christ-centred climactic and glorious
typological application, is applied to the book of Revelation, all sorts of silliness comes to the surface.
b) Application 2. – application by non-Scripture writers outside of Scripture-history. This is what we normally
call “application”.
Incidentally, I’ve also come across this set of distinctions - and you may do so too:
a) “prediction” (my “referent”) and
b) “promise” (my “Application 1”, i.e. a typological echo within Scripture history, the importance of which far
outweighs that of the actual referent and fulfillment.)
I wonder how much sense this all makes?
Monday, September 24, 2007
949. MARK WILSON ON REVELATION
Having enjoyed the sanity of Mark Wilson's "Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary on
Revelation", I was pleased to see that he has produced, Charts on the Book of Revelation: Literary,
Historical, and Theological Perspectives (Kregel, 2007).With good reason Aune, Osborne, Barr, and
Bauckham enthuse about it: of course it's not perfect but it makes accessible a mass of information relevant to
the proper study of the book. Here's a list of the charts:
Authorship of Revelation
Date of Revelation
Roman Empire in the Late First Century A.D
Time Line of the First-Century Church in Asia
Jewish and Christian Apocalypses
Literary Genres of Revelation
Chapter and Verse Counts with Text Set as Poetry
Words Occurring Only in Revelation (Hapax Legomena)
Allusions and Verbal Parallels in the Old Testament and Extrabiblical Literature
Structure of Revelation
Identification of Christ with God in Revelation
Divine Names in Revelation
Names for Believers in Revelation
Apocalyptic Themes in Revelation, the Synoptic Gospels, and Pauline Epistles
Thematic Parallels Between Revelation and John
Thematic Parallels Among Revelation, Jude, and 2 Peter
Thematic Parallels Between Revelation and 4 Ezra Theme of Victory in Revelation
Theories of Interpretation of Revelation
Five Senses in Revelation
Minerals, Gems, and Other Commodities in Revelation
Symbols Interpreted in Revelation
Use of Numbers in Revelation
Symbolism of Colors and Numbers in Revelation
Figures of Speech in Revelation
Doublets in Revelation
Paired Characters in Revelation
Angels and Demons in Revelation
Seven Beatitudes and Their Relationship to the Coming/Victor Sayings
Epithets of Jesus with Old and New Testament Background
Suggested Divisions ofthe Letters in Revelation 2—3
Structure of the Seven Letters in Revelation 2—3
An Imperial Edict Compared to the Letter to Ephesus
Promise Images in the Seven Letters with Background in Jewish Literature
Promises with Fulfillments and Relationship to Faithful Works
Rhetorical Situation of the Church in Revelation
Wars and Battles in Revelation
Theories of the Rapture from Revelation
Heavenly Throne-Room Vision with Parallels in Daniel
Four Living Creatures with Background in Ezekiel and Isaiah
Identification ofthe Four Living Creatures with the Gospels
Hymns of Revelation Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with Background in Zechariah
Seven Seals and the Apocalypses in the Synoptic Gospels
Possible Interrelationships Among the Seals, Trumpets, and Bowls
Biblical Lists of the Twelve Tribes of Israel
Trumpet and Bowl Judgments Compared to the Egyptian Plagues
Vice Lists in Revelation Correlated to the Ten Commandments
Identification of the Two Witnesses
Time Periods of Persecution
Fall of Satan in Revelation
Calculating the Number of the Beast (Gematria)
Two Marks of Revelation
Thematic Parallels Between the Beast of Revelation and the Beasts of Daniel
Portrait of the Beast in Revelation
Rise and Demise of the Evil Trinity
Worship of the Emperor - the Beast of Revelation 13:4 - Contrasted with Divine Worship
Four “Here” Sayings of Revelation
Paired Angelic Revelations in Revelation
Historical Identification of the Seven Emperors (Rev. 17:9-11) in Relationship to the Twelve Caesars
Trading Products of Revelation 18 in Relationship to Tyre and Rome
Last Battle in Revelation
Messiah as an Eschatological Judge
Interpretations of the 1,000 Years from Revelation 20:1-6
Lists of Jewels in Antiquity
Paradise Motifs in Revelation and the Prophets
Death and Resurrection in Revelation 19-22
Architectural Features ofthe New Jerusalem
Literary Parallels Between Revelation’s Prologue and Epilogue
Benedictions in the New Testament
Thematic Parallels Between Genesis 1-3 and Revelation
Textual Evidence for Revelation
Canonical History of Revelation
Seven Churches Today
Map of Roman Province of Asia
Map of lmperial Cult Temples of Asia Minor
Map of the Myth of Nero Redivivus, or Nero Redux
Map of Rome: City of Seven Hills
Map of Trade in the Roman Empire
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
950. PROPOSITIONS, ARGUMENT, SQUARE OF OPPOSITION
[Revised ed. 0600 Wed 26th] It seems to have come out fuzzy in the pdf document but since I spent an hour
fiddling about with text boxes and things to put this together, it may as well sit online as anywhere else. The
"this" in question is a 2 side document giving an elementary introduction to some of the terms and relations
that lie behind formal argument. It's item 54 HERE.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
951. MUST WE ALWAYS FORGIVE?
Notes for this morning's "sermon":
Must We Always Forgive?
1. Introduction: Gee Walker, Julie Nicholson, Harvey Thomas, Norman Tebbitt
2. Forgiveness in a world without God?
Psalm 115.4-8 – you become like your “ultimate”. A brute and random, amoral universe cannot ground the
good or the “should” of forgiveness.
Bryson: "And so, from nothing, our universe begins. In a single blinding pulse, a moment of glory much too
swift and expansive for any form of words, the singularity assumes heavenly dimensions, space beyond
conception. … In three minutes, 98 per cent of all the matter there is or will ever be has been produced. We
have a universe. It is a place of the most wondrous and gratifying possibility, and beautiful, too. And it was all
done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich. … So what caused it? … . It seems impossible that you
could get something from nothing, but the fact that once there was nothing and now there is a universe is
evident proof that you can."
3. Forgiveness in the Bible
Love (giving and blessing) and righteousness (active approval of the good and active disapproval of evil) in the
life of God
A relational economy which reflects this.
- Happy are they whose sins are forgiven (Psalm 32.1)
- Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us
- How often … forgive? … Seventy times seven (Matt. 18.21-22)
- Father, forgive them for they know not what they do (Luke 23.34)
- Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each another, just as, in Christ, God forgave you.
(Ephesians 4.32)
4. Questions
5. A synthesis
Wrongdoing, as “violence” or “vandalism”:
i. the offender has malfunctioned / been morally stained
ii. the offended has suffered loss
iii. the relationship has been impaired / broken
iv. the moral order has been disrupted
What’s required for full restoration? Vases, money, handshakes etc
Varieties of forgiveness:
a) F1 – the demeanour of forgiving-ness, the readiness to resume the relationship, not holding the offence
against the offender
b) F2 – the willingness to bear the cost, to forego due restitution, and to require no punishment
c) F3 – full restoration of proper relationship between offender and offended
Some observations:
1. F3 is impossible without the offender repenting
2. the repentance of the offender will be demonstrated by a readiness to make full restitution
3. the love of the offended, out of which F1 flows, may – seeking the well-being of the offender and others –
decline F2
4. the State is not “the offended” but rather, is called actively to express God’s disapproval of certain evils
The teaching of Jesus:
The offended must always act with F1 and must always act in love in relation to F2.
There are no limits to this.
This is a “condition” of being forgiven. How so?
What do we do with an unforgiving spirit?
6. But what about the moral order? (5. iv. above)
What about unpunished, underpunished, wrongly punished evils? Since wrong-doing is violence/vandalism,
how does the relational economy keep going? Where does relational wealth creation take place? Where is
moral energy production happening?
Living off God’s money – three possibilities:
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

Heine: “God will forgive me: it’s his job” (no moral order, God won’t call in the money I’ve been using)
Shaw: “Forgiveness is a beggar’s refuge” (a closed system is enough, I’ll pay myself)
God, the Holy Spirit: “In Jesus we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our
trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” (a gift of God through the cross of Jesus)
Monday, October 01, 2007
952. I FORGIVE YOU
To clarify one matter from the previous post, it's worth noting that because forgiveness has two poles, it is
possible for the offended to say "I forgive you" or "I have forgiven him" even while the offended (because
unrepentant - and therefore not having sought forgiveness from God, nor endeavoured to make restitution,
nor apologised and sought forgiveness) cannot say, "I have been forgiven".
Desirable, of course, is the full restoration of relationships (F3 below) and it feels good and right to call that
Forgiveness. But we must not deny that it is possible for the offended really to forgive the offender even while
the offender remains unforgiven (F1 + unrepentant offender).
Why is this important?
Because otherwise when we read Jesus telling us that "if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will
your Father forgive your trespasses" then we are making the offended's reception of God's forgiveness
dependent on someone else's repentance. If I can only say "I have forgiven him" when he can say (because
repentant) "I have been forgiven" then so long as he is unrepentant I cannot be forgiven by God.
Remember that a significant part of the idea/vocabulary of "forgiveness" is that of "release". Imagine, then,
that the prisoner is foolish enough to stay in the cell. Having unlocked the doors and taken off his handcuffs
and ball and chain I can say, "I have released him from prison". And yet, still sitting there, the foolish offender
can say, "I am still in prison".
It's important for the offended party in a more subjective way, too. If we tell the offended that he is only
allowed to say, "I have forgiven him" once the offender has repented then we are denying the offended not
only God's forgiveness, but also the subjective healing/restoration/release which comes to those who forgive.
If - to change the use of the metaphor above - it is true that "To forgive is to set a prisoner free - and to
discover that the prisoner was you," then we are making the subjective freedom of the offended depend upon
the action of the offender.
Finally, think about situations in which it is impossible for the offender to repent. My father treated me
abominably (DF - mine didn't - he's great!) and I'm badly messed up and begin to discover some of this long
after my father has died. Does my father's inability to repent mean that I cannot forgive him? Well, of course,
it makes F3 impossible. But insofar as it's easy to see that I could say, "I don't forgive him", so, in an F1 sense, I
am allowed to use the words, "I have forgiven him". And, again, this gloriously opens up the way to my
reception of God's forgiveness and my release into integrity and maturity.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
953. SEARLES READS RYLE ON JOHN
J.C. Ryle's Expository Thoughts on John are an absolute delight. They are marked by reverent and careful
attention to the text, theological acuity, Christ-centred devotional depth, and pastorally insightful comment on
the life of the Christian disciple.
Matt Searles, Oak Hill student and all-round excellent fellow, has produced audio files of Ryle's thoughts on
the first six chapters of John's gospel and they can be heard or downloaded HERE.
Audio files of Ryle's Expository Thoughts on John
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
954. OH, HOW I LOVE ...
.
The Acton Institute and The Institute of Economic Affairs
And HERE you can see where this letter, 30th Sept, originally appeared:
Dear Sir,
The church and charity leaders who signed the letter to The Times (Bad
Trade, 27th September) should realise that by making such definitive
statements about difficult, technical and subjective economic matters
they undermine their authority when they speak out on subjects within
their realm of expertise. We would all like the EU to pursue a policy of
unilateral free trade. However, it cannot be an "injustice" to negotiate
with other countries to take down trade barriers together. The
correspondents make two fundamental errors. The fact that two parties
are unequal is not a reason for one side keeping trade barriers differences between countries raise the gains from trade to all parties.
Secondly, the maintenance of trade barriers will not help poor countries
prosper. The most protectionist countries are the poorest. Trade
barriers in poor countries lead to resources being allocated to
industries where they are least productive, raise prices for consumers
and provide a vehicle for corruption. This is a recipe for stagnation
and poverty and not for development.
Yours faithfully,










Professor Philip Booth (Editorial and Programme Director, Institute of Economic
Affairs and UK Co-ordinator of Enterprise Africa!, Westminster)
Dr. Fredrik Errxon (Director, European Centre for International Political Economy)
The Revd Dr Mark Hart (Rector of Plemstall & Guilden Sutton, Chester)
Dr. Andrew Lilico (Managing Director, Europe Economics, London)
Professor Patrick Minford (Cardiff Business School, Cardiff)
Dr. Mark Pennington (Queen Mary College, London)
Dr. Razeen Sally (London School of Economics)
Professor J. R. Shackleton (Dean, Westminster Business School, London)
Alex Singleton (President, The Globalisation Institute, Brussels)
Linda Whetstone (Chairman, International Policy Network, London)
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
955. ANALOGICAL LANGUAGE
An illustration of how God's use of language and ours relate analogically may be had in the relationship
between human and canine understanding of the word, "walk".
1. Humans mean twenty different, though related things, when they say the word "walk". Dogs hear the word
and think one thing only. There is - and always will be - SO much more to "walk" than the dog realizes and yet
the dog is right to think what he does when he hears the word.
2. The dog-owner may address his dog thus: "Well, Smudge, with the evening rapidly approaching, it is my
considered judgment that you and I should work up an appetite for our supper by going for a walk." The dog,
(let's not pretend otherwise), understands only a tiny part of what was said and yet, since the owner is a
faithful and well-intentioned fellow, the dog does acquire true though far from exhaustive knowledge of the
owner's thoughts and plans. The owner - as he is encountered in his words - is, to the dog, incomprehensible
and yet truly known.
3. The dog only knows what the word means at all because the owner has taught him - has "given him speech".
4. Sometimes, the dog's limited knowledge can mislead him. His owner calls to the running children upstairs
and instructs them to move more slowly, or explains that he needs some fresh air at the end of the day and is
thus going out for a stroll, or in a family quiz shouts out the surname of that Scottish journalist who used to
present Newsnight. On each of these three occasions, the dog gets excited and is wrong to do so. On two of the
three occasions he is right to understand that something is being referred to which in his world means that he
gets to scamper around fields chasing balls and getting muddy. And, indeed, what is being referred to is
related to that reality. On the third occasion, he's simply barking up the wrong tree.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
956. MATTHEW 24 (I)
I've long been convinced that Matthew 24.4-35 refers, in its entirety (with the exception of the parenthetical
and explanatory verses 27-28) to things that would happen to Jesus's generation, culminating in the
destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 which opened the way to the through-all-history gospel ingathering of God's
people. You'd have thought that that was obvious - after all Jesus says plainly in v35 that "this generation will
not pass away until all these things take place".
France's recent (2007) NICNT commentary on Matthew (as well as his 2002 NIGTC on Mark) put this case
with throughness, elegance, clarity and persuasiveness. There is no better single place to go than to one of
these two commentaries.
In brief, what we've got is:
1. Chapter 23 finishes with Jesus stating that all the blood of the righteous would come upon that
generation and lamenting over Jerusalem whose "house" would be left desolate.
2. Chapter 24 begins (forget the chapter divisions next time you read) with Jesus leaving that 'house', the
temple, and announcing that it would be destroyed. The disciples ask two questions:
a) when will these things be?
b) what will be the sign of your coming and/which is the end of the age?
3. Jesus answers these two questions (which the disciples may well, mistakenly, have thought were
about the same time but which Jesus knew were not) in turn:
a) when will these things (the judgment of that generation and the destruction of the temple) be? Answer vv4-35
b) what will be the sign of your coming and/which is the end of the age? Answer - 24.36-25.46, I'm not telling
you but it could be a long time so you'd better be wise, faithful, and alert.
4. vv.4-35 divide up as follows:
a) vv.4-8
b) vv.9-14
c) vv.15-22
d) vv.23-28
e) vv.29-31
f) vv.32-35
5. And, in brief,
a) vv.4-8 - when will the destruction of Jerusalem / judgment on this generation be? Answer - well, for a start,
when you see wars and the like, don't assume it's any moment - that's just the beginning.
b) vv.9-14 - and on the way there'll be persecution and apostasy but hang in there till it's over and you'll be
preserved/delivered.
c) vv.15-22 - things will really get hot when you see the abomination of desolation (cf Luke 21: "armies
surrounding Jerusalem"). At that point, get out - it's going to be utterly horrible.
d) vv.23-28 - don't be deceived by all the claims and counter-claims around you (vv.27-28 - when the Big One
happens, there'll be no missing it)
e) vv.29-31 - and the climax of that distress will be the end of the old order (29) which will be the vindication
of the Son of Man (30) and will initiate the global gospel ingathering of God's people through all history
f) vv.32-35 - this is all coming soon - in this generation - and if you keep your eyes open then you'll see what's
happening when
g) 24.36ff - but, to turn to your second question ("what will be the sign of your coming and (which is) the end
of the age?") which you may have thought was itself bound up with the first question ("when will the
destruction of the temple take place?"), my answer is this: no-one knows when that day will be, it might be a
long while yet, your job is to be alert and faithful and to get on with the job you've been given.
6. Reasons why some people don't get this:
a) they pay too little attention to the end of chapter 23 and to 24.34
b) they don't notice the very significant markers that there is a change of subject at 24.36 (before then we have
"these days", Jerusalem-focus, it's coming soon, the ability to know when things will happen; after then we
have "that day / that hour", global focus, it could be a long while yet, no-one knows. Just look at 32 - you
know, 33 - you know, 36 - no-one knows!)
c) they can't get past their initially, conditioned, response to "end" in vv.6, 13 and 14, to the gospel going to the
whole world in v.14, and to the fact that war and persecution and apostasy seem to happen all the time
d) especially, especially, they have been breathing air all their lives which conveys the sense that vv.29-31 must
be the Big One (the glorious return of Jesus to bring universal judgment and general resurrection - what we
often call the 'second coming'). Ten minutes with the relevant OT passages (about God's "coming", about
cosmic upheaval, and about the Son of Man) would dispel this but who has got ten minutes to give to
questioning something as obvious as the "Big One" reference of Matt 24.29-31.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
957. MATTHEW 24 (II)
In the previous post I gave an extremely brief summary of a first-century reading of Matthew 24.4-35. It's been
a while since I looked at - and saw the poverty of - the alternatives and it was quite a shock, this week, to read
Carson's EBC and Hagner's WBC and see such dismal argument. So I thought I'd jot it down for myself.
Hagner: vv.29-31 must be the Big One (Jesus's return for universal judgment and general resurrection - what
we often call, "the second coming"). But we're told that that is immediately after what precedes. What
precedes (vv.15-28) is the first century destruction of Jerusalem. So Matthew says that the Big One happens
immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem. We know that that is wrong so we must conclude that when
Matthew put this chapter together from all sorts of bits and pieces in front of him, he made a mistake. (Yes,
really, this is what the "evangelical" WBC says.)
Carson: vv.29-31 must be the Big One (Jesus's return for universal judgment and general resurrection - what
we often call, "the second coming"). But we're told that that is immediately after what precedes. What
precedes (vv.15-28) is the first century destruction of Jerusalem. But that can't be right, so there must be a
division somewhere between vv.15-28 where Jesus/Matthew stops talking about the first century and starts
talking about the entire church age.
That division, says Carson, is at v.22. Instead of v.22 going with the first century vv15-21, it should be regarded
as starting a new paragraph. The "those days" (x2) of v.22 are not the "those days" of vv.15-21 (the words are in
v.19) but are the entire church age "those days". Where, you might ask, did the entire church age come in?
Well, Carson has already asserted that vv.4-14 are the entire church age. So what he gives us is:
vv.4-14 - the entire church age
vv.15-21 - first century judgment as a special instance of the sort of thing we see in vv.4-14
v.22 - now let's get back to talking about the entire church age
vv.23-28 - carrying on the theme
vv.29-31 - the Big One
vv.32-35 - all "these things" (well, not really, but anyway the first batch of vv.4-14 and vv.22-28, all of vv.15-21,
and certainly not vv.29-31!) to this generation.
Where does this go wrong?
a) in departing from the very strong presumption - given by 23.36 through to 24.3 and by 24.34 - that the
entire section 24.4-35 refers to the first century
b) in deciding ahead of time (and in the face of very good reasons to the contrary) that 29-31 must be the Big
One
c) in importing back into the reading of vv.15-28 the insistence that there must be a moment when it stops
talking about the first century and starts talking about the entire church age
d) in it's almost unbelievable reading of v.22 as not referring to vv.15-21. Carson says that there are six
"excellent reasons" for breaking the paragraph at v.21 rather than including v.22. Those six reasons amount to
two irrelevant reasons, two which assume the conclusion. and two pitifully weak reasons. And, legless and
armless, this "argument" is trying to swim against the waterfall current of "those days" in v.22 referring back
to "those days" in v.19 and thus to the entire vv.15-21 paragraph.
Amazing. I love Don Carson, think that he is an outstanding scholar and a great gift to the church in our
generation, and I admire and have benefitted from a great deal of his vast and high quality output. But there is
something strangely heartening about seeing just how weak the 'best' arguments against a consistently firstcentury reading of Matthew 24.4-35 are.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
958. LEVITICUS READING
For the little it is worth, my ratings and rankings for the bits and pieces I've been reading are these:
1) Disappointing, though not without merit: Kiuchi, Rooker, Currid, North
2) Helpful, though to be read with caution: Grabbe, Gorman
3) Really helpful at different levels and in different ways: Hartley, Milgrom, Wenham, Ross
4) Other things of interest - pieces by Richard Averbeck; Paul Redditt; Walter Kaiser; S H Kellogg; Poythress Shadow.
5) In a class of their own: James B Jordan's studies in Leviticus:
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6 lecture series, "Drawing Near"
BH 1992 Conference on Worship and Sacrifice (mostly Peter Leithart)
Liturgy of Whole Burnt Offering
Covenant Sequence in Leviticus and Deuteronomy
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The Law of Forbidden Mixtures
The Tabernacle: A New Creation
Studies in Food and Faith
Saturday, October 06, 2007
959. MARVELLOUS MOMENTS FROM MILGROM (1)
Milgrom writes some very silly stuff on occasion - such as
"23:15 "you shall count for yourselves." I admit that I cannot fathom the purpose of the fifty
day counting, and the literature I have consulted is of no help. But I susspect that, originally,
there was some incantation recited each day to ward off the demons of the weather; with the
triumph of Israelite monotheism, however, the magical incantations were excised and that
that survived was the counting".
But, along with this sort of thing, Milgrom sheds light on parts and themes of Leviticus over and over again:
The high voltage of the supersanctums ... fatally contagious to those who view them directly (64)
The book of Leviticus contains ten torot, comprising a decalogue of ritual life, as follows: five torot of sacrifice
(Eng 6.9, 14, 25, 7.1, 7.11) and five torot of impurity (11.46, 12.7, 13.39, 14.54-57, 14.2+32, 15.32).
The requirement that a priest wear a sash of sha’atnez [DF – I still can’t transliterate on this thing], a mixture
of wool and linen, completes the picture of graded holiness within the ranks of Israel. The high priest alone
wears outer garments of sha’atnez which matched the inner tabernacle curtains. Thus the high priest is
sartorially of the same degree of holiness ("most holy") as the area - inside the tent - in which he officiates. The
ordinary priest is of lesser holiness than the high priest. He may not officiate inside the tent but only on the
altar; he is not "most holy" but "holy," and the symbol of his reduced holiness is his sha’atnez sash. Finally, the
Israelite who may not officiate at all is neither "most holy" nor “holy.” nonetheless, he is enjoined to wear
sha’atnez on the fringes of his outer garment as a reminder that he should aspire to a life of holiness. …
mixtures belong to the sacred sphere, namely, the sanctuary, as do its officiants, the priests. Thus the lower
cover of the tabernacle and the curtain closing off the adytum are a mixture of linen and wool (Exod 26:1, 31).
The high priest's ephod, breastplate, and belt contain the same mixture (28:6, 15; 39:29); for the ordinary
priest, this mixture is limited to his belt (39:29); and the Israelite is conceded this mixture by the insertion of a
single blue thread of wool in his linen tassels (Num 15:39) …” 84-85, 236
Saturday, October 06, 2007
960. MARVELLOUS MOMENTS FROM MILGROM (2)
The priest’s immunity stands in stark contrast to the sanctuary's vulnerability. As demonstrated, the sanctuary
is polluted by every physical and moral aberration, even those inadvertently committed. But within that same
sanctuary the priest is impervious to impurity. Once he leaves it his immunity is cancelled; hence not his
brothers, also priests, but his Levite cousins remove the corpses of Nadab and Abihu (10:4). Also, the priest
who prepares the ashes of the red cow outside the sanctuary is rendered impure (Num 19:6-7). Herein lies an
ancillary teaching of the Priestly impurity system. Impurity pollutes the sanctuary, but it does not pollute the
priest as long as he serves God in the sanctuary. H applies this teaching to the people at large. As long as they
live a life of holiness and serve God by obeying God's commandments, they can overcome the forces of
impurity-death. "You shall heed my statutes and my rules, which if one does them, he shall live by them" (Lev
18:5). 99
"Holy" is thus aptly defined, in any context, as "that which is unapproachable except through divinely imposed
restrictions," or "that which is withdrawn from common use." … Consecration can be defined as a transfer
from the realm of the profane to the realm of the holy. Examples include sacrifices (22:2-3), dedications to the
sanctuary (Exod 28:38), and the firstborn (Num 3:13). 107, 329
~~~
There is no animism in the Bible. Holiness is not innate. The source of holiness is assigned to God alone.
Holiness is the extension of God's nature; it is the agency of God's will. It is certain things are termed holy such as the land (Canaan), person (priest), place (sanctuary), or time (holy day) - they are so by virtue of
divine dispensation. For Israel the holy is the extension of God's will. It becomes a positive concept, an
inspiration, and a goal associated with God's nature and desire for humanity. 107
~~~
When we scan the pentateuchal codes for all other instances in which Israel is enjoined to holiness, we find
them clustered in the dietary laws, as we have already seen, and in just two other places: the priesthood and
idolatry. As to the former, we notice, for example, that seven times in three verses (Lev 21:6-8) the root qdsh is
used. From the biblical viewpoint, the priesthood, Israel, and humanity, respectively, formed three concentric
rings of decreasing holiness about the centre, God. The biblical ideal, however, is that all Israel shall be a
"kingdom of priests and a holy people" (Exod 19:6). If Israel is to move to a higher sphere of holiness, then it is
bound to a more rigid code of behaviour. And just as the priest lives by more stringent standards than his
fellow Israelite, so Israelites shall be expected to follow different standards from their fellow human beings.
Here again, holiness implies separation. As for idolatry, since the very seat of immorality was imputed to the
cult of idolaters, it is not startling to find the third grouping of qdsh words in the context of a stern admonition
to Israel to separate itself from idolatry (Lev 20:1-7; Deut 7:4-6; 14:1-6). 109
~~~
The association with the earth, the sphere of death … all ritual impurity, embedded and legislated in chapters
11-15, has this has its common denominator: the association with death. 120
~~~
The laws of sanctum contamination summarised as follows:
1. The contamination of a sanctum varies directly with the intensity of the impurity source, directly with the
holiness intensity of the sanctum and inversely with the distance between them. Also, contamination has a
threshold, a fixed value, below which it cannot be activated.
2. The sanctuary is a special case of the general law (1) whereby:
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Contamination is a function of the intensity of the impurity source alone, i.e., impurities of a severe
amount and from any distance (in the camp) will contaminate the sanctuary.
Contamination takes place at three ascending thresholds: the outer altar, the shrine, or the adytum.
Contamination displaces an equal volume of the sanctuary holiness (the Archimedean principle) until
a saturation point is reached.
3. Sanctums are related to common things in regard to their contamination and purification, as follows:
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Sanctums are more vulnerable to contamination by one degree.
Each purification stage reduces the communicability of the impurity source to both sanctums and
common things by one degree. 140-41
~~~
Chapter 27: The laws of redemption fit into the following graded systems:
1. Proscriptions are "most sacred" and irredeemable
2. Offerable animals - the day firstborn, tithes, or consecrations – are irredeemable
3. Non-offerable consecrations - such as impure animals, land, houses, and crops except when they are
proscriptions - are irredeemable.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
961. MARVELLOUS MOMENTS FROM MILGROM (3)
Love and joy: the two most telling moments for me, personally, in reading Milgrom's (350-page Continental,
not 2400-page Anchor) commentary on Leviticus were these.
Firstly, at the centre of the centre of the book of Leviticus, almost by way of central definition of holiness, lies
the instruction to love our neighbour as ourselves. But the relationship between verses 17 and 18 is such that
the following comment illumines that life of love:
"Reprove your fellow openly" is the answer to the prohibition against harbouring hatred. One
detects in this phrase a natural resistance or reluctance to bring one's grievances out in the
open, especially to the offending party directly. To overcome this psychological barrier, the
offended party must be urged. Note also that open reproof not only dispels hate but engenders
love (Prov 9-8). Thus it throws light on the meaning of "love your fellow" (Lev 19:18). The
latter injunction is neither wishful nor impractical. One of the ways to love your fellow,
according to this unit (vv. 17-18), is to reprove him openly for his mistakes. (Milgrom 231-232)
For all the great importance of love "covering a multitude of sins" there's room - in a place of complete trust
and of underlying happiness - to say, "Oi, quiet, I'm trying to listen to the news" or "Are you ever going to
mend that gate?" or "You don't half moan lots about my moaning". We may wish for the day when, in the life
of the church, we can look our brother in the eye and say, "that was badly done, brother" without the whole
relationship being soured but that will only happen in an environment of trust - and that means in a living,
breathing family community.
~~~
Secondly, commenting upon the celebrations at the feast of Tabernacles, Milgrom quotes the Mishnah,
“Anyone who had not witnessed the rejoicing at the Libation Water-Well had never seen
rejoicing in his life." (Milgrom 286)
Doesn't that make you wince as it suggests the following, frightening, question,
"Do Christians, when together, EVER behave (at the Eucharist, perhaps?) in a way that could
elicit and warrant the comment, "Anyone who had not witnessed that, had never seen
rejoicing in his life?"
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
962. DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE
There's more to be said on coventantal death, on the details of Deut 24, on whether God legislates for sinful
practices, on Malachi 2, on arguing from silence, on the disciples' surprise, and on I Corinthians 7, but, for
some time now I have reckoned that David Instone-Brewer is onto something sound and important.
And there's a good summary of his position HERE.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
963. ORIENTATION TO LEVITICUS
If we come to the book of Leviticus assuming that the Bible is only ever interested in how an individual sinner
gets a ticket to a piece of eternal happiness then we will conclude
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either that Leviticus was an inadequate early attempt which was blessedly rejected at the incarnation
or that Leviticus was a holding operation which was really a cupboard for a bunch more types and
shadows of Christ.
There's an element of truth in each of these thoughts:
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it is true that Leviticus was due to be superceded and that the order it describes could not save an
individual sinner from hell and
it is true that the Levitical system provided a way for God to stick around and that, genius-author that
he is, God put all sorts of patterns in place which would give later readers "aha" moments and the
satisfaction of being knowing insiders
As a chapter in the story, a stage on the journey, a piece in the puzzle, however, Leviticus does not function as
an answer to the anywhere, anytime guilty individual's quest for personal 'salvation'.
It's more like this: God produces a family in the creation-redemption act of the Exodus and then a new chapter
in that family's life begins with the construction of the tabernacle. God moves in with his family and his nearer
presence is dangerous life and demanding blessing. So God gives the book of Leviticus. In (terrifying) love he
says, "now that we're living together, you need to be clear about a few things." Thus we have ...
Leviticus: detailed household rules for God's infant children
and as they followed those rules they would grow up to be like their father - in loving holiness and holy love.
And God would take them through adolescence to mature glory.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
964. MUSLIM TO CHRISTIAN OPEN LETTER
Various Muslim Religious Leaders have written an "Open Letter and Call" to the Pope, David Coffey, and
others. Presumably a few thousand or million Christian bloggers will say the same but, after scanning the
helpful page-long "Summary and Abridgement" I still feel the need to make confession:
1. The first paragraph runs:
Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world’s population. Without
peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace
in the world. The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians.
Actually, "meaningful peace in the world" and "the future of the world" depend rather upon the (non-violent,
Spirit-empowered, gospel-produced) destruction of Islam and of all other denials that the crucified and risen
Lord Jesus Christ is the only Saviour of sinners and is Lord of the whole world. Submission (!) to the Prince of
Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the only foundation for full-orbed, lasting, and meaningful peace.
2. The document goes on to speak of the "foundational principles of both faiths" and while I don't know much
about Islam, I know that I John 5 and Matthew 28 give us a pretty clear idea about the foundations of the
Christian faith and the terms upon which we confess that faith:
If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of
God that he has borne concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the
testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not
believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony,
that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever
does not have the Son of God does not have life. ... And we know that the Son of God has come
and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who
is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep
yourselves from idols.
And when they saw Jesus they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to
them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and disciple all
the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always,
to the end of the age."
3. The document then quotes the Qur'an as calling upon Christians (and Jews) thus:
Say: O People of the Scripture! Come to a common word between us and you: that we shall
worship none but God, and that we shall ascribe no partner unto Him, and that none of us
shall take others for lords beside God. And if they turn away, then say: Bear witness that we
are they who have surrendered (unto Him). (Aal ‘Imran 3:64)
and, of course, Christians do indeed know, from 1 Corinthians 8, that,
... "There is no God but one." For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on
earth—as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"— yet for us there is one God, the
Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through
whom are all things and through whom we exist.
~~~~
If this call in any way relates to or produces less violence towards Christians from Muslims then that's a
wonderful thing. If it amounts to a call for an ideological or spiritual truce then these clever and prominent
Muslims really, really haven't understood the ABC of the Christian faith:
Jesus - declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his
resurrection from the dead - is Lord, and God intends to bring about the obedience of faith for
the sake of Jesus's name across all the nations. (Romans 1.3-5).
Thursday, October 11, 2007
965. IN DEFENSE OF CHRISTENDOM
Well, good for John Colwell. See HERE. (HT - Peter Scholtens)
Thursday, October 11, 2007
966. DANIEL 3
Sermon notes. (Sermon may come up HERE sometime).
DANIEL 3 – BATTLE OF THE GODS
Trial and deliverance (parallels ch.6): be faithful in the face of the hostile powers and God will vindicate you
and establish his kingdom
1-7 - N’s decree – worship the golden image
.......8-12 - The men accused
..............13-15 - The men threatened
.....................16-18 - The men confess their faith
..............19-23 - The men punished
.......24-27 - The men vindicated
28-30 - N’s decree honouring the men and their God
1. There’s a battle of the gods – a war to the death (see vv.4-5 vs v.29; and see vv.14-15, 17, 18, 28)
2. God intends the exposure and humiliation of the false gods (features of false gods: they don’t stand still,
they depend upon their worshippers, they can be jolly impressive)
3. State power is one of the most resilient of the false gods
4. In the battle, God’s people are seen to be the real humans (in chap 1 they were “seeds” (4, 10, 13, 15, 17); in
chap 2 they were “friends”; now, they are “men” (12, 13, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27); free (cp automaton pagans),
courageous, convinced )
5. The means of victory is faithful confession (saying NO (vv.16-18); Jesus is Lord; Rev 12.11; 1 Tim 6.12-14;
John 18.37)
6. The Lord Jesus Christ is what Revelation 1.5 says he is (faithful witness; firstborn from the dead; ruler of the
kings of the earth; in the furnace with his people (Rev 1.15))
7. This week:
a) your goals for
.......-the state
.......- society
.......- self
.......- your children
b) your utter confidence in the outcome
c) your commitment to God’s way of achieving this
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
967. LEVITICUS 16 OFFERINGS
Just trying to get the Day of Atonement straight in my own mind:
The offerings:
1) bull as purification offering for HP and his house
2) male goat as purification offering for the people
3) live male goat into the wilderness
4) ram as ascension offering for HP (and his house)
5) ram as ascension offering for the people
The order:
1. Bring his own two animals (bull and ram)
2. Wash and get dressed
3. Get the three animals from the congregation (two male goats and a ram)
?? rel between 6 and 11
4. Cast lots to decide which job each of the two goats gets
5. Offer the bull as purification offering for himself and his house
6. Covered by incense cloud apply blood in Holy of Holies (called Holy Place in this chapter)
7. Offer male goat 1 as purification offering for the people
8. Apply blood in Holy of Holies (called Holy Place in this chapter) - which atones for the Holy of Holies
(called Holy Place in this chapter) (given the uncleanness, transgression and sin of the people)
?? what do separately to atone for Holy Place (called "tent of meeting" in this chapter) ?
9. Atone for the Holy Place (called "tent of meeting" in this chapter) (given the uncleanness of the people)
10. Make atonement for the altar - both cleansing and consecrating it
?? which one - golden or bronze? Looks more like the bronze for various reasons but in that
case perhaps the golden altar has been dealt with in 8?
11. Send male goat 2 into the wilderness with the people's iniquities, transgressions, and sins
12. Take off linen garments and leave them in the Holy Place
13. Wash and dress
14. Offer the two ram ascension offerings, one for himself (and his house) and one for the people
15. Send the purification offering fat up in smoke
16. Let the male goat 2 monitor back into the camp once he's washed his clothes and himself
17. Take the remains of the two purification offering animals (i.e. not blood, not fat) outside the camp and
burn them
18. Let the chap who does 17. back into the camp once he's washed his clothes and himself.
This way atonement is made for
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HP (and Holy of Holies, which is called the Holy Place in this chapter)
Priests (and Holy Place, which is called "tent of meeting" in this chapter)
Israel (and "altar" - assume bronze altar)
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
968. THE BEAST
It's a while since I've linked to depressing political articles. So here goes ...
Totalitarianism A
Totalitarianism B
Totalitarianism C
Only short-term (50-200 years or so) depressing, however. Such a system is itself a judgment and will be
crushed by further judgment. We deserve all we get but
"the sceptre of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the
righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong"
and UK, along with all the rest of the nations of the world, is certainly "the land allotted to the Righteous"*
*[I know, Ps 125.3 is plural and Jesus is singular. But remember Matt 5.5 and Rom 4.13]
Friday, October 19, 2007
969. OPTIMISTIC AMILLENNIALISM
What separates amills and postmills is that the amill does not share the postmill’s conviction that Scripture
indicates worldwide conversion, Christian cultural dominion, majority of humankind salvation etc. Many
amills believe that God could do this (because they hold a Reformed doctrine of God’s sovereignty) but all
amills deny that he has said he will. In this sense, amill-m is defined negatively – over against post-m.
This is important.
All the “optimistic” things which amills say which they think make them “optimistic” are actually shared by
postmills:
- Christ is really reigning
- international gospel spread
- of course, the conversion of individuals makes a difference around them
- lots and lots of people, absolutely, will be saved
- etc
At which point, the question is, “All these things sound postmill, what’s distinctive about your position from
that of a postmill?” (The same question can be put, in reverse, to the postmill).
And the amill answer is, “I don’t believe ...”
What doesn’t the self-styled 'optimistic amill' believe that the postmill does believe?

timescale – that there’s a very long time ahead of us before Jesus returns

the church is an earthly civilization / empire / social order / culture
.....1. which displaces rather than inhabits other civilizations etc
.....2. and in which cross-generational faithfulness is normal

maturation of the (saved) race over history as an essential part of redemptive history. The amill denial
of this could be stated as “we start again in every generation” (and can be accused of individualism and
of “the freezing [or even ‘randomizing] of history”)

gospel triumph including majority salvation over history and, for many generations, across the world

(combining the previous three points) cultural dominion
.....1. kings qua kings – i.e. governments - must - and mostly will - submit to Christ
.....2. nations qua nations
.....3. international peace
.....4. economic prosperity and social stability and flourishing
.....5. a massive reduction in persecution

covenant sanctions within history

that wickedness progressively disempowers the wicked
Can this be stated positively?



the church inhabits rather than displaces earthly civilizations (Riddlebarger, "the Kingdom of God is
not necessarily something that people see"!)
gospel triumph should be defined in terms of personal conversion and does not entail cultural
dominion
the church, throughout history, always lives ‘under the cross’ and ‘in the wilderness’ which means that
persecutional suffering is, throughout history, to be regarded as normal for the church, and that (even
if, per[very small]chance, there were a time and place in which a majority of individuals in a given

community were personally regenerate this would be abnormal and) the church understands herself
as living at the margins and as a remnant
that Jesus may come back very soon
~~~~~~
My own view - which is no particular secret! - is that the amill denials and affirmations are badly out of step
with Scripture:
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Gen 1 (Gen 9, Matthew 28, II Peter 3, Revelation 21-22)
Gen 12 (the Abrahamic covenant and the blessing of the world in Christ)
Joseph (Mordecai, Daniel)
Prosperity of the Hebrews in Egypt
The 10 commandments
Covenantal sanctions – curses and blessings
Conquest of the land
Hope for the nations – OT – Ex 19, Deut 4, Ruth, Queen Sheba, Ps 2, 22, 65, 66, 67, 72, 86, 96, 97, 98,
99, 100, 113, 115, 117, 138, 145, prophets
The nations coming to Christ - Matthew 28 in the light of Isaiah 2
The world being filled and subdued - Matthew 28 in the light of Gen 1
Wisdom – righteousness works
Monarchy – faithfulness wins (Heb 11, I John 5)
How the world will look – Isaiah 2, 9, 11, 19, 25, 40-66!
How the world will look – the “hope beyond judgment” passages of the OT prophets
Kingdom of God in the OT – God’s subduing the nations, ruling the empires – e.g. Daniel 2
The incarnation – God with us to save his people from their sins
Lord’s Prayer
Kingdom parables of Jesus - Matthew 13
Father’s gift to his Son – Matthew 11, John 3.35, 13.3, rest of John
Great Commission – Matt 28, Luke 24
Universal kingship of Jesus – Ps 2, 45, 72, 110; I Cor 15, Eph 1, Phil 3, Heb 10, I Peter 3
The unstoppable life-giving energies of the Spirit-empowered Gospel – Acts
The power of the resurrection in transforming the life of individuals - epistles
The international, holy nation / the reunited humankind of the church – Eph 1-3
The prayers of Jesus and Paul for the maturation of the church - John 17, Eph 4
Biblical universalism – Eph 1, Col 1, I Cor 15, Heb 2
Revelation – authority of Jesus (1.5, letters, 5, 6, 11.15, 19.11ff), defeat of the enemies
God as good creator, sovereign ruler, loving redeemer, righteous judge
Where sin abounds …
There’s plenty of time
Resurrection shows the possibility but history so far massively confirms it - just look at the stats!
Saturday, October 20, 2007
970. UNCLEANNESS AND SIN PROOF-TEXT
It is rightly a commonplace amongst commentators on the Levitical system that "unclean" does not mean
"sinful". This can be argued in various ways but perhaps the clearest is to point to Leviticus 21.3.
The priests may not touch (or come under the same roof as) a dead body. Or as the text says,
"For a person among his people he may not make himself unclean"
There are, however, some exceptions.
"except for his flesh near to him, his mother and his father and his son and his daughter and
his brother"
And one futher exception, requiring a little explanation,
"and his virgin sister who is near to him who has not got a husband"
And then what he does in touching (or coming under the same roof as) her is made explicit ...
"for her, he may make himself unclean".
Saturday, October 27, 2007
971. "WHAT I DID ON MY HOLIDAYS"
I left school a while ago now but the essay title was so often inflicted upon us that I can't get back from being
away without feeling the need to say what a "nice and interesting" time I had.
But this time it's true.
I've had the immense privilege, this week, of spending time with the 16 students HERE near Belgrade.
(There's a little more HERE). I gave 12 shortish lectures on the book of Leviticus to an utterly delightful group
of Christian men and women. Spellings will be wrong but I can imagine my way around the classroom - Igor,
Darko, Marijan and Slavica, Vasko, Igor, Norbert, Boyen, Svonko, Dalibor, Jelena, Milicia, Lenche, Dalia,
Slavica, and Igor. And then I had the privilege and pleasure of working with or meeting Sladjan and Jaroslav,
Daniela, Samuilo and Olja, Daniela and Dragon, Elenka, Marijana, Sacha, Sashko and Ira, Zdenka, Natasha,
and Boban, as well as a few others.
One of several highlights was spending time on Thursday evening with the 2nd Baptist Church in Belgrade.
We spent much time in the 70s and 80s praying for the fall of communism and the Lord answered our prayers
dramatically. (Islam is next!). To be with a little group of believers who have been faithful in really, really
tough times was truly an honour.
Even though the gospel has been in this part of the world for many, many centuries, there was the feel that, in
some ways, this is first and second generation work. For the Bible School to be equipping 15-25 keen and
youngish Christians, year by year, with solid Bible teaching and the encouragement to live sacrificially for the
spread of the gospel in their countries, is a wonderful work.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
972. NORMAN SHEPHERD
Splendid, splendid. Trinity Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama, have put up a Norman Shepherd
resource page HERE. It has audio lectures on the doctrine of God, audio lectures on baptism, lots of audio
sermons (is there any other kind, really?), and several of his important writings. (HT Mark Horne).
Sunday, October 28, 2007
973. OUR FATHER "IN HEAVEN"
Thursday evening with the 2nd Baptist Church, Belgrade, I was invited to give a short encouragement to
prayer. Very simply, the encouragement comes from the two words, "in heaven".
1. Heaven is the model for the world. When we pray we enter heaven. This is a blood-bought privilege - to
spend time in the dimension where things are as they should be - a sphere of praise and beauty and justice and
peace and Christ-centredness. It is a pleasure to spend time on our Father's lap. And it refocuses our sense of
self and the world, giving us proper perspective (Ps 73).
2. Heaven is the control-room for the universe. When we pray we take part in God's government of the world.
We have access and influence as prophetic members of the council of the Lord. And in answer to our prayers,
Rev 6 and 8, the world is changed.
"In heaven" - in prayer we are restored and refocused as we spend time with God.
"In heaven" - in prayer we see the world changed as we ask things of God.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
974. "DID THEY FORGET TO BUY SOME WINE?"
THIS conversation, which took place c.1985, is wonderful. A seven year old exposes the inconsistencies and
inanities of "evangelical" (in the American sense) worship. Utterly gorgeous, totally tragic. (HT Doug Wilson
over at BLOG and MABLOG)
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
975. HORTON'S BEEN FRAMED
Another great link from BLOG and MABLOG. This time a commenter points readers to John Frame's short
but devastating piece exposing the groundlessness of "Two Kingdom" arguments for inactivity, neutrality, or
pluralism.
Frame's piece is HERE.
These are the closing paragraphs:
I also follow Cornelius Van Til, who taught apologetics at Westminster Seminary in
Philadelphia for many years. Van Til was Kuyperian through and through, maintaining that
the Bible “speaks about everything” and encouraging his students and readers to apply the
Scriptures to every sphere of life. So he supported Christian schools very vigorously. And CVT
quoted passages like 1 Cor. 10:31 and 2 Cor. 10:5 all the time, to that effect. He emphasized
that the real issues in every sphere of human activity were religious. No doubt he would say
that the “common grace realm” of Luther, Kline, and Horton is a sphere of “religious
neutrality,” a realm where human reason should seek to interpret the data of natural
revelation without the aid of Scripture. And Van Til, following Kuyper, believed there was no
such realm.
In the Kuyperian view, all the ills of society are essentially religious. They stem from people
worshiping false gods. Either sinners worship the gods of some pagan ideology, or they give
primacy to their own autonomous thought. It is such false religion that leads to war, violence,
disdain for the poor, abortion, adultery, divorce, and homosexuality. Insofar as the KlineHorton view obscures the religious nature of our cultural and political issues, it confuses
Christians as to their responsibilities.
In the general society as well as in the church, Christians should settle for nothing less than
the comprehensive lordship of Jesus Christ. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. To say this
is not to advocate violent revolution in Jesus’ name. He has forbidden us to take that course.
But by his word and Spirit, by his love, and by wise use of the means available to us, we seek to
exalt him, not only in the church, but in the whole world.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
976. GLORY AND HOLINESS
Exod 28:2 "And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty.
Exod 29:43 "And I will meet there with the sons of Israel, and it shall be consecrated by My glory.
Levi 10:3 Then Moses said to Aaron, "It is what the Lord spoke, saying, 'By those who come near Me I will be
treated as holy, And before all the people I will be honored.'"
Deut 26:19 and that He shall set you high above all nations which He has made, for praise, fame, and honor;
and that you shall be a consecrated people to the Lord your God, as He has spoken. "
1Chr 16:10 Glory in His holy name (this or similar at 1 Chr 16.35; Ps 105.3; Ps 106.47)
1Chr 16:29 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come before Him; Worship the
Lord in holy array. (this or similar at Ps 29.2)
2Chr 26:18 And they opposed Uzziah the king and said to him, "It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the
Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron who are consecrated to burn incense. Get out of the sanctuary, for
you have been unfaithful, and will have no honor from the Lord God."
Psal 63:2 Thus I have beheld Thee in the sanctuary, To see Thy power and Thy glory.
Isai 6:3 And one called out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full
of His glory."
Isai 41:16 "You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away, And the storm will scatter them; But you
will rejoice in the Lord, You will glory in the Holy One of Israel.
Isai 55:5 "Behold, you will call a nation you do not know, And a nation which knows you not will run to you,
Because of the Lord your God, even the Holy One of Israel; For He has glorified you." (similar at Is 60.9)
Isai 58:13 "If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot From doing your [own] pleasure on My holy day, And
call the sabbath a delight, the holy [day] of the Lord honorable, And shall honor it, desisting from your [own]
ways, From seeking your [own] pleasure, And speaking [your own] word,
Isai 60:13 "The glory of Lebanon will come to you, The juniper, the box tree, and the cypress together, To
beautify the place of My sanctuary; And I shall make the place of My feet glorious.
Isai 63:15 Look down from heaven, and see from Thy holy and glorious habitation; Where are Thy zeal and
Thy mighty deeds? The stirrings of Thy heart and Thy compassion are restrained toward me.
Jere 17:12 A glorious throne on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.
Ezek 28:22 and say, 'Thus says the Lord God, "Behold, I am against you, O Sidon, And I shall be glorified in
your midst. Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I execute judgments in her, And I shall manifest My
holiness in her.
Ephe 5:27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such
thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.
Hebr 2:10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing
many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. 11 For both He who sanctifies
and those who are sanctified are all from one [Father]; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them
brethren
Hebr 5:5 So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, "You are
My Son, Today I have begotten You";
Reve 15:4 "Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy;
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
977. ISMS
I can't help myself. I'm gripped by rabid optimism and by unashamed fundamentalism. And for that reason I
continue to persist in the hope, which others seem to think forlorn, that the way to deal with theological
suspicion and name-calling and partisanship and faction is to sit down, have a good old chat and ask
"Which bit of the Bible do you think I am misinterpreting and may we look at it together now, please?"
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
978. PRAYER FRICTION
Your communication with the Lord in prayer is a vehicle travelling along a road. The less friction / traction
(what are those things anyway?) that your vehicle has, the more likely you are to get blown or knocked off the
road down into Distraction Gorge.
Silent, mental prayer has very little friction/traction (like the puck in one of those table air-hockey games on
the pier).
Silent prayer with lips moving does a little better.
Spoken prayer - you know, like "I lift up my VOICE" - is least likely to end up in the Gorge.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
979. EUTHYPHRO IT IN THE SHEDD
“God is not under law, nor above law. He is law.” Shedd (DT - I.362)
Refuse the dilemma in the name of almighty God, the personal absolute.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
980. WATER SOURCES
Still revelling in one of the best sermons I have ever heard in Oak Hill chapel (on Gen 26.23-33), I think I'll try
and get the water source thing right. Probably comes from Jim Jordan or Paul Mayo but it runs like this:
Best of all: a spring - this is living water and it comes to your hand and mouth with purity and power. Life and
cleanness on the earth.
Next best - a well - this is living water but it's harder to get. Vulnerable though fresh life under the earth.
Least good, but still better than death! - a cistern - this is dead and collected water of which there is no
guarantee, for which you have to work hard and which is under the earth.
If your cistern water goes stale and your cistern breaks, then you're really in trouble. Unless, of course, there's
a fountain of living waters sprinkling you in the face, gushing down upon your head, powerful to wash you and
refreshing as you drink. And then, what if the fountain-spring were located inside you?
(Jer 2, John 4, John 7 etc)
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
981. HOLY TO THE LORD
God is holy. He makes all things clean. He makes one holy place (the holy mount Eden) and one holy time (the
sabbath) and humankind in his image.
Image goes with glory and glory goes with holiness and, in any case, if humans are like God and God is holy
then humans are holy. Young holy. Priests not high priests. Given access but not complete access.
Adam behaves like a High Priest when he was only a normal priest. He goes behind the curtain, touches what
should not have been touched, offers strange fire and glorifies himself. This makes him “holy” in a zonal sense
and so, unclean as he is, through having touched the crawling death-thing, he dies and is banished from the
camp.
The ground is cursed in relation to humans and so now, instead of a clean world with a holy space and a holy
time which are meant, through the maturing obedience of the young priest (who will one day be robed in
further and more glorious consecration) to spread to all space and all time, now we have a dirty world and a
banished and disgraced priest and very little holiness.
Wherever God appears there is holiness. And God intends for holiness (the glory of the Lord) to cover the
earth one day. So God cleans up here and there and consecrates/sanctifies here and there. And he does so in
order for there to be a space and time in which a new young priest could serve.
He did so obediently. Through what he suffered he was perfected. Unlike the first Adam, this one did not
consecrate himself to be a high priest. He simply did what he was told – spreading cleanness and life and
growing in glory and holiness until he was qualified to be high priest – “holy, innocent, unstained, separated
from sinners, and exalted above the heavens”.
His once for all, could-not-be-more-complete sacrifice of himself cleaned the whole world. And now the world
is to be sanctified – progressively consecrated and glorified so humankind is holy as God is holy and so that
earth is holy as heaven is holy.
The Holy Spirit hovers over the nations and breathing gospel breath spreads the knowledge of the glory of the
Lord as the waters cover the sea. The kingdom of God rock grows to become a mountain which fills the whole
earth. The people of God are taken from one degree of glory to another, transformed into the image of the Lord
from the Spirit. The “contagion” of holiness spreads, the temple fills the city and the city the land and the land
the earth. The leaven fills the whole lump.
The horses’ bells shall be inscribed with “Holy to the LORD”. And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be
holy to the Lord.
The world:
- all clean and a little bit holy with the intention of spreading holiness
- made dirty by Adam but still with islands of holiness - now even more dangerous than before
- made clean by Jesus and with increasing holiness zones in and through the church
- finally, the whole earth holy, that is, clean and glorified through consecration.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
982. THE HOLINESS OF GOD
Here's an abstract of an argument I've tried to develop today which brings together several of the apparently
divergent strands/streams of biblical and dogmatic writing about God's holiness.
The headings are:
1. Zonal holiness
2. Character holiness
3. Glory
4. Love
5. Worship
6. Jealousy and integrity
7. Holiness and trinity
8. Holiness and redemptive history
And the abstract runs:
1. There’s such a thing as zonal holiness – God’s dangerous otherness (which comes to be expressed and
located in various ways in his creation). But God’s dangerous otherness is itself a perfection of “God is like noone else” and so he loves himself infinitely. This is right and proper and good and true and wise.
2. He loves all that he is and does and wills and feels and he hates the opposite. This is character holiness – not
just being “separate” in some abstract or metaphysical way but being “separate” in his sheer self-loving
perfection.
3. In the life of the trinity there’s a radiance and a mutuality about this self-loving perfection and we call that
“glory”. Glory is when God – by virtue of his sheer separateness – connects and shines.
4. This, in turn, cannot be thought of without recognizing the love of God – the outgoingness of the God who is
other in his radiant self-loving perfection is the cause of creation. Because he rightly loves himself so much,
God in his love intends that what he has made should be conformed and taken up into his character – and thus
share his glory.
5. This happens through the transformative and adoring gaze and praise of worship – which is why God’s
holiness is so often associated with the cult in Scripture.
6. And when this is corrupted or refused, such is his love for his own purity and righteousness and his delight
in his glory and his jealousy that his creation should share this, that his jealousy is manifest in the active moral
disapproval of being consuming fire.
7. The combination of separateness and outgoingness in God’s holiness is exactly what we’d expect in the
triune God.
8. And since God’s actions flow from his being – he does all that he does because he is all that he is – then we
are unsurprised to see these very themes played out in redemptive history: holiness, glory, and love. (See
previous post).
Friday, November 02, 2007
983. POSTMILL SUFFERING
Best thing is read a load of work by mature Christian postmills who know about suffering from the inside.
Edwards, Dabney, Warfield etc. Or THIS by Jim Jordan - "An Antidote to Yuppie Postmillennialism".
But here are some further headings:
Though the amill can’t bring himself to acknowledge this, the postmill really believes that ...
Suffering is
1. the pattern of God’s dealings with humankind – death/resurrection; the tick etc
2. the method God uses to bring about maturity – discomfort and growth
3. the model / paradigm of authentic humanness which we see in Jesus
4. the sequence which is repeatedly stated in the Bible – sufferings … glory
5. the path to victory/dominion – that of the faithful laying-down of life in confession and service
Postmills emphatically recognize the place of suffering. What they question is twofold:
1. whether “suffering” always means or must always include externally imposed affliction
a. if that is the amill claim then amills ask for more than they can themselves deliver
b. though “when one member suffers, the body suffers”
c. and remember the terrorist minority
d. there are other – and worse – forms of suffering than externally imposed affliction. It's mad
to think that postmills deny suffering - just go ask them about their own lives!
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ongoing sinfulness itself
the pain of self-crucifixion
withdrawals of God’s sensed favour
given up to horrible temptation
demonic attack
depression
singleness, lack of intimacy, lack of Christian fellowship
hurtful behaviour from friends and brothers
refusal of loved ones to come to Christ
sickness
physical pain
physical disability
mental disability
death of loved ones
approach of own death
the burdens of responsibility
sadness over the immaturity of the church / disobedience of other Christians
sadness over the wickedness of the world
over-busyness / stress
famine or other externally imposed privations
the privations of godly self-denial (to give to the poor, for example)
the discomfort of finitude – lack of time and space and intelligence
grieving, with creation, at the frustration and bondage of the physical universe –
seeing our pets suffer, our plants die, earthquakes kill thousands and so on
longing for the return of Christ and the life of glory
2. whether – even though the Christian life and the experience of God’s people is most certainly that of growth
through suffering – the distinguishing and dominant character of the church’s experience until Resurrection
day is that of a disempowered people undergoing “tribulation” or “persecution”.
Suffering is with us until the return of Christ - and that is, in God's loving wisdom, exactly as it should be. To
conclude from that the idea that the postmill hope of global gospel conquest must be unbiblical simply doesn't
follow. Postmills speak of global gospel conquest with excitement and enthusiasm - and they are right to do so.
But those in pioneer missions work speak with real excitement and enthusiasm about the time when instead of
the centre of the village being an idol shrine, it is a church building. Newly-weds speak expansively about the
way they'll use their home for the gospel. Founders of business start-ups enthuse about what it'll be like when
they have an dedicated office building and 20 employees and a turnover of £3m rather than working out of
their kitchen by themselves. None of these people believes that the state of affairs about which they are excited
amount to a suffering-free, all-is-as-well-as-it-could-be world. They may even realize that the problems are
greater in the state of affairs about which they enthuse. But they are still right to enthuse.
Sometimes amills hear postmills' enthusiasm for global gospel conquest, sustained majority salvation,
spreading kingdom civilization and so on and think that the postmills don't believe in suffering. Not so.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
984. FLIGHT FROM REALITY
I love the taste of whatever feeds my prejudices. I'd love the global warming scare to be badly wrong (as I
suspect that it is) just because it'll be entertaining to watch how the "scientific community" and the statistMSM scaremongers attempt to spin back to reality.
And it's been a while since I linked to anything like this. So HERE's a piece from today's Telegraph about
THIS BOOK.
Mind you, their last paragraph is way off the mark. They say
If global warming does turn out to have been a scare like all the others, it will certainly
represent as great a collective flight from reality as history has ever recorded.
Nonsense. The greatest collective (and individual) flight from reality is, without doubt, the denial of the
fundamental fact of life, the universe and everything, namely, that JESUS IS LORD.
Monday, November 05, 2007
985. NICE JAM THIS
Jam Cary talks sense again - HERE. I couldn't disagree less.
Monday, November 05, 2007
986. ZACCHAEUS
It's almost as though the Holy Spirit caused Luke 19.1-10 to happen and to be written so as to give a great
gobbett for NT introduction exams: "Show briefly how the story of Zacchaeus illustrates and combines some of
the major themes of Jesus's ministry as recorded in Luke's gospel".
I think it goes something like this (avoiding the NPP spin which might get me marked down depending on who
sets and marks the exam):
Luke 19:1 He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And there was a man called by the name of
Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and he was rich. 3 Zaccheus was seeking to see who Jesus was, and was
unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore
tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. 5 When Jesus came to the place, He
looked up and said to him, "Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house." 6 And he
hurried and came down and received Him joyfully. 7 When they saw it, they all [began] to grumble, saying,
"He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner." 8 Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, "Behold,
Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back
four times as much." 9 And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a
son of Abraham. 10 "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
There in Jericho was a man called “clean / innocent” and sounding like Zachariah – but at the start he was
neither clean nor like Zachariah.
A chief tax-collector like the ruler of 18.18. Mind you, “tax-collector” sounds hopeful: though despised and
rejected as a cheat and a collaborator, he was in the company of baptizands in 3.12, Levi in 5.27ff, others in
7.29 and 15.1, and the penitent in the parable in 18.10.
He was wealthy – but not like the rich of 6.24, the fool of 12.13-21, the Pharisees in 16.14, the rich man of
16.19-31, or the rich ruler of 18.18-30). However, it would be hard or impossible for him to be saved (18.2527).
We can’t help comparing Z with the rich ruler of 18.18-30: ruler/chief; good teacher / Lord; commandmentskeeper/sinner; sell all and give to the poor / give half to the poor; who saved? / salvation has come.
And we can’t help comparing him with the blind man of 18.35-43: Jericho / Jericho; multitude / crowd;
passing by / that way; enquired what this meant / sought to see who Jesus was; commanded him to be
brought / hurry and come down; faith saved you / salvation has come.
Z was seeking to see Jesus (while, v.10, Jesus had come to seek and to save Z) but, like the blind man, he could
not see him.
Jesus, who somehow knew Z’s name, took the initiative. Jesus was, after all, under divine necessity (2.49,
4.43, 9.22, 13.16, 33, 15.32, 17.25, 22.37, 24.7, 26, 44, 46).
What was Jesus going to do? Stay/remain (9.4, 10.7, 24.29).
Where? In the house (5.29, 9.4, 10.5, 10.38).
When? “Today” – like the “today” of 2.11 when a saviour was born, the “today” of 4.21 when the scriptures
were fulfilled, and the “today” of 23.43 when the thief is promised paradise, this is a salvation “today”.
So Z hurried as the outcast-shepherds had before (2.16).
He welcomed Jesus – as had Martha (10.38) and rather as Simeon had done (2.28).
He did so joyfully – there’s lots of joy around Jesus (2.10, 6.23, 10.17, 20, 13.17, 15.5, 7, 10, 32, 19.37, 24.41, 52)
All the people grumbled (as the Pharisees had in 15.1 and rather as they and the scribes had in 5.30). They
regarded Z as a sinner, an outsider/pagan/moral Gentile. (This is plainly a conversion story not a vindication
story: if Z already did v.8 things then he would be a local hero!)
Z addressed Jesus as “Lord” and showed fruit worthy of repentance (3.8, 12). It wasn’t the amount or even the
proportion (Jesus told the rich ruler all but Z gives half) but the hard evidence of heart change. The “if” leaves
no doubt that he had cheated.
Jesus spoke to or about Z and announced that salvation (1.69, 71, 77) had arrived – deliverance from the
enemies, forgiveness of sins, in line with the covenant with Abraham. Thus the Lord Jesus had done the
impossible which only God could do – he conquered Jericho, raised up children of Abraham from the stones
(3.8), and brought a rich man into the kingdom (18.25-27).
In the “today” of v.5 Jesus came into the house and so in v.9 he declares that “salvation” had come into the
house – the two go together whenever Jesus is welcomed. As had been seen with the Satan-bound unclean
woman in 13.10-17, Jesus’s liberating (sabbath) intervention enabled outcasts really to be the children of
Abraham.
And this was because Jesus was and is the true and divine shepherd of Israel (Ezek 34.2, 4, 16, 22-23) who
came (5.32, 7.34, 9.56, 12.49) to seek and to save (6.9, 7.50, 8.12, 8.48, 8.50, 9.24, 9.56, 17.19, 18.42) the lost
whether they were sheep, coins, sons, or tax-collectors.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
987. IMPUTATION / JUSTIFICATION
As is often the case, Michael Bird (HERE) talks a very great deal of sense.
Some great moments (my emphasis) ...
... in Philippians 3.9 the preposition ek is not a synonym for logizomai. In 2 Corinthians 5.21
ginomai/poieo is not a synonym for logizomai either! These texts do not deny imputation,
they are consistent with imputation, but they are not saying that Jesus' active righteousness is
imputed to believers. As an exegete, I cannot and will not call an Egg an Ostrich in
order to keep my Reformed Club Card.
3. Lo and Behold, I actually do believe in imputation (shock, cry, gasp)! The question is how
do you get there? Well, you can either argue that the usual proof texts really do teach
imputation and everyone who denies it is a Wrightophile who has gone off the edge (this is my
own caricature and nothing to do with Ryken's article). Or you get your methodology (w)right
and shift from exegesis, to biblical theology, to systematic theology. Exegetically I think that
"incorporated righteousness" is a good description of what is happening at the exegetical level
in these verses (see Timo Laato's essay in JVN vol. II for something similar). If we ask, "how
does union with Christ or incorporation into Christ justify?" then I think something along the
lines of imputation is required or even necessitated. If we take the forensic nature of
justification, the representative nature of Adam and Christ, the language of "reckoning", the
idea of righteousness as an explicit "gift" then the only way to hold it all together is with a
theology of imputation. So imputation is a coherent and legitimate way of
explicating the biblical materials in the domain of systematic theology; but we do
violent damage to the text if we try to read each text as proving this systematic
formulation. Let the text say what it says, nothing more and nothing less.
...
So in sum, I am not trying to play off imputation against union with Christ. My concern is
to differentiate between exegetical and doctrinal formulations and not to
confuse the two (because they often are confused!).
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
988. CLEVER FOOLS
We purposely impair our own critical powers by creating language that demands a lot of
mental commitment to understand, deceiving ourselves into thinking that the mental task we
accomplish is about understanding God instead of deciphering poor communication.
That's it. No blogging for a few days now - just so that this powerful, humbling, and liberating sentence can
stay as noticeable as possible. It doesn't matter which particular theologian (evangelical or non-evangelical)
comes to mind, this sentence captures superbly the self-congratulatory and exclusive sophistication of much
theological activity in and around the academy. Wonderfully put.
It comes from Weston Hicks who does not, so far as I can tell, have a blog or website of his own but often
comes up with such compelling insights. See HERE for another example.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
989.
WINE FOR THE PERISHING
From Daniel Kirk
I was just reading Prov 31, and think that there must be a communion sermon in here
somewhere:
31:6 Give strong drink to the one who is perishing,
and wine to those who are bitterly distressed;
31:7 let them drink and forget their poverty,
and remember their misery no more. (NET Bible)
Wine for the perishing and distressed that they (we?!) might forget our poverty for the riches
given in the cup; that the perishing might drink the life-which-is-in-the-blood, that they
(we?!) might eternally forget their (our?!) misery.
Ok, so it's Christologically revisionist. So sue me. And Paul. And the writer of Hebrews.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
990. ENGAGING WITH BARTH
Looks good.
Engaging with Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques
David Gibson & Daniel Strange (eds.)
(Nottingham: Apollos, January 2008)
ISBN: 978-1-84474-245-5
'More than perhaps any other theologian in the twentieth century, Karl Barth has dominated the subjectmatter of theology and posed the questions with which the theologians of the different churches have been,
and are, occupied, although they may want to "go beyond" him, go back behind him, or even protest against
his answers' (Eberhard Busch).
Karl Barth's theological legacy provides both opportunity and challenge for historic, confessional
evangelicalism. While there are now numerous excellent studies highlighting the value of Barth's theology,
often receiving it with ringing endorsement, there are fewer more cautionary or critical responses.
This volume engages critically and courteously with Barth on a range of vital topics where, for the
contributors, his interpretation of Scripture, reading of church history, and confession of Christian doctrine
are unsatisfactory. This engagement is offered as a positive contribution to the wider programme of
constructive theological reflection that seeks to articulate the gospel of Jesus Christ in and for the
contemporary world, in the conviction that the 'pattern of sound teaching' (2 Timothy 1:13) really matters.
Contents
Foreword - Carl R. Trueman
Introduction - David Gibson & Daniel Strange
1. Karl Barth's Christocentric Method - Henri Blocher
2. Does it matter if Christian Doctrine is Contradictory? Barth on Logic and Theology - Sebastian Rehnman
3. Karl Barth as Historical Theologian: The Recovery of Reformed Theology in Barth's Early Dogmatics - Ryan
Glomsrud
4. Karl Barth and Covenant Theology - A. T. B. McGowan
5. The Day of God's Mercy: Romans 9-11 in Barth's Doctrine of Election - David Gibson
6. Witness to the Word: On Barth's Doctrine of Scripture - Mark D. Thompson
7. A Private Love? Karl Barth and the Triune God - Michael J. Ovey
8. Karl Barth and the Doctrine of the Atonement - Garry J. Williams
9. Karl Barth and the Visibility of God - Paul Helm
10. Karl Barth and Jonathan Edwards on Reprobation (and Hell) - Oliver D. Crisp
11. 'Church' Dogmatics: Karl Barth as Ecclesial Theologian - Donald Macleod
12. A Stony Jar: The Legacy of Karl Barth for Evangelical Theology - Michael S. Horton
Evangelical reception of Barth's theology takes a step forward in this well-informed collection. These are
articulate, confident appraisals which take Barth seriously enough to press him hard on what the authors
consider his divergences from the classical Reformed tradition. Whether correct in their judgements or not,
these essays warrant careful thought from those concerned for theology's orientation to the gospel. John
Webster University of Aberdeen
Karl Barth was the most dominant theologian of the twentieth century, at once brilliant and baffling, majestic
and frustrating. His influence, though, has scarcely waned. That is why this book is important. What we have
here are some of the best essays I have read on Barth. They combine sure-footed knowledge of his ideas with
critical insight into what those ideas mean. They are appreciative but also tough-minded and this combination
is rare today. I commend this book highly. David F. Wells Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
The house that Karl Barth built continues to loom large in the neighbourhood of evangelical theology. The
authors of Engaging with Barth are not content to admire it from the outside but survey it from within,
carefully moving from room to room, noting both positive and negative features. They do a particularly good
job examining the structural integrity (read "orthodoxy") of Barth's house, detecting here and there both
worrying cracks and uneven surfaces. At the end of the day, they neither raze nor condemn the dwelling, but
offer a fair and sober assessment that is invaluable for potential buyers - even for those thinking of staying
only overnight. Kevin J. Vanhoozer Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Saturday, November 10, 2007
991. NUMBERS 12, ROMANS 11
Short and sweet from Peter Leithart HERE
Tale of Two Women
In Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron object to Moses' Cushite wife. Miriam becomes leprous, is
excluded from the camp, and restored on the eighth day.
That is to say: The Messiah's Jewish sister objects to the Gentile bride, and is cast out of the
camp, but then she is cleansed and restored.
And so all Israel will be saved.
Monday, November 12, 2007
992. LEVITICUS - AN EIGHT-PARA INTRO
LEVITICUS
With the building of the tabernacle, a new stage of God’s dealings with his people arrives. It’s like a new world
– which is why there are “sevens” everywhere and why the tabernacle is like Eden in many ways. And at this
point God has come to live nearer to his people than before – which is both wonderful and dangerous.
Leviticus is, therefore, a book of house rules for God’s young children at that stage in history and it teaches
them how to keep clean and tidy and how to grow in character like their father.
Chapters 1-7 teach about five different sacrifices. For example, chapter 2 is about respect offerings and chapter
5 is about pay-back offerings.
Chapters 8-10 are about priesthood and they start off the system. After the ordination of Aaron and his sons
we read, in chapter 9, about the order of the sacrifices which follows the sequence of our relationship with
God: first, the people’s sin is dealt with in the clean-up offering; next, they give their lives to God in the goingup offering; and then they enjoy a meal with God in the peace offering. Our meetings as Christians on the
Lord’s Day can follow this pattern too.
The uncleanness laws of chapters 11-15 relate to death and the curse. It is not that uncleanness is itself sin but
rather that God gave his children a picture system to teach them how to make distinctions. This would help
them grow to be like their Father who also makes distinctions (as in Genesis 1). Clean animals, in chapter 11,
are those which keep away from death and curse-dirt by wearing shoes and by digesting their food extrathoroughly. Chapter 12 talks about childbirth and chapters 13 and 14 about 'leprosy'. Chapter 15 shows that
what comes out of us is death until we are made new in Jesus.
After chapter 16, dealing with the day of atonement, we move on to laws about holy living for the people of
God covering all sorts of areas of life. Here are some examples: chapter 20 is about Molech, sex-sins, and
staying in the land; chapter 23 is about festivals; and chapter 26 is about covenant blessings and curses.
In Jesus and by the Spirit living in us and the Church, God has now drawn nearer than ever – much nearer
even than he was in Leviticus. Jesus’s once-for-all sacrifice for sin means that we don’t offer the Leviticus
sacrifices, though we do offer ourselves, our money, our praise and so on (Leviticus 1-7). Jesus’s perfect high
priesthood has made all his people priests – washed, clothed, set apart by blood and anointed with the oil of
the Spirit (Leviticus 8-10). Jesus’s life and death and resurrection have dealt with the curse and given life to all
in him (Leviticus 11-15).
The real Day of Atonement happened at the cross and we never ever need another one (Leviticus 16). And so
God’s call to his people to be holy as he is holy comes with even greater power (1 Peter 1.16) and the holiness
laws of Leviticus still help us (2 Timothy 3.16-17) understand the shape and content of that holiness (Leviticus
17-27).
Leviticus: God’s house rules for his infant children. This book points us to God the Father so his children grow
to share his holy love and loving holiness. It points us to God the Son as the one great sacrifice and the perfect
high priest. And it points us to God the Holy Spirit who is God dwelling in us and not just with us. Praise God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit for the rich gift of the book of Leviticus.
Monday, November 12, 2007
993. THE LEVITICUS ALPHABET
An overview of the contents of Leviticus - with thanks (and apologies) to the Fellowship Group.
As in the children's game: When I went to Leviticus I saw ...
Offerings: 1-7
1 - A - Ascending up to God offering
2 - B - Bow to God in tribute offering
3 - C - Come and eat in peace offering
4 - D - Danger over in sin offering
5 - E - Ending guilt in trespass offering
6 - F - Further detailed rules for offerings
7 - G - Going on with rules for offerings
Priesthood: 8-10
8 - H - How to become a priest
9 - I - Inaugurate the tabernacle system
10 - J - Judgment on Aaron’s sons
Clean and unclean: 11-16
11 - K - Kosher food
12 - L - Little ‘uns – cleaning up after them
13 - M - Mouldy bodies and clothes
14 - N - New start from leprosy, but what about your house?
15 - O - Outflows and overflows
16 - P - Purification Day
Become a holy nation: 17-27
17 - Q - Quit remote sacrifices and don’t eat blood
18 - R - Ruinous practices, forbidden sex
19 - S - Special people, special life
20 - T - Taking chapter 18 further
21 - U - Unclean priestly actions, unfit priestly bodies
22 - V - Valid holy eating, void animal offering
23 - W - Wahay! Festivals!
24 - X - Execute blasphemer (+ lamp, bread, and eye for eye)
25 - Y - Years – Sabbath and Jubilee
26 - Z - Zones of blessing, zones of curse
27 - Redemption of vows
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
994. USURY
On the Today programme this morning there was an item about "usury" and the two "experts" showed that
they didn't really know what they were talking about - both accepting the definition that "usury" is "exorbitant
interest". (The item is HERE at 0854). This is a definition which cannot stand up to logical, economic, or
biblical scrutiny.
But don't take my word for it. Thomas Renz has been doing some thinking and writing about usury and, as is
always the case, if Thomas Renz has written on a matter then you'd be a fool not to read what he's written (and
either a fool or a very, very brave person to disagree!).
THESES ON USURY THEN AND NOW
More and better than you've thought before.
The day is closer when we can ditch the ideas
a) that an over-hasty look at Old Testament arrangements and a nervous/jealous look at Islamic practices
amount to an argument for the abolition of interest and
b) that opposing coercive state interventions in welfare on grounds of economic freedom for private property
holders is somehow the same thing as endorsing selfishness. The more that Reformed Christians insist that
the kingdom is inescapably political, and that the church lives as an alternative civilization, the more we will
see genuine, unselfish, generosity-driven not guilt-driven Christian care for the poor. And this will be a mighty
demonstration that only the gospel of Jesus Christ can produce both a wise and just economic architecture
and a renewed human life of active compassion for the needy.
Friday, November 16, 2007
995. KEEPING CLEAN, GROWING UP
I'm doing some Bible talks on Leviticus this weekend. The notes (23 pp. pdf doc) are online, though I notice
that p.6 is particularly displeasing to the eye:
Keeping Clean, Growing Up - Notes on Leviticus
.
Friday, November 16, 2007
996. IMPUTATION
Imputation of Christ's righteousness
1. Jesus's resurrection legal status is reckoned mine. Yes.
2. Jesus's perfect respect for his elders, lust-free thought-life and everything else somehow "become" mine.*
No.
a) because this is non-sense
b) because this idea is absent from the Bible
*(This is actually the "imputation of Christ's active obedience" rather than the imputation of his righteousness
but lots of people mix the two up.)
I've commented on this a few times before - in this order, from earlier to later:
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Imputation
Imputation and transfer
Imputation of Christ's active obedience
Union with Christ and imputed righteousness
Union with Christ and imputed righteousness (II)
Merit and non-merit schemes
Imputation
Imputation again
JBJ on double imputation
Garver on Wright on imputation / justification
Imputation / justification
Sunday, November 18, 2007
997. LEVITICUS - A SEVEN TALK INTRODUCTION
I have put online HERE seven talks on Leviticus which I have just given at an Oak Hall “Unlocking the Bible
Weekend”.
They were delivered for the people present that weekend and so there’s a lot of hand-waving and moving over
to the whiteboard that doesn’t come across in these files (as well as a distracting amount of um-ing and ering). The first couple of minutes of each file is scratchy or fizzy but they improve dramatically (the sound
quality, I mean) after that.
There are hundreds of people who know a ton more about this material than I do. I’m putting these online
because I think that they might be of some use to some people and not at all because there is not already better
material available.
I point to some of that material in 1) of “Further Study” on p.23 of the accompanying notes. A very great deal
of what is worthwhile in these talks is from the work of Jim Jordan.
You can see more about the wonderful work of Oak Hall at http://www.oakhall.co.uk/
You can see more of the wonderful work of Jim Jordan at http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/
Monday, November 19, 2007
998. LET'S GET THIS CLEAR ...
Trevin Wax has just put online a transcript of a fairly full interview with Tom Wright and it makes
fascinating reading. Wright takes the time and trouble to clarify and reassure as well as to explain what he
does and doesn't understand and appreciate and agree with in what his evangelical / Reformed critics have
said about him.
Trevin Wax did a superb job of choosing topics and phrasing questions:
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Introduction
Wright’s conversion, calling, and personal worship
Wright on “the gospel”
Justification by faith
Justification - present and future
Justification and the Roman Catholic Church
Sola Scriptura
Is Wright arrogant to assume he has just now figured out what Paul meant?
Wright on his critics
Justification in practice
Wright on penal substitution
Wright on the resurrection
Wright on Evangelism
Wright on Church and State
Upcoming Writings and Conclusion
It's an enlightening and edifying piece of work. (HT - DaveG)
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
999. POVERTY
Neil Jeffers' sermon on poverty - clear, careful, faithful, applied, and altogether to be commended.
It's HERE.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
1000. GOVERNMENT WHICH BROUGHT YOU ...
Jeff Randall usually talks sense. This morning - HERE - it was about the options for Northern Rock. A typical
paragraph:
Which brings us to nationalisation. The theory is that putting the Rock into public ownership
would allow the company to be nursed back to health, enabling taxpayers to benefit from the
upside of its recovery. But to favour this approach, you would have to believe that a
Government which brought you the Dome, wastes fortunes on dysfunctional NHS technology,
sends our troops to war with faulty equipment, over-pays billions in tax credits, has not a clue
how many people are coming into the country, and allows hundreds of foreign prisoners to
vanish, will suddenly develop the skills to run a bank profitably in the cut-throat world of
financial services.
.