I-Need-Sheet-Music

2007-02-09T16:07:00.000-08:00

I succumbed to pressure and moved this whole blog to wordpress.

The new locale is http://ineedsheetmusic.wordpress.com

For some annoying reason, wordpress won't accept any none alpha-numerics. So, the all important hyphens are gone from my catchy domain name.

2007-02-06T21:34:00.000-08:00

Christian Mind Paper - Part V

I start to show the weaknesses of this paper with this post. A not insignificant portion of the paper is quotes. And here I include a fairly big one. Doing this is frowned upon.

The covenantal of redemption taken as a whole has its referent in Zechariah 6. Meredith Kline interprets this passage as follows:

The covenantal origins of the royal grant to Christ go back before the making of the covenant with David to the intratrinitarian counsels before the world was, back to a primal divine pact. Though the covenants made between God and man in the course of human history were determined upon in eternity in the all-embracive divine decrees, the actual covenanting between the parties does not occur until the creature party is on the scene. However, since all parties of the intratrinitarian covenant are present at the determination of the eternal decrees, that decretive predestinating is at the same time an actual eternal covenanting of the persons of the Godhead with each other with respect to their relationships in all that they decree concerning creation and redemption. It was in that eternal covenant that the cosmic kingdom of glory was granted to the Son as the reward for his faithful execution of the work the Father gave him to do (cf. Luke 22:29; John 17:4, 5). This covenantal commitment to the Son was renewed in the course of the historical administration of the Covenant of Grace.It came to earthly expression in the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants: Christ was the promised seed of Abraham to whom pertained the promise of kingship and kingdom (Gal. 3:16) and Christ was the son of David to whom the dynastic promises of the Davidic covenant were directed. What Zechariah 6:9-15 prophesies is the Father's fulfillment of the eternal covenant by bestowing the promised kingdom grant on the Son who came to earth as Jesus, the Christ of God, the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matt. 1:1), and obediently carried out the stipulated task.¹

1Meredith Kline “The Exaltation of Christ” Online: http://www.kerux.com/documents/keruxv12n3a1.asp

Note that the above footnote points to the whole article.

2007-02-02T18:05:00.000-08:00

Christian Mind paper: Part IV.

Scriptural support for the covenant of redemption is not difficult to produce nor is it difficult to assert that the evidence thus marshaled does in fact constitute solid indicators that such a covenant took place.¹ First, Scripture is replete with the predestinarian electing by the Father of sinners. Beginning as early as Genesis 3:15 God pronounces a curse on the seed of the serpent (which eons later we discover the referent to be humans²) thus immediately splitting all of Adam's progeny into two distinct groups. In Genesis 4:26 we see that God carves out of history those who, by calling on his name, are his covenantal servants.³ God's graphically displays his election and reprobation via the Noahic oracle in Genesis 9:25-27⁴. Further narrowing continues through the genealogies of Shem, Eber and climaxing in Peleg in Genesis 10:25 where God outright states that he is dividing the earth up along these family lines⁵. This leads to the election Abraham and the subsequent election of Issac over against Ishmael, and of Jacob over against Esau. New Testament corroborates this electing process, most notably in Acts 13:48. The covenant of redemption asserts that God elects these as gifts to be an inheritance for his Son who agrees to earn these gifts. Scriptural support for this is found in John 6:38-40 as well in Psalm 2:6-9. Indeed, these verses are difficult if the covenant of redemption is denied.

Jesus Christ the God-Man pledged to fulfill the covenant of works in order to make the covenant of grace possible. In other words, he promised to become a man, taking on his flesh and his nature. Essentially, as the second Adam, he would assume posse peccare and posse non peccare. He also promised to obey the law – both the natural law that resides in all men and the specific law given to Israel. Finally, he promised to go to the cross as propitiation for the sins of those elect. In this way, Christ's active obedience to the law, his perfect righteousness, might be given as an act of grace to those elect whose active disobedience as covenant breakers has, as well, been forgiven. The chair passage for this in Scripture is the high priestly prayer of Jesus to the Father in John 17. In this passage no fewer than nine times Jesus refers to those whom God has given him. In John 17:4 he explicitly refers to his having accomplished the work that he was assigned; and in John 17:12 he refers to successfully guarding those for whom he was responsible - an allusion to Adam's failure to guard the garden, a charge he was given in Genesis 2:15.

The covenant of redemption spells out a pledge made by the Holy Spirit as well. It is here that we can most easily begin to see the value of the covenant of redemption as a lens into our systematic theology. Our entire doctrine of the Holy Spirit falls into place when one considers that nearly all the Spirit does is directly tied to his inter-trinitarian pledge. Drawing from Berkhof's Systematic Theology we see four primary tasks that the Spirit must perform. The first task is entirely in relation to the man Jesus Christ. The Spirit must bring him into existence as a man via the virgin Mary. He also must anoint him (Mt. 3:17 ) with the result that Jesus has the Spirit without measure (John 3:34).⁶ Second, the Holy Spirit inspires the writing of Scripture (2 Peter 1:21). Third, the Holy Spirit is the immediate agent of the regeneration (John 3:6-8) and the sanctification of the elect (1 Corinthians 3:16; 2 Thessalonians 2:13). Fourth, he builds, guides and teaches the church (John 16:13,14; Ephesians 1:13, 2:20-22; ).⁷

1Steven Baugh, “The Covenant of Redemption in Galatians 3:20”, WTJ 66,1 (2004), 49-70. Dr. Baugh tackles the tough Gal 3:20 and defends his thesis that even this verse supports the Covenant of redemption.

2See John 8:42-45.

3It is especially important to note that being elect into God's covenant in no way obviates the sinful nature of the elect. All the elect have this in common: they all trust in the promise of God to fulfill all that as covenant Lord he has spoken.

4In addition to displaying his reprobation and election, he foretells the bringing in of the gentiles represented by Japheth into the covenantal family of God fulfilled in Acts 11:1-18.

5It is important to remember that this election is a spiritual operation and the physical ancestry that one may trace is not truly in view.

6The idea that the Spirit is the director of the drama is very apt when one considers his role as the third person of the covenant of redemption.

7Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1932), 98.

2007-01-29T19:03:00.000-08:00

Christian Mind paper part the third: Covenant of Redemption

Reserving the covenant of redemption for a separate treatment is warranted because many Christian Theologians, as noted in part above, restrict the covenant concept to only those “transactions” that occur in Biblical history and therefore don't consider what is typically referred to by this covenant as a covenant in any sense at all. Consequently, it is dropped from the discussion. However, though not explicitly named a covenant of redemption, the WCF points to the intratrinitarian commitment that lays the groundwork for the works principle manifested in the covenant of works and the plan of redemption (which itself is based on Christ fulfilling his covenant of works made with the Father):

It pleased God , in his eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, his only begotten son, to be the mediator between God and man, the Prophet, Priest and King, the Head and Savior of his church, the Heir of all things, and Judge of the world: unto whom from all eternity give a people, to be his seed, and to be by him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified¹.

And further in the confession:

The Lord Jesus, in His human nature thus united to the divine, was sanctified, and anointed with the Holy Spirit, above measure, having in Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; in whom it pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell; to the end that, being holy, harmless, undefiled, and full of grace and truth, He might be thoroughly furnished to execute the office of a Mediator and Surety. Which office He took not unto Himself, but was thereunto called by His Father, who put all power and judgment into His hand, and gave Him commandment to execute the same.²

The covenant of redemption is different from all other covenants on three counts. The first is that it is the only covenant that is made not between God and man, but between the persons of the trinity. The second is that it is the only covenant not named as such even if implicitly.³ Thirdly, the covenant of redemption, precisely because it was not initiated at some specific place and time in the history of creation is not a covenant whose defenders can point to a specific passage that details it fully.

Essentially, the covenant of redemption is a works covenant. The pledge “this I will do” forms the basis of the covenant. God the Father elects a rebellious covenant breaking people for himself which he promises to give as an inheritance to his Son. God the Son promises to work as the second Adam (and as the true Israel) in order to reconcile the rebellious elect to the Father. God the Spirit promises to effectually bring these rebellious elect to saving belief in the Son.

1WCF Ch. 8, P1.

2WCF Ch. 8, P3.

3The Davidic covenant of 2 Sam. 7 is not named a covenant during the historical event when it is announced but is referred to as a covenant in Psalm 89:3. Likewise, the Adamic covenant of works is referred to as a covenant in Hosea 6:7.

2007-01-24T22:05:00.000-08:00

Here is part II of the paper.
You probably should not skip this part since it contains definitions of "covenant".

Meredith Kline has provided impetus in this direction in his concluding sentence in the introduction to his seminal Kingdom Prologue Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview. “By unfolding and developing that infrastructure [Biblical Theology], Kingdom Prologue performs, in part, a prolegomenon function for the program of Biblical Theology, while also serving the enterprise of systematic theology by contributing very directly to the formulations of covenant theology.”¹ This paper attempts to tackle the other side of Kline's coin. He is mostly concerned with Biblical Theology. I will attempt to demonstrate how the covenant idea is a servant of systematic theology.

Before moving ahead to the proper defense of my thesis, I will conduct a brief survey of the covenant idea. This will provide a definition of covenant that I will use to discuss the thesis of this paper.

O. Palmer Robertson describes a covenant as a bond in blood sovereignly administered. Robertson is motivated by his conviction that the phrase 'to make a covenant' is literally 'to cut a covenant' and primarily via the term “cut”, carries with it a clear reference to blood. He makes a reference to such covenants where the phrase 'cut a covenant' is present in those made between men². And he makes reference to such covenants initiated by God toward man. Significantly, Robertson neglects to include the covenant of redemption in his treatment of covenants.

John Murray holds the view that the covenant concept is all about grace. Murray arrives at this position because he essentially denies the existence of any covenant of works. The Adamic covenant he contends is no covenant at all, not having been so named in scripture.³ Further, he sees the Adamic “administration” as well as the Sinaitic covenant as fundamentally gracious.

Scripture always uses the term covenant, when applied to God's administration to men, in reference to a provision that is redemptive or closely related to a redemptive design. Covenant in Scripture denotes the oath-bound confirmation of promise and involves a security which the Adamic economy did not bestow. . . .The Mosaic covenant was distinctly redemptive in character and was continuous with and extensive of the Abrahamic covenants.⁴

What is notable about both of the above views is that neither is really suitable as a lens through which to view Scripture or to do theology. These views are restrictive in that they don't account for all the data. By excluding the covenant of redemption from the discussion, both Robertson and Murray truncate the broadest possible sweep of the covenants. So also, by excluding the covenant of works from the discussion, Murray seriously hamstrings the covenants, rendering them useless as a lens as well.

When all the data is accounted for, a more useful definition of covenant emerges. This is what Meredith Kline has done in providing his definition that covenant is a divinely sanctioned commitment.⁵ As befitting a wide-angle lens, Kline's definition is broad as it is succinct. His view stretches the scope of covenant to extend before time and into eternity. Kline then goes on to show his definition to include two basic kinds of covenants, one of works and one of grace.⁶

We must remember that Kline is not an innovator on the point of two covenants. His definition is useful and I commend it assured that he is in step with the reformation.⁷ Space prevents me from listing the work of those reformers who had a similar understanding of the covenants. In summary though, the divines who formulated the Westminster Confession attest to a broadly held view of the covenants as follows:

The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience. Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein He freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in Him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life His Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe.⁸

1Meredith Kline, Kingdom Prologue Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview. (Eugene Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004), 7.

2See Gen 21:27-32. 2 Sam 3:12-13.

3John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray Volume 2. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1977), 49. Hosea 6:7 notwithstanding. Murray contends that this verse may have other interpretations but fails to offer any. See footnotes 6,7,8,9 and 10 starting on page 282 of Covenant Theology by Jeong Koo Jeon for a detailed exposition of Hosea 6:7. Interpreters have produced “they, like men”, “they, like man”, “they, like mankind”, “they, as at Adam”, “they, like Adam”, “they, in their land”. The Septuagint translates the Hebrew “ws anqrwpos ”. Additionally, Murray avoids discussion of Isaiah 24:5 in his treatment. This verse has been used by Meredith Kline and others to defend the works principle and the associated covenant of works. See Kingdom Prologue, page 14.

4 ibid p. 50.

5Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 2.

6For more on the covenant of works and the covenant of grace see Meredith Kline's “Covenant Theology Under Attack”, Online: http://www.opc.org/new_horizons/Kline_cov_theo.html

7Geerhardus Vos, Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 1980), 234-242. Here Vos provides an excellent tracking of the history of the development of covenant theology.

8WCF Ch. 7 P2,3.

Note that in the above section, Dr. Horton docked me for not citing all my assertions. And, amazingly, Dr. Horton caught my Greek error in footnote 3 where I failed to correct the wrong form of 's' or sigma that ends the word anthropos. He went over this paper with a fine toothed comb. Also, Dr. Horton liked my phrase "as befitting a wide-angle lens". I think that phrase all by itself rescued the paper from mediocrity.

2007-01-20T17:36:00.000-08:00

The Bible is a very big book.

Its sheer size, its varied genres, its obtuse nature have prevented many Christians from finding in it the special revelation that its author has intended for us to have. Is the Bible a magic book of lucky charms, a manual for successful living, a violin upon which you can play any song that comes to mind? Affirmative answers to these questions guarantee failure to truly apprehend the special revelation of God that is contained within its pages.

Many express the mantra that Christianity is not a religion but a personal relationship with God. Correlated with this view is the idea that the primary purpose of the Bible is to provide a guide for entering into this personal relationship. The idea of personal relationship then is used as a lens with which one understands the Bible.

Little better is a central dogma approach. This method accentuates one doctrine over against all others. For example, some see the Bible primarily speaking about God's sovereignty and as a result highlight so-called Calvinism. Others, recognizing the immense importance of justification settle on it as the hinge doctrine of the Bible. Other examples of this abound.

Rather than go into detail explaining why these approaches quickly fail to deliver on their promises, I suggest a different approach and a different and considerably more ambitious goal: The best way to approach Scripture and more specifically systematic theology is through the lens of the covenant because God himself is a covenantal God.

I am considering posting my Christian Mind paper in its entirety. Why? I just got it back and reread it. I like it. So did the prof.

2007-01-18T20:52:00.000-08:00

Or maybe not.
I was just notified that my services will not be needed at the drug and alcohol rehab center. This is the reason I was given for being dismissed: the elders decided that they wanted to keep the leadership of the Bible Study within the Crossroads' community. It's one of the places--along with Sunday evening worship--where we maintain community and communicate a vision with them, so the elders thought it right to maintain some direct relationship to that leadership.

2007-01-05T21:50:00.000-08:00

Coming soon
is a series of posts that may be unlike all my other series. All my other series had this in common. They all were never finished. But I have committed to leading a Bible study at a drug and alcohol rehab center in Vista, Ca. I plan to put each outline up weekly on this blog as I proceed through the "study".

I have chosen the gospel of Mark. I have committed to 9 weeks. That works out to about 2 chapters per week.

I plan to emphasize to those in attendance that we won't be studying the book as much as hearing it. I hope to conclude the whole series by having the whole book read to them in one sitting. This feature I am going to conceal until the end. It may turn out not to be such a good idea. But if they get hooked on hearing God's covenantal summons in Mark, I may feel it a good way to conclude the session. We'll see.

Thanks to my friend, Mike, whose shoes I will be filling at this facility while he takes a break and gets ready for when he resumes in mid-spring and who made this opportunity possible.

On the seminary front, a month or so ago, I tentatively made up my mind to drop out of the MDiv program and switch to a shorter program. Doing this would amount to bailing out on ordination. As of the last few weeks, I have changed my mind. I will continue to pursue the MDiv and ordination.

2007-01-01T22:07:00.000-08:00

Note the new look.
I really hated that old one. It is true that "blogspot" stinks though. Note that my profile (the one that never worked and about which I whined a long time ago) now works.

2006-12-29T16:50:00.000-08:00

I finished the fall semester at school.
It was very grueling because of my weak paper writing skills. On the plus side, though, I met some new friends. That is the bonus I get for being on the 10 year plan. I meet triple the number of classmates than the normal student.

Here is a snapshot of my Christian mind class in list format:

Three covenants
1) Covenant of redemption
2) Covenant of works
3) Covenant of grace

Three speech act aspects
1) locution
2) illocution
3) perlocution

Three kinds of knowledge WRT God:
1) univocal - Our knowledge is identical to God's knowledge - this one is not possible
2) analogical - Knowledge of what God is like, but not what he is
3) equivocal - No intersection of our knowledge with God's is possible - (we're not that bad off)

Three things God is:
1) Principium Essendi
2) Principium Cogniscendi
3) Principium Loquendi

Three states of man:
1) posse non peccare -Adam (trans: posse = possible; peccare = to sin)
2) non posse non peccare - us in this present age
3) non posse peccare - us in the consummation age

Three ladders of human ascent to attain the beatific vision: (if you are doing these, stop)
1) mysticism
2) theological speculation
3) merit

Three things you must do to be a theologian (from Luther)
1) Study
2) Pray
3) Suffer

Four models for understanding how theology works
1) cognitive-propositionalist
2) experiential-expressivist
3) cultural-linguistic
4) canonical-linguistic

Three views on apologetics (philosophies of knowledge):
1. Classical (Rationalism)
2. Evidentialist (Empiricism)
3. Presuppositionalist (Covenantal)

Four approaches to scriptural hermeneutics
1) Covenantal-Eschatalogical
2) Text-Sense
3) Authorial Discourse
4) Narrative

Four anxieties
1) Ancient age - anxiety over death
2) Medieval age - anxiety over guilt
3) Modern age - anxiety over meaninglessness
4) Postmodern age - anxiety over truthlessness

Collection of duos:
1) Creator vs. creature
2) ontological vs. ethical
3) overcoming estrangement vs. meeting a stranger
4) under-realized eschatology vs. over-realized eschatology
5) theology of glory vs. theology of the cross
6) seeing vs. hearing
7) law vs. gospel

2006-11-25T16:37:00.000-08:00

Long time no post, eh?
Well, I've been busy. I am writing my paper for the WSCAL Christian Mind class I am taking. I was thinking about things and I 'fessed up to Big D the other day that when I dropped out of college to embark on a career of serious drug use back in 1970, the primary contributing factor for dropping out was that in my major, which was Political Science, the biggest part of getting graduated was writing all the papers that were required. I hated writing papers and the easiest way out of writing them was to quit. So I did.

So here I am again. I tried to get an early start so I began this project about a month ago. I still have a week left and I hope to finish by Monday night. That will give me a few weeks to catch up on reading and study for the final.

I have a friend from WSCAL who is in my Christian Mind class who says once he gets his thesis, his outline and his secondary resources lined up, he can spit out his 15 or so pages in about 3 hours. And I believe him.

2006-11-06T08:34:00.000-08:00

If Hussein's
hanging is done in public (which I believe it will be) will you watch it on youtube? Yea or nay?

2006-10-31T20:20:00.000-08:00

Revelation as new awareness:
This is a modern sounding view. It goes something like this. Revelation is a breakthrough to a higher level of consciousness as humanity is drawn to a fuller participation in the divine creativity. We become co-creators with God.

Unlike the private, mystical religion as inner experience or encounter of the individual with God, this view shares the mysticism but is more corporate in its outlook. As we participate in the great movements of history revelation heightens and enlarges our understanding of the transcendent, of the divine. This is like seeing yourself fall into step with a movement and in it find truth.

God never reveals himself from outside by intrusion but from within by stimulation and enrichment of the human psychic current. The sound of his voice being made recognizable by the fullness and coherence it contributes to our individual and collective being. It leaves your autonomy completely intact. Revelation isn't rearranging your furniture, it is just turning the light on. It enlarges your sense of who you are.

This view then is characterized by discovery of already known truth, or re-cognition. Not the acquiring of new truth. We uncover in the poor, for example, what Jesus is and why it is that we are drawn to the poor. We discover why it is that we identify with a cause because we recognize Jesus in it.

This can be seen in many ways. An example that might strike a chord is the religious right seeing God revealed in the nationalism via the symbol of the American flag. An example is liberation theology. Here, we see Jesus as embodied in the poor. We align ourselves with this movement and in doing so get swept up in this as our revelation of God.

Another example is Jane Fonda. She purports to be a Christian. What has happened is that she has made the discovery that Jesus was a feminist. (Woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, having such great love for women when it was unpopular to do so, etc. etc.) So, she sees that Jesus now aligns with what she holds dear. Therefore she now blesses Jesus as acceptable to her while her autonomy is stronger than ever. She now recognizes Jesus as the purveyor of truth, something she was in the dark on prior to making this discovery. This feels like revelation to her.

One left.

2006-10-29T19:39:00.000-08:00

A quick stab at Karl Barth:
Barth really disliked the liberalism that elevated pietistic personal internal experience of the divine [so called] over other means of revelation. Barth attempted to stomp it out by positing the idea that God is so transcendent, so wholly other, that any revelation in a general sense is unattainable. The pietistic view holds to a hyper-immanent view of God. It had gained such a deep foothold in the church that this immanence trumped any doctrinal, systematic formulation of revelation rendering it worthless in comparison to the value and existential meaning of the revelation gained by this personal experience (contentless and incommunicable though it may be). Barth's hyper-transcendence was a reaction to this.

At the root of this view is the idea that God is so qualitatively different from his creatures that any overlap, any revelation, imparted to us, for example by analogy, is out of the question. He maintained that the only true revelation, the only true point of intersection between God and man, was in the person of Jesus Christ.

The nick-name for this view, besides being called neo-orthodoxy, was dialectic theology. The reason for this name comes from how Barth solves the problem of this radical creator-creature antithesis. He solves the problem by declaring that revelation comes in a moment of revelation. This is the moment in time when God is immediately and directly revealing himself in a univocal way. It is not that a moment of hyper-immanence occurs. The pietists claimed to experience this hyper-immanence on a permanent and ongoing basis, but significantly, it was a kind of immanence that was spatial. A kind of immanence that had to do with locating God within at a specific point in space, i.e. within me. With Barth it was a kind of immanence that has to do with univocity with respect to knowledge. God revealing himself not merely by locating himself within a person, but by allowing the creature to attain an understanding of the person of Jesus Christ.

In his view the Bible only contained revealed truth in moments of divine inspiration that the reader might get when encountering Jesus Christ in the text. Hence the idea of letting the Bible fall open and reading the first text to hit your eye. This is probably a caricature of Barth but one can see how the idea could be attributed to him. [I personally believe this idea of closing your eyes and pointing to a verse is more attributable to the idea that the Bible is a magic book of lucky charms than anything else].

Hence the term dialectic. A swing from hyper-transcendence to hyper-immanence.Wholly other, wholly hidden to wholly revealed.

Two more to go.

2006-10-27T21:16:00.000-07:00

Will this be yet another
series that I don't complete? I hope not. But, due to extenuating circumstances, the series may have to wait a little bit. (If Barth were not so hard to capture, this would not be bogging down).

In the mean time, I just had to post this quote:

I have found that while evangelicals claim to believe in absolute truth and an authoritative Bible which governs all of life, they do not live like they say they believe. They say they believe the Bible is the Word of God, but somehow, strangely, the Bible always says what satisfies their personal psychological and emotional needs. They say they worship an awesome God, but their deity is not one to be feared, because He is pretty much nonjudgmental, always quick to point out your good qualities, and will take whatever He can get in terms of your commitment to Him. He’s “God lite”—not the imposing deity before whom Israel trembled at the foot of Mt. Sinai, but the sort of deity who is always there to give you fresh supplies of upbeat daily therapy. And as for God’s people, well, they are really just like everyone else—no more holy or righteous than the rest of us. Put them in the crucible of character, and they’ll fold like a cheap suitcase.

Watching sermons reduced to PowerPoint presentations or listening to one easily forgettable praise song after another makes one long for an evangelical willing to stand up, Luther-like, and proclaim his opposition to the latest survey of evangelical taste. So anxious is evangelicalism to copy the culture of hotel chains and popular music that it loses what religious distinctiveness it once had.

Now, had he been observing the kind of church in which they resemble going to court where you stand before the judge and hear him pronounce the sentence of death on you for your incurable and repeated capital offenses, followed by the remarkable sentence of pardon in Jesus Christ due to his active obedience and his propitiating death on the cross, I venture to say he might have written something different.

2006-10-26T19:30:00.000-07:00

You'll have to forgive
me for not keeping up the pace. The fourth view is quite difficult to convey, unlike the first three which were simple and easy. To answer my sister, who wants to see a both/and solution, she is getting abit ahead. The deal is that the first three won't allow this. Each one is what it is because they all exclude any other options. By definition, the third approach to revelation rejects the objective nature of the first two. The first two, by definition, have no place for the pure subjectivity of the third.

All I can do at this time is introduce the fourth view. This view is a reaction to the third. The third view is the hallmark of classic liberalism that flourished in the mid 19th century - especially in Europe. Friedrich Schleiermacher is the poster boy for the movement.

Early in the 20th century, Karl Barth, in an attempt to restore the church to orthodoxy and bearing an extreme dislike for liberal Christianity, formulated his views. He rejected both the objectivism of the first two views and rejected the subjectivism of the third view. (Seemingly dashing Barbara's hopes of a felicitous blending of the two). Barth courageously stood up to the liberalism rampant in Europe, defying the trends and was eventually exiled by Hitler. He is most famous for his response to a reporter's query about, after all was said and done in his illustrious and difficult career as a theologian, what he knew for sure. His response was: "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so".

As soon as I figure out what his view of revelation was, I will report it here.

2006-10-23T19:18:00.000-07:00

Revelation as inner experience:
God as guest. Neither a body of truths nor a series of events, revelation is a matter of privileged communion with God. It assumes immediate experience. Immediate means unmediated experience. Directly with God. His spirit and my spirit. The naked God. God is spirit and when my spirit merges with God's spirit we have communion. (Nicely put by the refrain: "You ask me how I know he lives, he lives within my heart." Editorial note: Notice the key phrase "how I know". The question how do you know is even below what a doctrine of revelation is all about. This song provides not just a view of revelation, but it also is an epistemology. This song expresses this view of revelation even better, especially the last line of the chorus.)

Revelation is interior because God, not having phenomenal existence, (meaning God doesn't exist in the physical world in any sensible way) can only reveal himself to spirit.

This stress on the interior of man's spirit is aided by the practice of spiritual disciplines. There the goal is to facilitate going deeper within where the merging of God's spirit with our own results in finding the Lord inside.

Revelation doesn't come in the form of a doctrine, an external announcement. Revelation comes in the form of an inward experience. A sharp distinction is drawn between faith as the acceptance of revelation and belief as the acceptance of doctrine.

The content of this revelation is neither publically announced events which have taken place outside us in history nor publically presented interpretations of those events. It is to find God revealed personally within and desires foremostly to know only God. It does not desire to know about God, but only to know God.

In sum, the site of revelation is within us. The site of revelation is not outside of us. The indwelling Christ is the highest authority in this model - the Christ within, not the Christ without. The contrast is the outer word, the external word versus the inner word, the Holy Spirit, who speaks to our hearts.

2006-10-22T21:25:00.000-07:00

Revelation as history or
God as actor. This view maintains that God reveals himself primarily in his great deeds, especially those which form the major themes of Biblical history. The Bible and the official teaching of the church are considered to embody revelation only to the extent that they are reliable reports as to what God has done. So the real revelation takes place in the form of acts, actions. Only actions are in a proper sense revelation. So, for example, the Exodus event is a revelation. The words about the Exodus, the reports about the Exodus are human fallible witnesses to the events. It is the events that are revelation. What's revelatory is the event itself. Words are not revelatory, actions are. And the interpretation of those events are not revelatory.

Properly stated it works like this: "The revelation to which scripture attests is a self manifestation by God in historical events, not information about God stated in divinely stated doctrines or concepts."

The recurrent theme in this approach is the priority of event over interpretation. It wants to be rigorously objective. It gives a lot of space to event. Creeds and doctrines in this view depend upon the prior events of revelation from which they are derived. The events are always richer than what can be said about them. There are no revealed truths. However a naked historical event is not in itself revelation. It is only revelation when the events are understood as disclosures of God.

The Bible is not primarily the word of God but the record of the acts of God together with the human responses elicited by those acts.

For example, you have to start with the humanity of Jesus and work your way to his deity, not the other way around. A Christology from below not a Christology from above. And to do that you start with the resurrection. Christianity stands or falls with the resurrection of Jesus. That is the act of God par excellence. That's the most significant act of God. Redemptive events in history don't belong to a salvation history, they just belong to world history. And it [Jesus' resurrection] is a self interpreting event. Jesus is raised from the dead on the third day and this is a fact that can be read off the surface of world history. It ought to be written in history books just like the battle of Waterloo.

So, again, the Bible is a report of these events. It is not in and of itself revelation.

2006-10-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

Is this what revelation is?

Revelation as doctrine, or God as teacher. Revelation according to this view is principally found in clear propositional statements attributed to God as authoritative teacher. Basically this is the view of Roman Catholic neo-scholasticism, Thomism (i.e. Thomas Aquinas) and also of protestant evangelicalism. Revelation for these orthodox evangelicals is thus equated with the meaning of the Bible taken as a set of propositional statements each expressing a divine affirmation valid always and everywhere. Carl Henry states that God is revealed "in the whole canon of scripture which objectively communicates in propositional verbal form the content and meaning of all God's revelation. - God's revelation is rational communication conveyed in intelligible ideas and meaningful words; that is, in conceptual verbal form." Henry approvingly quotes Gordon Clark "aside from imperative sentences, and a few exclamations in the Psalms, the Bible is composed of propositions." Henry writes, "theology consists essentially in the repetition, combination and systematization of the truth of revelation in its propositionally given biblical form."

Note: the reference above to "protestant evangelicalism" refers to it in its broadest sense. That is, mainline protestant denominations (liberals) and also the broad spectrum of conservative (red state) believers. This is an assertion which you as an individual with your own opinion may not agree with. EDIT: By that I mean you might not agree that this is the predominant view held by Protestant evangelicals.

2006-10-20T21:38:00.000-07:00

You have all heard, read or believed
that revelation comes in two flavors. One is general revelation. This revelation is available to all via creation (nature) and bears with it no redemptive stamp. The other is special revelation. This revelation is called special for at least three reasons. One is that it is directly associated with the Bible. Another is that it takes faith somehow to appropriate it, which faith is not available to all. The third is that its content is in all ways about redeeming dead sinners, reconciling them to God.

I don't know about you, but I have recently had reason to question (put under a microscope) my own understanding of this special revelation. First, how has it, this special revelation, transpired in my own mind and understanding? Second, as a result of this, I have begun to ask whether this "revealing" that is supposed to have been transpiring has in fact actually done so in my own case. You should not equate this questioning with doubting. This is an entirely different thing. You would think this "revelation" would be a constantly ongoing, astounding, earth shattering thing in one's "walk". Or is it just a one-time deposit that you live on. Revelation must be different from learning, mustn't it? Or is it?

Anyway, stay tuned for a few quick suggestions as to what this revelation is or how it works. Maybe you can identify yours as I try to identify how various people have tried to explain how this works.

2006-10-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

What do you think
of this short article?

“[T]hou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.” Revelation 3:1

Many churches (both conservative and liberal) lack any real life. They go through the motions of religion, but they experience little of holy supernaturalism in their Sunday meetings — or any other time, for that matter. There is almost no passion. Shouts of praise and joy, tears of love and repentance, hands raised in holy supplication — these are too emotional; too individualistic; too immature; well, too embarrassing. We must at all costs have a respectable and sophisticated religion, and our power has declined as our respectability and sophistication have escalated.

In this sense, our churches bear little resemblance to the primitive Church we encounter in the Bible.

They also bear little resemblance to its world-conquering exploits.

Recently I’ve spoken with members of what is generally regarded as the most conservative Presbyterian denomination in the nation. They’re told me that their churches are filled (make that, half-filled) with mostly elderly saints and that their Sunday “worship” (I’ve yet to find in the Bible any proof that Sunday is specially designed for worship) is all done decently and in order — and with absolutely no life.

Meanwhile, the sanctuaries of many charismatic and evangelical churches are glut with youth. The errors of these churches are many and obvious. The attraction of these churches is also obvious: breezy entertainment, lowest-common-denominator theology, superficiality — and life. We do well to recall that we can purge the entertainment, ratchet up the theology, and correct the superficiality in living churches.

But we can’t resuscitate ecclesiastical corpses, no matter how theologically pristine they are.

Our older denominations (again, both conservative and liberal) are dying. Denominationalism, with all of its bureaucratic tentacles and well-oiled machinery, will probably expire within a century. This death will be healthy for the Church, which did not begin with denominations and has never needed them. The local Church as the covenant community of saints and its weekly Lord’s Day celebration of the His resurrection and His call to victory trump comatose denominationalism every time.

A living Church is a Church replete with holy passion and answered prayer and ecstatic joy and potent tears and vexing problems and theological arguments and all the other things that make for life.

“Pro-life” should denote more than anti-abortion.

It should also denote anti-ecclesiastical corpses.

Thumbs up or thumbs down? Any guess as to who wrote it?

2006-09-25T22:40:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in my
chair studying while listening to what is probably in my top three of favorite operas, Idomeneo, by Mozart. So, I take a quick break and cruise over to drudgereport.com and see a link to this article.

This more or less proves that I don't pay much attention to the libretto, which in this case is sung in Italian.

And on a completely different topic, I have a question for one of my readers who absolutely must know its answer. Is U2's Bono's name pronounced so as to rhyme with Sonny Bono, or more like bonnet or bon-fire or St. Bonaventure or I'll have one of those bon-bons, or bon-voyage or [shall I stop?]?

Chris Berman on Monday night football, introduced the halftime show which, he said, consisted of U2 and Bonno.

2006-09-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

I decided to lock down
my transcriptions of the Christian Mind class I am taking. Email me if you want the password. I am generally making these available to family, friends and other WSCAL students.

Incidentally, my previous post was very nearly my last:
This is the exact date and supplier of the e-coli spinach. It was in our fridge waiting to go in one of our lunch salads. Deb heard a voice that shouted out: "Give this to him and collect the insurance!!" Hearing this she immediately knew it was the alluring voice of the devil and she tossed it in the garbage. I made her dig it out for this photo.

2006-09-14T12:41:00.000-07:00

Not much forthcoming
from my pen, huh? Well, I have been real busy with school. I am recording all the lectures for the Christian Mind class I am taking. Then I transcribe the lectures to file which I am posting at my classnotes.wordpress.com blog. Eventually I will get the actual tapes up for listening. I highly recommend that all my friends take a listen (or read them for now). It will help you know the Bible better and secondarily, it will help you know me better. Remember that they arrive in reverse order so if you want to start at the beginning, you should scroll down.

What I had been planning on doing is writing a small piece on each of the parallel verses between Job and the NT. I may get to that but at the moment, transcribing the recorded lectures is quite time consuming. Plus, soon I will be officially behind on my reading for that class. The only reason I am not behind already is that I started reading the assigned books last summer.

2006-09-05T21:03:00.000-07:00

Here's a quote from a
recent article about the San Diego Charger linebacker (Steve Foley) who was shot [with bullets] in his most recent altercation with authority figures (in this case an off duty cop).

Foley was shot near his home in Poway, an upscale San Diego suburb.

I just thought you might like to know that I found Poway to be a little too, shall we say, downscale for my tastes and moved out 20 months ago.

2006-08-29T17:55:00.000-07:00

A few thoughts on the first of the nine:

Job 9:33 vs. 1 Tim 2:5

Probably the most obvious pairing of Job with Jesus is this one. This verse in Job comes in the middle of Job's response to Bildad's first rant (chapter 8). Notice especially verse 4 in chapter 8. Here, Bildad gets on Job's good side right off the bat by outright damning his dead kids. Job, earlier, has stated that what happened to him was what he feared most. I believe that he was referring to his practice of making sacrifices after each of his kid's parties in case they had sinned during them. Obviously, Job believed it was highly probable that they were in fact sinning, and obviously they were killed before he could perform his priestly duty. Bildad piles on.

Amazingly, (although we know already that Job was a fine upstanding man!) Job pretty much ignores Bildad and gets on with chapter nine, which mostly features a man stripped of his vain imaginations about God and who is left with the fact of God's transcendence. To wit: 1) he doesn't answer your questions 2) he works all the marvels of nature but is completely indiscernable by humans in any direct way (Job knows God is both immanent and transcendent at the same time!) 3) in a courtroom scenario things go poorly for man even to the point that Job seems to be accusing God of being unjust.

In 9:22 Job nails the negative side of Mt 5:45. Whereas Jesus points out common grace in the sermon on the mount, Job is accutely tuned into the common curse.

In 9:27-28 Job lays waste to the notion that death ain't so bad; I'll just choose to be joyful and lay aside my grief.

In 9:30-31 Job assures us that our attempts at works righteousness (which surely has to include climbing the spiritual ladder) not only fail but leave us in a worse condition than if we hadn't even bothered. Note the reference to the repeated theme in scripture of being clothed as a symbol of imputed righteousness here, and here, and here and here.

All this leads up to Job's plea for that which would solve many of the forgoing problems.

Rather than go any further, I leave you to ponder the great unity in scripture which is so strongly hinted at in just one chapter of one book in the Bible.

2006-08-24T20:43:00.000-07:00

What do you think?:
a) Job 9:33 vs. 1 Tim 2:5
b) Job 14:14 vs. John 11:25
c) Job 16:19 vs. Heb 9:24
d) Job 19:25 vs. Heb 7:25
e) Job 23:3 vs. John 14:9
f) Job 31:35 vs. Heb 12:22-24
g) Job 40:4 vs. Mt 16:26
h) Job 42:5-6 vs. Mt 4:17
i) Job 23:10 vs. James 1:12

2006-08-23T22:59:00.000-07:00

This is a test
to shake up blogger. My site has been down for about a week.

2006-08-09T21:14:00.000-07:00

Here is the fine work of my
unemployed most significant wife. The problem was wanting a photo of four sisters with no fellow tourist around (they usually botch it anyway) and no tripod. This is what Big D came up with:

2006-08-08T22:08:00.000-07:00

We interrupt the steady
stream of annoying posts on religious themes to bring you a rare political update. Normally I refrain from this kind of stuff but this time I just can't stop myself. The reason is that the subject matter is just too close to home.

This will be brief though. I asked Big D what she thought of the photoshopped images coming out of the latest mid-east skirmish. She said they were hack jobs. I said that if she had been in charge of doctoring those photos, no one would have caught on.

I've been trying to get her to bring down the big bucks with her photo editing skills so I can retire but, no go so far. Maybe Reuters can hire her to screen all the edited photos that come through their bureau and fix them up so they can continue their fine reporting. She could telecommute.

This reminds me that I am way overdue for posting a photo. Stay tuned.

2006-08-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

Here is an excerpt from
a book I have on my bookshelf. Before copying this excerpt, here is the text the author refers to: "Mark 1:14-15 And after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."

Here, in blue, are the paragraphs I want to bring to your attention. I will be leaving some of it out and adding bracketed words in black for the purpose of making things flow a bit and to make it easier to understand without having the whole book in front of you:

Jesus' opening challenge as reported in the gospels was that people should "repent and believe". This is a classic example of a phrase whose meaning has changed over the years. If I were to go out on the street in my local town and declare that people should "repent and believe", what they would hear would be a summons to give up their private sins (one suspects that in our culture sexual misbehavior and alcohol or drug abuse would come quickly to mind) and to get "religion". But that is by no means exactly what the phrase "repent and believe" meant in first century Galilee.

How are we to unlearn our meaning for such a phrase and hear it through first century ears? It helps if we can find another author using it around the same place and time as Jesus. Consider, for example, the Jewish aristocrat and historian, Josephus, who was born a few years after Jesus' crucifixion and who was sent in A.D 66 as a young army commander to sort out some rebel movements in Galilee. His task was to persuade the hot-headed Galileans to stop their mad rush into revolt against Rome and to trust him and [other diplomats that they could be doing wiser things with their energies]. So, when he confronted the rebel leader, he told him to give up his own agenda and trust him, Josephus, instead. And the word he uses are [sic] remarkably familiar to readers of the gospels: He told the brigand leader to "repent and believe in me".

-Skipping ahead a bit-

Even if we end up suggesting that Jesus meant more than Josephus did - that there were indeed religious and theological dimensions to his invitation - we cannot suppose that he meant less. He was telling his hearers to give up their agendas and trust him for his way of being Israel, his way of bringing the kingdom, his kingdom-agenda. In particular, he was urging them, as Josephus had, to abandon their crazy dreams of nationalist revolution.

Thus endeth the reading of the commentator on Mark 1:14-15.

While some of you might know who wrote the above excerpts, I am not going to divulge the author's name, at least not now. My questions are these: 1) what do you think of that hermeneutical method? 2) what do you think of the conclusions drawn by one who used that method? 3) what did Jesus mean in Mark 1:14-15? I will give you 45 minutes and at that time a proctor will come around and collect your papers. (Welcome to seminary!)

2006-07-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

It's the heat
that is responsible for my lack of posts. However, I feel forced to supply our readers with West Coast stuff since the main supplier of blog material is on a hiatus. (However, if you haven't seen it you should check out this blogger coming out of semi-retirement.) You will have to be content with my sighting of the best personalized license plate I have ever seen. Here it is:

NTROEPY

Get it?

2006-07-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

We decided to escape the heat
by driving downtown with our new picnic basket for a snack at Seaport Village. You know - cool ocean breeze, shade tree etc. It was 101 in downtown San Diego. It wasn't really too bad by the bay, though. With the strong breeze and in the shade it was tolerable.

Getting back to RB was a shocker. 113 degrees. That ties a personal record for us in SoCal. It was 113 the day Reuben flew from California to Baltimore for his first semester at Johns Hopkins. The difference between then and now is that today the wind is blowing from the ocean. Back those many years ago it was a desert wind.

2006-07-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

Take a timeout
from religious material to view a highlight reel of Italian soccer player of recent notoriety, Mr. Materazzi right here. The idea is that heretofore we thought that Zidane was the only sinner in soccer. Some are surprised to learn that he is not alone in this regard.

2006-07-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

We have nation X of ideology A.
We have nation Y of ideology B. Living in nation Y is a third ideology C - which happens to be the one true ideology, namely Christianity. Ideology C makes up roughly 40 percent of the population of nation Y. Ideology B makes up roughly the other 60 percent of nation Y.

Ideology B of nation Y has set up a self proclaimed theocracy where the sacred and the secular coincide. Ideology B, being bestial in its very nature turns nation Y bestial. Inspired by its B ideology nation Y does two things. It violates nation X and its A ideology but it also violates those people within its own borders who hold to ideology C, namely the Christians. Christians within nation Y cry out to God saying "How long" must we go on before you deliver us from the tortures of those that hate you and us?

Meanwhile, nation X has had it up to here with nation Y and decides to lower the boom on nation Y. Christians in nation Y see this development as the long awaited deliverance by their God.

Sadly, news comes forth that nation U - the boss nation - has issued an edict and applies political pressure on nation X that forces it to withdraw from lowering the boom on nation Y. Christians in nation Y are devastated. They ask "why did our deliverance fail to materialize like we had so hoped?" The answer comes: Nation U has become convinced that nation X is unjust in their actions to lower the boom on nation Y.Christians in nation Y ask how it was that nation U has become convinced of this. The answer comes: government officials in nation U have read a report defining what a just war is and were so convinced by it that they had no choice but to intervene and stay the boom-lowering hand of nation X. Christians in nation Y ask who it was that wrote this report. The answer: Christians in nation U.

Developing . . . .

2006-07-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

Take a few minutes to read
this very well known passage from Romans. Several years ago I preached a "sermon" in the San Diego county jail on this passage. In my crass way, I made the statement that this passage demonstrated that the apostle Paul was basically admitting that he had problems no different from a drug addict. (You gotta' remember that most of my audience was comprised of drug addicts who always did what they didn't want to do and I wanted to get them to identify with the Bible and see that their way out was Jesus Christ.) I remember one guy in the back was basically mortified that I would point out this flaw in an apostle. Overlooking the likelihood that I at least exaggerated the case, consider that I may have been flat out wrong. That is the position held by a great many exegetes of scripture today. They say that Paul was possibly speaking of himself prior to his conversion, or he was speaking of unbelievers in general and using himself as a foil to make a point.

The following is what Charles Finney [you might want to follow that link when you get a chance] had to say about this passage:
"Those who find their own experience written in the seventh chapter of Romans are not converted persons. If that is their habitual character, they are not regenerated, they are under conviction, but not Christians . . . . You see, from this subject, the true position of a vast number of church members. They are all the time struggling under the law. They approve of the law, both in its precept and its penalty, they feel condemned, and desire relief. But still they are unhappy. They have no Spirit of prayer, no communion with God, no evidence of adoption. They only refer to the 7th chapter of Romans as their evidence. Such a one will say, `There is my experience.' Let me tell you, that if this is your experience, you are yet in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity. . . . You are yet carnal, sold under sin, and unless you embrace the gospel you will be damned."

My purpose for bringing this up is not to hash out the correct answer. It is to ask you how you would go about getting the correct answer.

a) Logic: I know I am saved, yet I feel that Paul's writing here describes my experience/feelings therefore I am going to go with Paul literally describing himself as a regenerate believer. [I'm OK, Paul's OK.]

b) I am going to exegete the text to the best of my ability including looking at the surrounding couple of chapters in Romans and hope to figure it out.

c) I am going to do b) above and also see how my conclusions fit into my systematic theology especially as it is informed by Paul's views on sanctification and other passages in the Bible by other writers as well.

d) Doctrine isn't that important. As long as my relationship with God is okay [and as long as church gets out well before the football game comes on TV] I don't plan on getting worked up over this passage.

HT to Riddleblog where this topic and Finney's quote came up. Go there for the kind of quality exegesis you won't find here.

BTW, this topic I believe underscores yet another place where a correct doctrine of sanctification shows its great importance.

2006-07-10T19:45:00.000-07:00

I think
there are three things you can take away from the discussion on intrusion ethics. The first is an appreciation for the big picture. Biblical theology is a way of looking at the bible that sees the history of the people of God under his sovereign control growing from a mustard seed like beginning into a full blown tree. Rather than dwelling in systematic theology issues (they have their own valuable place), biblical theology can be a great faith builder as you see how God works through history, as recorded in the bible, to bring his plans to pass. Seeing Israel in this way provides a strong picture of God operating purposefully.

Coming out of this view, the second thing you can take away is a different understanding of Israel and the function they had in redemptive history. Seen in this light, the two kingdom doctrine becomes prominent. As a theocracy, Israel was not a missionary institution, and were not exemplars for ethics in the church today.

Finally, this approach serves to highlight the question of who is my neighbor in the age between the first coming and the second coming (consummation). If you have an enemy you now know exactly what your relationship to him should be. Not knowing this side of the consummation whether your enemy is elect or not is enough for you to pray for him rather than hate him. (If you enemy is within the visible church, how much more clear can this be?)

2006-07-05T18:44:00.000-07:00

Gearing up for the
application of intrusion ethics, I interrupt the topic with this famous quote:
"We are full of thanks to God that he, as Lord of history, has given us A)_________, our leader and savior from our difficult lot. We acknowledge that we, with body and soul, are bound and dedicated to the B)___________ and to its C)___________. This bondage and duty contains for us, as evangelical Christians, its deepest and most holy significance in its obedience to the command of God." And its partner quote: "To this turn of history we say a thankful Yes. God has given him to us. To him be the glory. As bound to God's word, we recognize in the great events of our day a new commission of God to His Church."

Your task is to fill in A,B, and C. Hint: A) is a name; B) is an entity; C) is a title.

2006-06-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

Israel was a theocracy. This
is not up for debate really. What may be debated is what a theocracy is. I like this definition from G. Vos Biblical Theology, page 125.

The theocracy never was intended to be a missionary institution in its Old Testament state. The significance of the unique organization of Israel can be rightly measured only by remembering that the theocracy typified nothing short of the perfected kingdom of God, the consummate state of Heaven. In this ideal state there will be no longer any place for the distinction between church and state. The former will have absorbed the latter . . . . The fusion between the two spheres of secular and religious life is strikingly expressed by the divine promise that Israel will be made 'a kingdom of priests and an holy nation' [Ex. 19:6]. As priests they are in, nay, constitute the kingdom.

Three things stand out in this definition. The first is that he sees Israel typifying the consummated, perfected kingdom of God - the state of heaven itself. The second is the idea that a theocracy consists in a completely overlapped, cotermination of the holy and the secular realms. The third is the idea that the theocracy was never intended to have a missionary impact on the surrounding culture.

How this bears on the intrusion argument is that the ethical propositions that seem to conflict with the decalogue are explained by the idea that "who is my neighbor" has a different answer in the consummation than the New Covenant age. The New Covenant age is clearly between the theocratic age and the age to come, even though we are also being built up as a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 1 Peter 2:9.

2006-06-23T20:54:00.000-07:00

What is your guess
as to how many years transpired between Cain's murder of his brother Abel and the Israelite's conquest of Canaan? The number should be quite large, I would think. No one knows but most OT scholars reject Usher's dating schemes which come up with about 3000 to 4000 years or so. Realistically, the number is a lot higher. Whatever it is (and I think a number like 100,000 years is not without its merits) that number of years is how long God's common grace institution of the state had been in operation prior to Canaan's fall. In other words, God's providence had enabled man's ability to govern with normal due process. It was God's care of mankind, both the reprobate line of Satan's seed (starting with Cain) and the elect line of the seed of the woman (starting with Seth) that brought stability and normalcy to the human project, more and more wicked though it gradually became.

Archaeological discoveries have shown that nations with sophisticated governmental processes existed and formed numerous treaties (covenants) among themselves. An attack by a single nation like that of the Israelites on Canaan (and the other -ites) was from the perspective of common grace due process an unjust war. It was a holy war. It was an intrusion upon the common grace stage of the consummation's dual function of curse/blessing. Curse for the doomed seed of Satan and blessing for the elect in Christ.

My use of the term savage is warranted only from my contention that God's providence is what made possible the common grace state institution in the first place. It was his own law that he was upholding in the affairs of men for thousands of years that permits us to step back and see what was happening from an upper level.

The phrase: might makes right actually seems to fit very well here.

2006-06-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

Adam's involvement in this
will be quick and painless. I bring him up to get you used to the idea of consummation. What do you think was Adam's state prior to his fall? Had he attained the ultimate in all that human's can hope for? Or was he in a probationary state?

You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that I contend (along with the Reformers) that he was on probation. Probation means that one is awaiting an outcome prior to being either DQ'ed or being promoted. Had he passed his probation, the consummation would have occurred right then and there. However, in that case, the consummation would have only consisted in ultimate blessing for him and all his progeny - all those over whom he was the federal head.

He of course failed his probation. Again, the consummation could have occurred right then and there. Owing to his failure, that consummation would have been ultimate judgment. God was not satisfied with that outcome. He desires to deliver that ultimate blessing. His desire to bless and his demand for justice however had brought about two things. One, is that the consummation will consist in both blessing and curse destruction. The other is that the consummation had to be delayed.

Now what was it that made this delay possible? Common grace. Not saving grace but grace common to all men. Both the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.

Common grace is the stage, eschatological consummation is the goal. In fact the eschatological consummation) goal shows up in the grand drama of history before any notion of the salvation of the elect from the curse destruction.

2006-06-16T18:22:00.000-07:00

I'm not done,
yet. I do realize that I threw out the study on intrusion in an inflammatory manner. That is my style and I probably should ratchet my colorful use of the language if I don't want to lose half my audience. I also realize that I more or less started in the middle. Without some biblical theology context, buying into my argument is a bit tougher. Note: this is not my argument, actually. It is also not all that esoteric either. The basic approach has been around for ages.

Themes that require development to buttress the argument are as follows:
- Adam's probation and what it means.
- Eschatology and how it plays in at the very beginning.
- The importance of common grace and how all of history is possible because of it.
- What a theocracy is.
- That OT Israel is a theocracy
- That OT Israel is the typological consummated kingdom of heaven
- As such, Israel is an intrusion of the consummation onto the common grace stage of history.
- The New Covenant era is less of a typifier of the coming consummation age than the OT era.

Once this is laid out, the controversial "intrusion ethics" becomes almost a footnote to all the above Biblical Theology themes listed.

I also realize that the above development is something that practically nobody cares about these days. But, don't forget, I also have a "so what" section planned. Each of the above will be given a very short treatment, so check back.

2006-06-12T20:59:00.000-07:00

These articles
are about intrusion ethics. Here is the idea: After Adam (and his wife Eve) failed their probationary assignment, God could have immediately brought an end to his project and transitioned directly into the consummation period. To do so exactly at that time would have meant that Adam's failure would have aborted the inheritance promised to Christ. Consequently, God delayed the consummation period. The drama of history would be played out on a stage extending over a great many years. The stage for this great drama is the stage of common grace. The necessity of the instituting of common grace centered around the enmity between the two lines - the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. The shape of common grace first appears in the story of Cain and his plea after being indicted for the murder of his brother. God's response is to create the common grace institution of the state. (These verses surely indicate how densely packed the word of God is). The reformed consensus here is that, because of this verse, the primary function of the state is due process. Vigilante justice (what Cain most feared) was outlawed. Perhaps Paul had this verse in mind in Rom 13:1-4.

This background data may seem unrelated to the earlier articles. But the purpose for introducing this topic is to highlight the stage that history plays out on. It was this common grace stage that is intruded upon by the examples I have shown. These ethical dilemmas are each in their own way an intrusion of the consummation age onto the common grace stage.

This is most obvious in the case of the Israelite murder and pillaging of the land of Canaan and the "ites". Given the justice department (state) instituted by God as a protection even to the reprobate line (Cain) of Satan, there is no way that the Israelites can not be viewed as butchers. Unless there is something else going on here. The thesis is that at various times in redemptive OT history, the eschatological consummation breaks in onto the common grace stage, prefiguring the end. In the consummation, the question "who is my neighbor" has a completely different answer. So, Israel's treatment of their Canaanite neighbors was not primarily justice being meted out. (There is that element, of course, since the "ites" needing punishing and because He had to fulfill his land promise to Abraham).

There was zero due process. Israel was not in any sense operating as "the state". It was by all accounts an unjust war. It was realized eschatology (a spoiler, in dramatic terms) for the "day of the Lord". (If that last verse gives you the willies, try this one).

I'll resume next time with some more detail and a look at some of the other examples.

2006-06-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

Here is the final
example. Read this story. Here, in the story of the poor man Lazarus, the principle of neighborliness is obliterated. No longer is it the right thing even to assuage the thirst of the suffering in such a slight way.

These stories in juxtaposition unlock the entire mystery that I have posited.

Over the next few posts, I will attempt to explain what these stories teach us and finally I will attempt to answer the question you may be asking: "So what?" In other words, how does this apply to my life as a Christian?

2006-06-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

Just a few more
examples before I wrap this up. How hard is it to reconcile this proscription of harlotry with God's wonderful plan for Hosea's life? After reading of the order to kill a son, just about any of these ethical collapses become pretty easy to swallow. No?

2006-06-07T21:17:00.000-07:00

Some of these articles
may be pointing out surprising things in scripture that you may not have previously noticed. Israel's assault on Canaan (and all the other "ites") is certainly not one of those. That episode is both a very well known story and is also not without some fairly obvious explanations. So too is this next story. But this one is the most shocking of all, at least in my view.

God ordered Abraham to kill his son. It kind of amazes me how readers, myself foremostly included, can become inured to what is going on here. Rather than being shocked, we settle in to rationalizations (nodding approval) which surface due to the typology of the cross event that we readily see here. Then, rather than being shocked at the cross event, we noddingly approve of what is going on there also.

The question is how can it be that in one breath God orders the execution of Abraham's child and in a later breath lays down the law that says if a parent executes his child to the god Molech, that parent shall be executed? It should go without saying that this sort of murderous killing had long been excoriated. Are you satisfied with the argument that the typological purpose of this episode justifies the killing of one's own child?

If you stick with me, this project's aim will come clear. I have just a couple more examples after which I will wrap it up with the point.

2006-06-06T21:19:00.000-07:00

The next place to look
into for this project is Leviticus 4. This passage in Leviticus is the beginning of a lengthy series of prescriptions for what to do about sin - sin of all sorts. The idea is that by performing sin offerings, atonement is made for the one who has sinned. Right relationship is restored between God and the sinner.

Here is the odd thing. Sitting side by side with these prescriptions for how to handle sin there are numerous cases presented where making a sin offering is not an option. Starting in Leviticus 7 and resuming in Leviticus 17 is the re-introduction of the phrase "cut off". I say re-introduction because the idea of being cut-off has already made several appearances earlier in the story. (Worth looking up: Gen 9 and Gen 17). Certain sins are to result in the guilty party being cut off from the covenant people. This is obviously a bad thing. A slow death.

Further on in the book of Leviticus, things get very serious. Certain other sins are to result in the guilty party being killed on the spot. And in some cases, the guilty parties are killed in an unmediated fashion: i.e. God is the one who performs the execution.

So my first question is why is it that this elaborate system of sin offerings is not effectual for all sin? Why did God not allow a way for these other sins to be atoned for? My second question is how do these Leviticus passages instruct us.

2006-06-04T22:18:00.000-07:00

Continuing with the
theme that is touched on by David's approach to his enemies in the Psalms and the word's of Christ that says we should love our enemies and pray for them, I present to you this: Read Exodus 20, specifically verses 13 and 15. Now read Deuteronomy 3:1-7. Here we have both murder and stealing. Of course, this is not the only example of this kind of "atrocity" in Israel's dark past.

What say ye? The apparent contradiction (God speaking with a forked tongue) as well as history scream out for an answer in view of the fact that these "crimes" have cast a long shadow down the corridors of time. Surely these Jews are not very neighborly.

2006-06-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

How do you resolve
this glaring contradiction in the Bible? Read Psalm 69 especially verses 18-28. Now read Luke 6:27-35. How do you deal with this? This is a significant issue in light of the organic connection between David and the one who was to sit and now is sitting on David's throne.

2006-06-01T21:01:00.000-07:00

I almost quit
school after a long dry spell in the spring of 2005 (when I sat out a semester). I had to muster a concrete decision to return in the fall of '05. As you know, I did go back. My specific reason for returning was that I wanted to learn of what Jesus referred to on the road to Emmaus when he stated that he was to be found in "Moses and all the prophets". (Also John 5:46).

In the context of how to "preach Christ from all the scriptures" that is exactly what I learned about in the fall class "Ministry of the Word". Little did I expect that that same theme would surface repeatedly in my spring class, Pentateuch. It came about in a little different way though. It became obvious that Jesus Christ is the second Adam. With a job to do. (John 17:4) What that job was is now referred to as His active obedience. This is the righteousness that is imputed to us by faith. Note: Paul wouldn't have been too out of line to refer to Christ as the third Adam. That claim is easy to make based on the well attested idea that Israel itself was a probationary group functioning in a theocracy, as was Adam, with a test to pass. Both failed of course. I guess the reason that Christ was not called the third Adam was because Israel was not really a single individual like Adam and Christ. As such, Israel had a typological role pointing back to the first Adam and forward to the second Adam.

There is a lot of other stuff I learned as well. Maybe next time. I always wondered about how the writer of Hebrews left us hung out to dry by talking about milk and meat. I concluded that meat was nowhere to be found. But that is not the case. The folks at Westminster Seminary have turned up a whole lot of it.

I am going back this fall, Lord willing.

2006-05-25T21:56:00.000-07:00

Filler alert:
I thought I would cut'n paste this paragraph from a commencement speech made a while back by Steve Jobs:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Now I ask you - how can you obey this advice without at the same time disobeying it?

2006-05-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

Pentateuch
final tomorrow. That is the reason for the lack of writing of late. I'll be back.

2006-05-05T17:29:00.000-07:00

I am playing around with Picasa -
which is a photo management software offering from Google. It has a bunch of features that may be useful. One of them is an auto-blog feature that is hooked up to blogspot. It may be hooked up to others as well, but I doubt it. It may even be that Google itself will host blogs.

I haven't posted much lately. I am too wrapped up in reading to care much about some of the things that have come down my pike. I had thought about a post on Tiger Wood's dad and what he had prophesied about Tiger. I also considered a post on the 'cultural mandate'. I suggest you Google that topic and see what you think. I also had considered writing about the CRC synod statement on what constitutes a 'just war'. What actually happened to these ideas is that my mother's 'rule #2' took over. What is that rule you ask? "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything".

The photo you see here is the staircase in the San Francisco city hall.

2006-04-24T21:45:00.000-07:00

At 45 minutes past
noon on April 24, 2006, Robert Andrew Settergren was born. He wasn't all that little either. 9-2 and 21 inches long. Lots of pretty thick dark hair. We'll see how long that lasts. I'll make you wait for dad and mom to post their photos.

2006-04-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

Here is a post geared
mostly toward my sister. I suppose many others might (and should) find it interesting because of what it pertains to. But in my sister's case, she should find it more interesting than others. When I was a senior in high-school, my sister, who I suppose had just come home for the summer from college, was reading a book which I think was titled something like "In the Twilight of Western Thought". It was written by a guy named Herman Dooyeweerd. I never, in all the 40 years that have transpired since that day, did read it or even ever figured out what good 'ol Herman was up to. Until last week.

How's that, you ask? Well, his philosophy came up in our Pentateuch class. If you want to get a quick survey of Herman Dooyeweerd, go to my other blog where I record my class notes. (I do this so that I can always find them - plus the Biblegateway verse links are great). The notes for April 18 are what I am referring to. Don't just scroll to the bottom, unless you just can't stand this stuff. The gist is that the WSCAL prof. and the whole school as far as I can tell, has a two kingdom world view and rejects the transformationalist viewpoint that wants Christianity to do a makeover on the culture.

Put your comments if any on this blog. You will notice that no one has ever commented on that blog mostly because no one really is aware of it and getting dialogue going was never its purpose.

2006-04-16T22:09:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid
growing up in the Christian Reformed Church, one of the things that all of us knew was that in addition to the authorized ten commandments, there were several others that were right up there along side them that were just as inviolable. These were, among others, dancing, movies, card playing and gambling. (To digress a bit, there was a whole set of rules that were a fallout from observing the Sabbath day. This resulted in nearly all commercial establishments being closed on Sunday. It also resulted in many paper boys not having to lug the Sunday paper around since the local CRC Dutchmen knew that God would frown on them causing these paperboys to work on the Sabbath).

I'm here to tell you that in less than a half century the denomination has swung from some seriously goofy legalism to what can only be described as new revelation from on high. According to an article in the April 2006 Banner, which is the official publication of the denomination, not only is there "no explicit biblical teaching that gambling is inherently wrong" but "what we search for in the game of poker is really just an expression of what we're meant to ultimately search for in life".

I can't spit out anything cogent having read this quote from a CRC pastor. But I don't need to. This guy said it better.

2006-04-11T19:41:00.000-07:00

Please extend a warm
welcome to the newest kid on the block.

2006-04-07T22:20:00.001-07:00

Here is some food:

Modernity has assured us that we are in the consummation, knowing good and evil without any ethical obligation except to be true to oneself. It is the autonomous voice or vision within, not the verbum externum, that we are told to heed. It is not surprising, then, that a theologian of glory like Hegel would find the faith of Israel so mundane. Vincenzo Vitiello notes, "Hegel recalls the disappointment of Pompey, who 'had approached the heart of the temple, the center of adoration and had hoped to discover in it the root of the national spirit... the life giving soul of this remarkable people... only to find himself in an empty room'". After generations had thought we were in the promised land of pure presence, postmodern thought has reminded us quite truly that "under the sun," we are in the desert, or worse, in the desert of deserts. Mark C. Taylor says that our existence is "endless straying," "erring," and "wandering." Biblical faith does not hesitate to affirm this as the form of life in this present evil age that refuses to meet a stranger, but it treats this as an ethical rather than a metaphysical problem. The pointless existence that Taylor celebrates is precisely this "empty way of life" passed down to us by our pagan ancestors from which Peter tells us we have been liberated (1 Peter 1:18). We may be in a desert, "exiles and sojourners" in this age, but Egypt is behind us even more fully than it was for the Israelites in the wilderness. The tomb is empty. We are not in an empty room but seated with Christ in the Holy of Holies. It is not a time for either the beatific vision or the funeral dirge, but for the songs of Zion as we make our way to the City of God, for the Stranger of the Emmaus road and the upper room still meets us, to bring us into his Sabbath joy by his Spirit through Word and sacrament. Even if we are in the desert rather than the promised land, it is not a desert of deserts. A theology of pilgrims will have to suffice - and does suffice, for meeting a Stranger.

from "Lord and Servant - A Covenant Christology" by Michael Horton

2006-03-22T19:35:00.000-08:00

Here are ten questions
the likes of which will be on my upcoming Pentateuch midterm.

Describe and evaluate the criteria used in the Documentary Hypothesis for distinguishing the alleged Pentateuchal sources.
Present an historical survey of the literary criticism of the Pentateuch from Wellhausen to the present.
Discuss the interpretation of the chronological data in the Genesis Creation Record (e.g. the various views of the length of the days).
Develop a definition of the Berith (covenant) arrangements in which God was one party, including evidence of ancient Near Eastern treaties.
Discuss the works principle of kingdom inheritance as operative in the covenant of creation.
Discuss the concept of covenantal canon.
Describe and evaluate the modern critical view of the formation of the Old Testament canon.
Present an interpretation of one of the following passages:

Discuss the relationship of Science to Scripture, i.e., General revelation to Special revelation.
Discuss imago Dei.

Frankly, this scares the crap out of me. Why? Because of how much time it will take to prepare for this. These questions are only representative of what may be on the test. What usually happens is that I, as test taker, will not actually directly address a specific question, unless I actually know what to say. Rather, I will just kind of give a brain dump of material that more or less is tangent to the question. But the real problem is that these questions won't necessarily be on the test. So, all my prep on these questions only will help tangentially.

2006-03-21T09:40:00.000-08:00

Gotta stir up a little
action around here. Who knows the answer to this?
Supply the missing number in this sequence of fractions:
2/5
7/3
5/10
15/9
17/?

Just give me the number. Save your explanation for later so as not to spoil it for all the whizzes amongst my readers.

2006-03-20T21:55:00.000-08:00

Another memory from my past:
This one is not quite as deep (if even the last one was). One of the things I always wanted as a kid was a walkie-talkie set. I couldn't imagine a cooler device. The thought of talking to a buddy who was a block away just enthralled me. Now, I could have gone into our dining room and made a phone call (the phone was on the wall by the back bay window) but my buddy would pretty much have to go back home to his phone so I could 'walkie-talkie' him. No fun.

I made the two soup cans connected by the string deal many times. It worked, sort of (but only if the string was held taut. Kind of limited the range). But it was free. But the real McCoy, which I know I found in catalogs, was out of my price range.

Where did this memory come from? I went to the gym today and on the tread-mill next to me was this 25 year old babe who had this super high-tech cell phone. It was definitely a case of 'look, Ma, no hands." I still don't really know what was going on. The phone itself was laying in the tread-mill junk tray. But she had some kind of giant ear-ring on that must have been a phone (a walkie-talkie of my dreams).

I know all this because she was committing the cardinal gym sin - using the cell phone while working out. Not only that, but she was having a fight with her boyfriend on the phone!

Now here is the odd part. I don't have a cell phone. It never occurred to me to get one. I guess it goes along with the modern-day definition of hermit, "someone with out a cell-phone".

Now, where are those soup cans?

2006-03-15T18:58:00.000-08:00

They say that your
life passes before your eyes at some point during a trauma where death seems immanent. I have my doubts about that since during my traumatic death engaging moment, nothing of the sort occured. (A later post, perhaps?) If it were true, however, I wonder if the specific scene I have been reflecting on would show up.

I remember how much I liked church on Sunday night. Not the preaching, not the praying, not even the hymn singing. It was the atmosphere, the lights, the quiet, the reverence, even the sleepiness. The seven-fold Amen at the end was the cherry on top of one hour in God's sanctuary. This is all true even though I probably whined about going.

For this blessing I have my parents to thank.

2006-03-08T22:25:00.000-08:00

A little quiz for my readers:
True or False - 50% of the population is below average when it comes to having a grasp of statistics.

2006-03-05T21:33:00.002-08:00

In God's providence,
I had a brief discussion with a friend on the day before the Pentateuch class began. In this conversation, he told me that his belief was that the Old Testament was fiction. While I stated that I didn't hold that view, I was not really equipped with an apologetic that could effectively counter his position.

Kenneth Kitchen's approach (in his book, The Bible In Its World) is largely to rebut the detractor's insistence that the patriarchal documents are anachronistic and therefore fiction. In order to advance the belief that the patriarchal material is of late origin, historians posit that an author or authors fabricated narratives projecting fiction into the past while relying on cultural material that was extant at the time of the composition by these authors. However, historians relying on positive parallels between patriarchal elements with late Nuzi material in support of this view wind up 'hoist with their own petard' in effect. This is true even without questioning the veracity of the supposed positive parallels, which, as Kitchen points out, have problems. Demonstrating the existence of positive parallels with much earlier material forces critics, using their previously avowed hermeneutic, to side with the Kitchen's many observations, thus crippling their original position.

By identifying personal name similarities used in the patriarch narratives which are also seen in other culture's documents (Mari, Ebla, Egypt, Babylon and others) the claim of anachronisms is weakened. Abraham's conduct within his family unit is consistent with early 2^nd millennium BC social and legal customs among family members. Abraham's involvement in the battle of the kings related to us in Genesis 14 is corroborated by the existence of numerous city-state coalitions for which Kitchen suggests a date between 2000 and 1750 BC. This also, then, helps to undermine the anachronism argument.

To make an á priori assumption that the narratives are fiction without admitting to a presuppositional bias can only be done by ignoring the evidence that is available. The existence of at least three genres of written material in Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Hittite empire provides multiple samplings of work against which the patriarchal narratives may be contrasted. These genres are the autobiographical, the quasi-historical legend (characterized according to Kitchen by a poetic epic style) and what is easily identified as fictional tales marked by a lack of detail and character placement and possessing an obvious entertainment value. The patriarchal narratives in their inherent composition do not resemble those legends which have been uncovered from the Ancient Near East. To such an extent do these narrative possess the aura of real history, that to suggest the existence at any date from1000 BC and earlier of a never before seen genre consisting of “realistic-fiction” merely exposes the depth of one's bias.

The conclusion remains with the orthodox viewpoint which is that the patriarchal narratives were written as historical documents, recording events that actually happened.

2006-03-03T21:43:00.000-08:00

You know I don't do
this very often. But here is an interview done by one WSCAL Seminarian (whom I don't know, really) of another Seminarian (whom I do know - an MIT grad who I respect quite a lot). I read it twice and find it helpful for someone trying to make sense out of how the church is supposed to relate to the culture, as inspired by an informed reading of the Bible.

If you are interested (or incensed) and want to read more, either for your own edification or to confirm your suspicion that I am not in Kansas anymore, go to this article, written by a WSCAL fellow. This links a very short write-up that is the first of about 5 articles that go into the topic more deeply than the linked interview above.

2006-02-28T23:05:00.000-08:00

Who can identify this one:

I lost my mind so long ago
I wanted everyone to know
I wanted everyone to see
My broken heart belong to me

I go beyond the thought of you
And a broken heart was nothing new
I wanted everyone to see
My broken heart belong to me

And now as autumn fills the air
I feel your spirit every where
Now my fears are coming true
My broken heart belongs to you

And now as autumn fills the air
I feel your presence every where
Now my fears are coming true
My broken heart belongs to you

Now my fears are coming true
My broken heart belongs to you

2006-02-27T09:16:00.000-08:00

Another reason to eschew
CCM in preference to your garden variety hymn of yesteryear:

Lead on, O King eternal,
The day of march has come;
Henceforth in fields of conquest
Thy tents shall be our home.
Through days of preparation
Thy grace has made us strong;
And now, O King eternal,
We lift our battle song.

Lead on, O King eternal,
Till sin’s fierce war shall cease,
And holiness shall whisper
The sweet amen of peace.
For not with swords’ loud clashing,
Nor roll of stirring drums;
With deeds of love and mercy
The heavenly kingdom comes.

Lead on, O King eternal,
We follow, not with fears,
For gladness breaks like morning
Where’er Thy face appears.
Thy cross is lifted over us,
We journey in its light;
The crown awaits the conquest;
Lead on, O God of might.

2006-02-26T20:46:00.000-08:00

Here is a quote:

"From the first, therefore, I have always said to myself, "if the battle is to be fought with honor and with a hope of victory, then principle must be arrayed against principle; then it must be felt that in Modernism the vast energy of an all-embracing life-system assails us, then also it must be understood that we have to take our stand in a life-system of equally comprehensive and far-reaching power. When thus taken, I found and confessed and I still hold, that this manifestation of the Christian principle is given us in Calvinism. In Calvinism my heart has found rest. From Calvinism have I drawn the inspiration firmly and resolutely to take my stand in the thick of this great conflict of principles."

This statement of Calvinism being a dominating principle may confuse some who only think of Calvinism in a context of TULIP, or Calvinism as a doctrine of salvation. But in actuality, Calvinism is not just "one man's opinion" about salvation but the dominating principle that in the widest possible cosmological sense, the Triune God is Sovereign over the whole cosmos, in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible.

The funny thing is that just as this battle was being won, the enemy changed uniforms. It is now not modernism that is arraying its forces against truth, it is post-modernism that we battle. In post-modernism (definitely I am no expert) the idea is that truth is variable and, as it relates to scripture, the text contains no inherent truth but it becomes true, variable, for each person, uniquely, as he encounters the text in his own way and time.This next quote seems to suggest that this approach to scripture is bankrupt from the start:

"For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world- to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice."