Why I won't be going to the Shepherd's Conference any time soon, Part 2: John MacArthur

When I started working on my last post 3 months ago, I quickly realized the two major issues from the Shepherd's Conference were John MacArthur's eschatology and Phil Johnson's treatment of Mark Driscoll. I decided to separate these issues into two separate posts.

I am troubled by John MacArthur's eschatology, which tends to come up more often than it should. He is a great preacher when he's preaching through the Bible verse-by-verse, but at the Shepherd's Conference he gets to speak on his pet subjects, and I think he does so irresponsibly. A few years ago it was his Dispensational Premillennialism, and his claim that those who don't see things his way aren't good Calvinists. This has been addressed by many others, so I won't go into it right now. This year, the issue was his interpretation of Genesis 1, but this message was just as much influenced by his eschatology as the Dispensational one a couple years earlier.

Rather than glorying in the amazing purposes of God's creation, and exegeting the text to show us what our God-given duties are as stewards of creation, he just rants. He uses his "it's all gonna burn" worldview to bash Christians who are actually trying to do their part to not over-exploit the natural resources of which God has made us stewards.

He calls the planet "disposable". When Jesus said heaven and earth will pass away, he didn't mean we should trash the planet. It's like saying you shouldn't build a house to shelter your family because it's going to rot anyway. Or like saying you shouldn't even have children because they're just going to die one day. God made Adam the steward of the garden, and though he fell, men are still the caretakers of the earth.

Not only that, but the earth is the birthplace of the elect. We should do as much as we can to be the means by which God brings the full number of the elect into his kingdom, and that means looking to future generations of the covenant community as well as ensuring that all nations are taken care of as far as it depends on us, because we can't preach the gospel to them if they're dead.

Two thousand years ago, or 1500 years ago, or 500 years ago, or 250 years ago, if the Christians who lived then had a view of the earth as disposable, where would we be today? The question must be taken much more seriously in this age where we have the following two ingredients: 1) nuclear weapons, and 2) Dispensationalist politicians and lobbyists who are influencing foreign policy and intentionally trying to lead us into Armageddon.

Once I was sitting with some friends at Wendy's in a town a couple hours away, and there was a Reformed Amillennial pastor in our company. I was self-congratulatorily speaking about my own progression from pre-trib to post-trib, but the Amilleniarian took me in a whole different direction. I was basically blind-sided because I didn't know anything about the traditional Reformed eschatology. But he said something I don't think I'll ever forget. The Reformed build churches to last. They are thinking about the generations that will follow. The Dispensationalists, on the other hand, only deal with the current generation. You can see this in their buildings. Compare the ancient stone churches and cathedrals of the Presbyterians, built to last for hundreds of years, with the disposable strip-mall or movie-theater churches of Dispensationalists. They don't mind because Jesus is coming back any moment now. I think you can also see it in their polity. Often at Dispensational churches, if the rock-star pastor burns out, dies, or falls into sin, there is no one left to carry the torch. The lack of committed membership and the lack of leadership might result in a church completely falling apart. Again, they don't mind, because Jesus is coming back any moment now. The Reformed, on the other hand, will have a plurality of elders that will provide continuity for after the current pastor is gone. Actually, the Reformed polity is not based on the cult of personality, so who the primary preacher is would not be as big of an issue as it would be at other churches in the first place. Although losing him would bring grief, it wouldn't result in the church falling apart, because the leadership provided by the elders would remain intact.

Now for some final remarks about the conference. Other than the Genesis message and Phil Johnson's caricature of Mark Driscoll, I think the other messages from the conference were pretty good. But you can hear them for free without paying hundreds of dollars and driving a long way and being a captive audience while your eschatology is being attacked (captive because you want to get your money's worth, so you're not going to get up and leave in the middle of it). I'd say downloading is the way to go.

Why I won't be going to the Shepherd's Conference anytime soon, part 1: Phil Johnson

I've been sitting on this one for a while because I wanted to make sure I was fully-informed and was hearing straight from the horse's mouth.

I must say I was very shocked by Phil Johnson's portrayal of Mark Driscoll at the Shepherd's Conference. I didn't go to the conference, but I downloaded the audio from all the sessions, and I have come to the conclusion that I won't be going to the conference any time soon (meaning ever, most likely). I have listened to Mark Driscoll regularly for a few years, and I had never heard the things of which he was being accused. However, I had never heard his series on Song of Solomon, which is what has been causing all the commotion lately, so, over the past few months, I listened to the entire series. (I also listened to all the available mp3s from Kim Riddlebarger on Amillennialism, but that won't factor into the current post, though it has a little to do with my next post.)

Here are my remarks to Phil Johnson's message.

1. I agree that XXXChurch's efforts to "contextualize" the gospel are appalling. However, in the same message that he attacked a lot of so-called churches' attempts to be relevant to non-Christians, he also attacked Mark Driscoll, and the tone of the message, based on the repeated references to Seattle, was that he was talking about Mark Driscoll the whole time.
2. I have never heard Mark Driscoll cuss, and I listen to him regularly.
3. When Mark Driscoll talks about sex it's because he's telling all the single 20-something males in his congregation (his church's largest demographic) that the things they do alone at night in the dark in front of their computers are sinful, and that they need to straighten up, get jobs, romance a godly woman, get married, and fulfill God's purpose for their lives, and then they will be rewarded because they will be doing things the way God designed. It's the same thing more mainstream Calvinists like Josh Harris, C.J. Mahaney, and John Piper have been saying for years. This "pr0nification of the pulpit" charge Phil Johnson makes does not apply to him.
4. Furthermore, when Driscoll talks about things others consider inappropriate, it's not at Sunday morning corporate family worship, and he tells people to put their kids in childcare if the content is too mature. Also, it's not like he steers the conversation in that direction. Rather, he does a Q & A thing after a talk on the Song of Solomon, where people send in their questions anonymously via text message, and he answers their questions.
5. When attacking Mark Driscoll, Phil Johnson does not actually cite Mark Driscoll. He just cites the New York Times, who said he was too racy for GodTube.
6. Martin Luther is too racy for GodTube.
7. Jesus is too racy for GodTube.
8. Phil Johnson grossly misquotes Mark Driscoll when he accuses him of making a dirty joke of Ecclesiastes 9:10, which he takes particular offense to because it was his late mother's life verse. The problem is, Mark Driscoll does not use it to tell a joke. He uses it to illustrate a real case of a sinner he knew who was trying to justify his sin by twisting Scripture, and he clearly says, No, that's not what it means, and you can't twist Scripture like that to justify your own sin. Furthermore, it was not out of the blue, but was in response to an interviewer's question: Does the Bible talk about ____? A: No, but I've heard a guy try to twist scripture... And Driscoll is not the only one who uses this type of illustration. Some pastors tell stories about people's misapplications of Gen. 1:29 and 1 Tim. 5:23. What disturbs me is the fact that so many people listening to Phil Johnson will just take him at face value even though they've never heard it from the horse's mouth.
9. Phil Johnson's twisting-the-truth attack of Mark Driscoll is nothing less than slander, which is probably a worse sin than the coarse jesting of which he's accusing Driscoll.
10. Personal testimony: God in his providence has used Mark Driscoll to encourage me to stop playing WoW and to work at planting a church. If it weren't for him, I'd still be playing WoW every waking moment when I'm not at work, and I probably wouldn't be a husband and father to my wonderful family Christina and Ava. (See my video blog about WoW vs. church planting.)
11. I've listened to Driscoll's entire series on Song of Solomon, and I can wholeheartedly recommend it to all Christian adults who are not committed to lifelong celibacy. To married couples for obvious reasons. To single males because they will hear what they need to hear: that they need to get jobs and should not be doing any of the activities described in the book until they are married. To single women because they will hear what they need to hear: that they should not date a man who is not both ready to provide and ready to commit.

Here is the first message from Driscoll's "The Peasant Princess" series in Song of Solomon. You can find your way to the rest.

Judge the preacher if you like, but do remember that there is something better to be done than that, namely, to get all the good you can out of him, and pray his Master to put more good into him. What if the man be odd and strange, yet, as men take pearls out of oyster shells, so may you be willing to accept from God whatever of precious truth he sends you. Despise not the heavenly treasure because of the earthen vessel. Lose not an opportunity of being enriched because the gold lies in connection with common earth. (Charles Spurgeon, Eccentric Preachers)

R.C. Sproul on Vocation

Here are a couple of quotes from God's Will and Your Job (pt. 2), posted on the Ligonier blog (reprinted from a book that does not appear to be available).

We must remember that God is the perfect Manager. He is efficient in his selection, calling people according to the gifts and talents that he has given them. Satan's strategy is to manipulate Christians into positions for which they have no ability or skill to perform well. Satan himself is very efficient in directing Christians to inefficiency and ineffectiveness.

And...

Often people apply for positions for which they have no skill. This is particularly and sadly true within the church and related Christian service. Some hunger and thirst to be in full-time Christian service, but lack the ability and the gifts required for the particular job. For example, they may have the academic training and credentials for the pastorate but lack the managerial skills or the people skills to help make them effective pastors.

HT: Tim Challies (who posts R.C.'s previously-published works on Ligonier.org)

iTunes Smart Playlist "all" vs. "any" issue

I figured out a solution to the "all" vs. "any" issue with iTunes Smart Playlists.

This is my Reformed Theology playlist.


Since the qualifier "any" is applied to all variations, there's no way for me to make sure this list only contains unplayed items, so I have make an effort to remember which ones I listened to already.

I found a solution. Create a new playlist, where the two options are 1) the source playlist to get the files from, and 2) the play count (e.g. 0 for podcasts).


I'm going to use this same methodology for main music rotation playlist, since the iPhone 3.0 software update has messed up the playlist order for Smart Playlists to always go by the "selected by" field.

Mark Driscoll on Planting Mars Hill

Let me say this: I should have waited to plant this church. I had never been a pastor in a church before I started my own church. I should have been. Had I to do it over again--I certainly would have started Mars Hill Church. God called me to that. And I rejoice that by his grace, in spite of me, things are going pretty well. But--

I had not even been a member of a church when I started my own. That's like "I flew in a plane once: I'm ready to be a pilot." Not really. And there's other people on board! And that's not safe for them! I went to a church and thought, "I could do this!" So I did.

And so much of the pain and problem in the history of Mars Hill is that my zeal was out ahead of my preparedness, particularly my humility. Arrogance, braggadociousness, pride, self-sufficiency... That hurt the health of Mars Hill early on, and I have been, by God's grace, trying to catch up my character with my responsibility ever since.

I really want the best for you, particularly those of you who are called of God into leadership positions. Had I to do it over again, I would have become a member of a church. I would have worked through the eldership process at a church, I would have subjected myself to the elders, I would have received rebuke and correction and exhortation, they would have talked to me about my pride and my anger and my bitterness, my short temper, my self-sufficiency--a whole list of things that needed work. And I would have humbled myself, and then when they confirmed that it was time, God could have lifted me up to go start Mars Hill.

As it was, by the grace of God we have made it, and by the grace of God I am learning as I go. But, do not use me as the best example. Had I to do it over again, I would do it over again. And I would do it differently. And I think our church would be better served had I waited a few years. I believe that. Now, in the grace of God, he has been so good to me, and he's been so good to us. But what I would say is that for those of you who are arrogant and say, "Well, Mark was arrogant and it worked for him..." Go with Plan A.

And the people to whom Peter is writing, they went with Plan A: humility, patience, subjecting themselves to the elders, God raised them up in time. By the historical record, after the first generation of leaders died and Peter himself was crucified upside-down, the church not only continued to exist, this multi-campus church, it flourished and expanded and other congregations were started. So much so, that, by the fourth century, it had been host to multiple significant theological early-church councils. It had contributed to the theological precision and protection of the Church that has served us all in the days ensuing.

Mark Driscoll, "Humble Christians" (1 Pt. 5:5b), sermon, March 17, 2009

"The Baby in My Womb Leaped for Joy", Visualized

HT: Christina

CT and the Christian Sabbath

First I want to say what a blessing it is to have the door opened to covenant theology. I am learning so much and am so thankful. The discovery of the Reformed biblical framework is an amazing gift which empowers the student of Scripture to dig into it and learn for himself what the Spirit was actually communicating in Scripture to the original audience as well as to modern believers. With this understanding, we don't need to just accept whatever we are taught, but we can actually go straight to the source and think critically and exegetically to try to come to the most proper interpretation of a passage.

In contrast to Covenant or Reformed theology, which has been around for hundreds of years, if not millennia, there is modern Dispensationalism, a system of thought developed in the late 1800s, and then there is so-called New Covenant Theology, which is a much more modern view that misinterprets much of the Old Testament as based on works instead of grace. Similar to Dispensationalists, proponents of New Covenant Theology would consider much of the Old Testament to apply to Jews only and not to the elect covenant community as a whole. That is, they would not agree with our own Lord and Savior when he said, "Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:19, ESV). When we read the works of people who hold this view, we must be cautious and pray for the gift of discernment. Anyone who does not agree with the very words of our Lord is on shaky ground.

All this is by way of introduction, because the point of this short blog post is to link to an article by covenant theologian Sam Waldron about the Christian Sabbath, and why the view from the Westminster Confession of Faith and the 1689 London Baptist Confession is the Biblical view. He makes some good exegetical and cultural arguments as to just what first century Jewish Christians would have been thinking when they used the words "the Lord's Day." But this article was written as a defense against a major work in New Covenant Theology, so I wanted to put it in context--hence the necessity of the previous paragraph. Sam Waldron's 8-page article, "A Critical Introduction to New Covenant Theology #3", PDF parsed to HTML by Google, is located here. (I can't link to the original PDF because his site is down at the moment.)

Shakespeare as a Christian Writer

Leland Ryken has written an excellent article which is a snapshot of
what he teaches about Shakespeare in his literary courses. You'll be
pleasantly surprised. Here's a quote:

"More than conventional: scholars who are attuned to the Christian
element in Shakespeare's plays correctly observe that there is
sometimes a gratuitous element in Shakespeare's Christian allusions,
meaning that Shakespeare incorporates Christian references beyond what
seem to be strictly required by the context."

You can find it here: http://www.reformation21.org/articles/shakespeare-as-a-christian-writer.php

I highly recommed reading the whole thing.

HT: JT @ http://theologica.blogspot.com/

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Jesus died for our sins

The Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah, especially chapter 53, is perhaps the most significant passage in Scripture, because the entire gospel is revealed in it. It is well-known and worth memorizing. That is an understatement. There is such a wealth of doctrine in the passage, but right now I'm just going to focus on one verse.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:11, ESV)

"Jesus died for your sins" is a common phrase known well to evangelicals. As long as I can remember in my walk, when I thought of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, I thought of him as really, truly thinking of me and all the sins I would ever commit. Sometimes, after decades of listening to sermons and daily Bible reading, you know things, but you don't remember why you know them. Maybe it's just because you have matured to a certain level in your walk with the Lord that you don't need to know the chapter and verse in order to know the truth of the doctrine. Despite this, however, I found it very encouraging to come across this verse in my current iteration of reading through the Bible.

Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him. That joy, Isaiah says, was to "see his offspring," or all those who would believe in him and receive the benefits of his suffering. This joy, he actually saw from the cross, even in the anguish of his soul, as he cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He saw us from the cross, and he sees us now. Though we are the invisible church, we are not invisible to him.

"By his knowledge..." Jesus had knowledge of the divine plan, because he is its Author. He is also its Perfector (Heb. 12:2). He knew, and saw, exactly what he was doing on the cross. Furthermore, he knew exactly for whom he was doing it!

We see here in this verse the Reformed doctrine of Limited Atonement. He wasn't thinking of the world in general when he died on the cross, but he was thinking of each of us personally: each of us who believe, each of the elect. This is why Isaiah said he shall "make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities." He did not account all as righteous, but many, and it wasn't just anyone's iniquities that were borne on the cross, but the particular iniquities of those for whom he was dying.

The sacrificial rituals of the Torah were given as types and shadows of the Messiah who was to come, and this includes the scapegoat in Leviticus 16:

And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. (Leviticus 16:21, ESV)

Though I will admit that Aaron probably did not have time to list all of the sins committed by the children of Israel, the text is clear: the sins which the scapegoat bore outside the camp were particular sins of the congregation.

Beloved, if you believe in Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can truly say, "He really did see me and my sins on the cross, and he really did die for them!" Amen! "It is finished!" This is good news! It is a joy that can help us through our darkest times. Though I am nothing, completely worthless, prone to wander and to dishonor him with my sins, he still died for me.

What Is Distanciation?

I'm reading D.A. Carson's excellent work, Exegetical Fallacies, and, as I'm sure will happen quite frequently in this study, came across a word I did not know, and in fact could not find in my Dictionary.com iPhone app either!

The word is "distanciation", and I assumed it has to do with distancing oneself from the subject. But it must be more than that, for the ultimate end of exegesis is to know what God's Word says so that we might be better equipped to glorify God in our lives and to teach others to do so as well.

Here is what Carson says:

The fundamental danger with all critical study of the Bible lies in what hermeneutical experts call distanciation. Distanciation is a necessary component of critical work; but is difficult and sometimes costly. (23)

I found a good definition here.

The fallacy that comes from the omission of distanciation has to do with an interpreter's inability to distance himself from his presuppositions in the interpretive process and discerning the meaning of the text. We all have presuppositions which are simply beliefs or convictions we hold prior to handling the text (also called apriori convictions or control beliefs). Having presuppositions is not bad, of course, but what is detrimental and fallacious is when we use our presuppositions to influence our interpretation and alter the meaning of the text.

Beyond Carson, this subject of imposing our presuppositions on the text is something that's been at the forefront in my reading (Horton), mp3 listening (Riddlebarger), and discussions with pastors and elders at church as well. I am very thankful for these means of grace in my life and I hope that all students of God's Word would likewise have the eyes of their hearts enlightened (Eph. 1:18) to this subject.

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The Art of Singletasking

Remember The Milk (RTM) is a productivity tool or task list to help in getting things done (GTD). Unfortunately, you have to pay $25/year in order to access it on your iPhone. One of the benefits it has is the ability to share tasks. For example, if my wife neede me to stop at the store on the way home, she could edit a shopping list and send it to me.

But now with the copy & paste features in the new iPhone OS, any old thing can be used to keep track of a shopping list. (I usually just scroll way up on our text message history to see what I'm supposed to pick up. Now I can copy each thing to a note.)

While I was researching "GTD" apps, I came across an article that said maybe multitasking isn't the way to go. Apparently "singletasking" is the next big thing in productivity, and the blog mentioned a site called Now Do This (www.nowdothis.com), which I think is brilliant in its simplicity. The site was created by the founder of Vimeo.

The irony of all this--and my wife can testify to this--is that I discovered this app while dinking around on my iPhone while watching TV with my wife. I wasn't able to follow the show. So... singletasking is a discipline I still need to work on. This web app should help me with that!

(Note: There's an app in Apple's App Store called Now Do This, but it was uploaded by an unknown company, which leads me to suspect it's a knockoff. Besides, with the web app, I'm not limited to my iPhone, because I can use it on a plain old computer as well!)

P.S. During my research I also discovered VW is coming out with a GTD in 2010. Hot.

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New Media vs. Old Media in Iran

Paul Mathers has some excellent commentary about Twitter's role in
covering the Iranian elections: http://ticklemebrahms.blogspot.com/2009/06/use-whats-been-given.html

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iPhone 3.0

So-o-o looking forward to the update tomorrow.

Here's Apple's description of the new features, and a more in-depth review on ReadWriteWeb.

Some of the highlights I'm looking forward to:

• Slow-speed scrubbing is going to be great for listening to lengthy theology podcasts; when I miss something or want to transcribe a section, I can waste a lot of time skipping back much further than necessary.
• I'm also looking forward to SDK features like Push Notifications, which I hope will allow me to stay logged into Skype and Yahoo! Messenger even when I don't have the apps open.
• Another think I'm excited about is the first-party voice recorder, which will stay on even if you go read a note or e-mail or web page. I'm just hoping it will let you download your recordings to your computer (this would be a great tool for songwriters and podcasters!).
• I also think the Copy & Paste features (and the ability to do so with images and not just text) will greatly facilitate mobile blogging. Now they just need to come out with a good blogging app...

Insofar as They Are Supported by Scripture

The Reformed Confessions can only stand insofar as they are supported by Scripture.

I want to tie together some of the recent topics I've been covering, including my comment in a previous post that the Five Points of Calvinism are "only the beginning of what Reformed theology is all about," as well as my research into John MacArthur's regretable 2007 sermon, "Why Every Self-respecting Calvinist is a Premillennialist."

I "happened upon" an article on Kim Riddlebarger's website called, "Why John MacArthur Is Not 'Reformed'", which I found very interesting and I also recommend to you. He quotes an essay from Richard Muller in 1993, and I also recommend clicking through to read that article as well.

Dr. Muller concludes,

In conclusion, we can ask again, "How many points?" Surely there are more than five. The Reformed faith includes reference to total inability, unconditional election, limited efficiency of Christ's satisfaction, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints, not as the sum total of the church's confession but as elements that can only be understood in the context of a larger body of teaching including the baptism of infants, justification by grace alone through faith, the necessity of a thankful obedience consequent upon our faith and justification, the identification of sacraments as means of grace, the so-called amillennial view of the end of the world. The larger number of points, including but going beyond the five of Dort, is intended, in other words, to construe theologically the entire life of the believing community. And when that larger number of points taught by the Reformed confessions is not respected, the famous five are jeopardized, indeed, dissolved--and the ongoing spiritual health of the church is placed at risk. (Muller, How Many Points?, emphasis mine)

I agree wholeheartedly with his conclusion, but I disagree with the part about infant baptism.

I am Reformed Baptist. This means that I hold to all the doctrines of Reformed theology and covenant theology, but I do not hold to the baptism of infants, because I do not find it in Scripture.

I want to assure paedobaptist readers that I do appreciate the teaching that infant baptism signifies the prevenient sovereign grace of God because the infant has done nothing to merit salvation. But I cannot stand by and allow paedobaptists to argue that one cannot be Reformed unless one baptizes one's infants or was baptized as an infant. Again, this is not found in Scripture. In the New Testament, baptism does not precede faith and repentance. On the contrary, it is spoken of as proceeding immediately from faith and repentance.

In Colossians 2, Paul contradicts what paedobaptists have taught, which is that baptism directly replaces circumcision as a sign of the covenant. He explains that what was lacking in the covenant of circumcision was that men were not circumcising their hearts. However, we who are in Christ have been circumcised spiritually, and this is signified by the "putting off of the flesh" which occurs in our baptism--as we have been buried with Christ and have risen with Christ, which is symbolized by full immersion. The phrase "putting off of the flesh" is a pun which shows Paul's literary skills: though it sounds like circumcision talk, is a metaphor for renouncing sin. I would argue that one cannot renounce sin unless one is able to acknowledge, "Yes, I am a sinner."

When Paul speaks of baptism in this manner, in this passage as well as others, it is clear that he is asking the believer to remember his own baptism, and to recall the significance of being "buried and raised with Christ." Paedobaptists think it's enough to remind children that they were baptized when they were infants, but I think much of the significance of what Paul is saying here would be lost on those who cannot remember their own baptism.

Finally, paedobaptists speak of those cases in Acts where it says so-and-so was baptized, "he and his household." Even some Reformed paedobaptists I have read acknowledge that there is nothing in these passages to indicate that the familes being discussed had any infants in them. Furthermore, I would cite Acts 18:8, which says that Crispus "believed in the Lord, together with his entire household." This indicates either that "entire household" is a figure of speech, or that Crispus did not, in fact, have infants in his family.

Covenant and Reformed Christians, please recognize the arguments of Reformed Baptists, and don't just lump us in with John MacArthur and write us off as non-Calvinistic.

The Lord's Day in The Valley of Vision

"Lord's Day Eve"

God of the passing hour,

Another week has gone and I have been preserved
in my going out,
in my coming in.

Thine has been the vigilance that has turned
threatened evils aside;

Thine the supplies that have nourished me;

Thine the comforts that have indulged me;

Thine the relations and friends that have
delighted me;

Thine the means of grace which have edified me;

Thine the Book, which, amidst all my enjoyments,
has told me that this is not my rest,

that in all successes one thing alone is needful,
to love my Savior

Nothing can equal the number of thy mercies
but my imperfections and sins.

These, O God, I will neither conceal nor palliate,
but confess with a broken heart.

In what condition would secret reviews
of my life leave me

were it not for the assurance that with thee
there is plenteous redemption,
that thou art a forgiving God,
that thou mayest be feared!

While I hope for pardon through the blood
of the cross,

I pray to be clothed with humility,
to be quickened in thy way,
to be more devoted to thee,
to keep the end of my life in view,
to be cured of the folly of delay and indecision,
to know how frail I am,

to number my days and apply my heart
unto wisdom.

"God and Foreign Relations"

Chapter 2 in Michael Horton's book, Introducing Covenant Theology, is called "God and Foreign Relations." In this chapter, anthropology comes into play as we learn about ancient treaties. We also learn that the covenants God made with his people were structured the same way as these treaties, but with some major differences. First, God as the deity was not called as witness, but he was the actual sovereign in the treaties. Second, the covenant, especially in Genesis 15 and 17, imposed no obligations upon Abraham, but it was God himself who promised to carry out his promises.

The form of the ancient suzerain-vassal treaty, or "suzerainty treaty," was already well-established in the ancient Near East before the Bible was written. This was God's providence at work in history, because it provided a cultural context for those with whom he made his own covenants. Horton explains, "A suzerain was a great king, like an emperor, while a vassal was what we would today call a 'client state'" (p. 24). The treaties from the Hittite Empire seem to parallel the covenants we find in Scripture, even using the phrase "oaths and bonds."

Horton gives examples of how such treaties would come about:

[T]he lesser king (vassal) could enter into a covenant with the great king (suzerain), or as often happened, a suzerain could rescue a vassal from impending doom and therefore claim his right to annex the beneficiaries of his kindness by covenant to his empire. They would be his people, and he would be their suzerain. (p. 25)

He then explains something that is quite foreign to us in the modern West:

What is often present in these ancient treaties and missing in modern analogies is the fact that these were not merely legal contracts but involved the deepest affections. The great king was the father adopting the captives he had liberated from oppression. Consequently, he was not simply to be obeyed externally, but loved; not only feared, but revered; not only known as the legal lord of the realm, but acknowledged openly as the rightful sovereign.... All of this is somewhat difficult for us to grasp, since for most of us, our day-to-day experience is shaped by life in liberal democracies in which personal choice and rights are enshrined. (p. 25, emphasis mine)

The features of the Hittite treaties included

• the preamble,
• historical prologue,
• stipulations,
• sanctions, and
  
• deposit of the treaty tablets in the sacred temples.

Historical prologue in the Scriptural covenants is significant because our religion is not based on myth, but fact.

God claimed sovereignty over all of life and anchored this total claim in history rather than in myth or general principles of truth and morality He said, 'I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me' (Exod. 20:2-3). It was because certain things had happened that Israel was obligated to him. (p. 26)

Israel was not first of all a nation, but a church, a community called out of darkness, sin, oppression, and evil to form the nucleus of God's worldwide empire. Not only the politics, but the religion, was anchored in historical events that gave rise to faith that this covenant Lord would be faithful to his promises (p. 28)

Regarding stipulations, Horton reiterates the deep affections the vassal would have for the suzerain. "[T]his was to be a relationship of trust, love, and genuine faithfulness, not simply of external obligation and consent. Far from being arbitrary, merely legal dos and don'ts, the stipulations were an utterly reasonable duty" (p. 27). When Jesus quoted Isaiah and said, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me" (Matthew 15:8, ESV), he affirmed that the Law was not designed for externals, but that the Lord was always after the hearts of his people, and obedience should have flowed from that love.

The deposit of the tablets was something we saw in Exodus when the tablets of the Law were placed inside the Ark of the Covenant. Horton said it was not only the placement of the covenant terms in a sacred place that was significant, but that there was also "periodic public reading, so that each new generation clearly understood its obligations" (p. 27).

Then Horton gives a statement that helps show us the depth of what we see in Genesis 15:

In addition to the treaty itself was the public ceremony that sealed it and put it into effect. Such ceremonies included an event in which the suzerain and vassal would pass between the halves of slaughtered animals, as if to say, "May the same fate befall me should I fail to keep this covenant." In other rituals, the vassal king would walk behind the great king down an aisle as a sign of loyalty, service, and submission. (Hence, the language of "walking after" God in the Scriptures.) Celebratory meals at which the treaty was ratified were held as well. (p. 28)

In Genesis 15, it is Yahweh himself, in theophany, who passes between the carcasses, and not Abram, indicating that God is taking the full weight of the covenant upon himself. "May the same fate befall me"--It was Christ, God incarnate, our Redeemer, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who bore the covenant curses on behalf of the elect! This is radically different from the Hittite treaties, in which all the stipulations and sanctions were borne by the vassal and the suzerain did not take an oath. The fact that it was the Sovereign Lord God who was making these covenants gave his people great confidence.

The remainder of the chapter will be addressed in a later post.

Posts in this series:

• What's "The Big Idea?"
  
• "God and Foreign Relations"
• Chapter 2.5: God's Freedom in Covenant
• The Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace

External links

Rob Bell's "Feminine Images" for God - The Counil on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood website has an article criticizing Rob Bell's mishandling of the original languages. Bell says because the Hebrew word for "compassion" has the same root as "womb", therefore anywhere compassion is used, it implies femininity. What? HT: JT

Every Self-Respecting Calvinist Should Be What? - I've been Googling blog reactions to John MacArthur's Dispensationalism speech at the Shepherd's Conference a few years ago. Here's an interesting perspective from someone who got a great deal out of MacArthur's writings in his college years, but has now come to the point where if he uses thew word "Calvinist" as applied to "MacArthur", he has to use a lower-case "c" so as not to dishonor John Calvin.

Federally Backed Security - Ligonier article on the Perseverance of the Saints from May's issue of Tabletalk.

A Time to Kill...

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
--Ecclesiastes 3:1-3 (ESV)

Al Mohler posted an interesting article today regarding Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's attempt to assassinate Hitler:

So many readers are familiar with Dietrich Bonhoeffer's decision to take action against Hitler. Fewer are familiar with the moral and theological reasoning that led Bonhoeffer, quite reluctantly, to this conclusion. Even then, Bonhoeffer was not certain he was acting rightly. He felt that this decision, made under extreme moral conditions, was the best he could understand.

And,

In 1943, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested for his opposition to the Nazi regime. The Lutheran pastor, a prominent leader in the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, had been involved in espionage and an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. This pastor and theologian sought to defy the regime that was murdering the Jewish people and destroying human life with homicide on an unprecedented scale. Bonhoeffer acted in defense of human life, and for this he was executed in the Flossenburg prison camp in the final days of World War II.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer opposed abortion with full force. In his Ethics he explained: “The simple fact is that God had certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.”

When it came to defying Hitler’s regime, Bonhoeffer saw that several excruciating moral questions were on “the borderland” and could not be settled with absolute certainty. Eventually, he was convinced that the Nazi regime was beyond moral correction and no longer legitimate. Christians, he then saw, bore a responsibility to oppose the regime at every level and to seek its demise. He acted in defense of life and was finally willing to use violence to that end.

America is not Nazi Germany. George Tiller, though bearing the blood of thousands of unborn children on his hands, was not Adolf Hitler...

Read more.

The Lord's Day in The Valley of Vision

O LORD MY LORD,

This is thy day,
the heavenly ordinance of rest,
the open door of worship
the record of Jesus' resurrection,
the seal of the sabbath to come,
the day when saints militant and triumphant unite in endless song.

I bless thee for the throne of grace,
that here free favour reigns;
that open access to it is through the blood of Jesus;
that the veil is torn aside and I can enter the holiest
and find thee ready to hear,
waiting to be gracious,
inviting me to pour out my needs,
encouraging my desires,
promising to give more than I ask or think.

But while I bless thee, shame and confusion are mine:
I remember my past misuse of sacred things,
my irreverent worship,
my base ingratitude,
my cold, dull praise.

Sprinkle all my past sabbaths with the cleansing blood of Jesus,
and may this day witness deep improvement in me.
Give me in rich abundance
the blessings the Lord's Day was designed to impart;
May my heart be fast bound against worldly thoughts or cares;
Flood my mind with peace
beyond understanding;
may my meditations be sweet,
my acts of worship life, liberty, joy,
my drink the streams that flow
from thy throne,
my food the previous Word,
my defence the shield of faith,
and may my heart be more knit to Jesus.

Kim Riddlebarger mp3s

Here are some mp3s so you can hear Kim Riddlebarger make his Case for Amillennialism on your iPhone/iPod:

• Kim Riddlebarger on SermonAudio.com
• Kim Riddlebarger on IIIM

One of the highlights for me was during the Q & A where he said the Reformed church he planted has special pastoral needs because most of the congregation came from Calvary Chapel.

HT: Micky

Words for the Wind

To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God? [2]
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God, my rock:
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As with a deadly wound in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
--Psalm 42, ESV

From a May 2008 Sermon called Spiritual Depression in the Psalms by John Piper:

What does he mean when he says, "Why have you forgotten me?" when his head knows he has not forgotten him? Why does he say that? He says it, because that's what it feels like... And everybody knows that's what it feels like, and only a few are honest enough to say that that's what it feels like. However, God has not forgotten him, and he knows it. Now, what does that tell us? ... If you care about people in pain, you need to learn this lesson...

The phrase is "words for the wind" ... It comes from Job 6:26... Job, you remember, surrounded by these three friends. They're beating up on him big-time verbally, saying all kinds of things about him-- totally unhelpfully--about his condition of suffering. And he responds to them this way: He says, "Do you think that you can reprove words when the speech of a despairing man is wind?" What does that mean? That means, "Please don't be picky about my language when I'm in pain! If I say, 'God, why have you forgotten me,' don't lecture me on the fact that God never forgets his own. Do that later. Don't be picky with my language. It's a 'wind word', it's gonna to be blown away. There will be plenty of time for you to see my life, that I'm a true lover of God and I'll stand with him no matter what. Don't--"

I think that's the point. So, if you care about people and you've got a robust theology of suffering like I hope we do here and somebody says something theologically inappropriate, let it go. It's going to be blown away. A month later they're going to look back on those horrible moments and they're going to think, "Am I glad God didn't strike me dead." And he didn't, and you shouldn't.

What's "The Big Idea?"

"The Big Idea" is the title for the first chapter in Michael Horton's book, Introducing Covenant Theology, which was previously published in hardcover under the title, God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology.

Horton quickly gets to the point, which is that Reformed Theology = Covenant Theology. The framework of the covenant is central to the Bible's teaching. TULIP (the Five Points of Calvinism, or the Doctrines of Grace) is "only the beginning of what Reformed theology is all about" (p. 11). Although an accurate expression of the gospel, these points are not the core of Reformed theology; rather, they are derived from careful exegesis of Scripture. As Horton puts it,

Reformed theology ... attempts to interpret the whole counsel of God in view of the principle that Scripture interprets Scripture. In other words, that which is clearest and is treated with the greatest significance in Scripture interprets those passages that are more difficult and less central to the biblical message. ...[T]he goal is to say what Scripture says and to emphasize what Scripture emphasizes. (p. 12)

The architectural structure that unites the diverse themes of Scripture is the covenant--"not simply the concept of the covenant, but the concrete existence of God's covenantal dealings in our history" (p. 13)

What Difference Does It Make?

Horton emphasizes that the covenantal structure is not something we impose on the Bible, but it rises "naturally from the ordinary reading of the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation" (p. 14). He presents an anecdote that I think we can all relate to:

How often have we heard important debates about biblical teaching dismissed with a shrug and the words, "You have your verses and we have our verses," as if the Bible itself were internally inconsistent or contradictory? For Christians all of the verses are "our verses." Our interpretation of a given point must be demonstrated not only as taught in this or that passage, but as consistent with the whole teaching of Scripture. (p. 14)

Covenant theology, Horton contends, is the framework which Scripture itself provides, by which we can resolve its diversity and answer questions that may arise.

Not only does it help to resolve the diversity in Scripture, it helps to resolve the extremes that humans tend to go to in "dividing" or "confusing" things that are supposed to be held in balance. He uses a few examples from societies ancient or modern, and relates it all back to the idolatry of human sovereignty. "The point of idolatry is to maintain our own autonomy (i.e., sovereignty) over God, either by banishment or absorption." This affects the way we interact with our surroundings. "In our age, a lot of harm has been done to the natural creation because of the pretensions of human sovereignty" (p. 15). In contrast, there are movements that glorify creation, seeing God "in" everything.

He also address the ways in which individualism has elevated the self above the community.

The individual self is sovereign. This has infected the church profoundly, in both its faith and practice, wherever the emphasis on "me and my personal relationship with God" has supplanted the biblical assumption of covenantal solidarity. Covenant theology, in fact, requires such solidarity: that of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the covenant of redemption; our solidarity with all of creation and especially our being "in Adam" by virtue of the creation covenant and "in Christ" in the covenant of grace. (p. 16)

The answer will not be found by allowing the societal pendulum to continue to swing from one extreme to the opposite. What we need is a healthy balance between the individual and the community. In all these issues, it's not one or the other, but both...and... The covenant allows us to have a proper perspective and fulfill our responsibilities.

...all of creation, especially all humans, stand already in a relationship to God as creator and judge in the covenant of creation. We all are bound together ethically in mutual responsibility. Each person, Christian or not, bears God's image, and we can work side by side with non-Christians to fulfill the scriptural command to show love to our neighbors. (p. 17)

As another example of holding to the extremes, Horton highlights the errant teachings of Arminianism and Hyper-Calvinism. Both of these views come to Scripture with a central dogma already presupposed, and they deduce all the possible interpretations of Scripture from that dogma. For Arminianism, it's the libertarian concept of human free will that is not subject even to one's own preferences. For Hyper-Calvinism, it's "a distorted concept of God's sovereignty that pushes everything else to the periphery" (p. 19).

But when we start with the covenant, it changes things considerably, because we're no longer working with abstract philosophical ideas, but concrete, historical facts. "When Reformed theology hears Scripture teaching both divine sovereignty and human responsibility, divine election and the universal offer of the gospel, it affirms both even though it confesses that it does not know quite how God coordinantes them behind the scenes" (p. 19). "In the covenant, both the Lord and the Servant are on trial for their faithfulness: there simply can be no choice between whose action we take seriously. This focus curbs our speculative tendencies" (p. 20).

The covenant framework helps us to read the Old and New Testaments together. It views Scripture in a way that moves from promise to fulfillment, not from one dispensation to another and back again. "It helps us to see the continuity between the old and new covenants in terms of a single covenant of grace running throughout..." (pp. 20-21)

Posts in this series:

• What's "The Big Idea?"
• "God and Foreign Relations"
• Chapter 2.5: God's Freedom in Covenant
• The Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace