Brant Hansen and Underdog Theology

I like Brant Hansen because he likes underdog theology.

Dr. Ron Gleason and Reformation Day 2014

In the following video, taken at the Talbot School of Theology on the occassion of Reformation Day 2012, Dr. Ron Gleason (author of Herman Bavinck: Pastor, Churchman, Statesman, and Theologian) gives a good and solid lecture on the basic tenets that undergirded the Reformation.




However, what impressed me the most was what he said at the 7:15 mark:

"In 1980, the Lord called me to take the casket of my 4-month old son and put it into the ground as my last earthly duty as his father. And I recall going back to our home in the Netherlands, to a little village in Kampen, and literally just falling back on the bed and wiping the tears, and that verse came to my mind and I said, 'This, too, Lord?' And he said, 'Yes, this, too. This will mold you and shape you into a better person, a better Christian. This will conform you more to the image of Christ. You will be able to comfort others with the comfort with which I am going to comfort you.'"

I was reminded of an old post:

"John Calvin lost his wife and son.

John Owen had eleven children. All died in early youth, except one daughter.

Francis Turretin had four children. Only one survived." (Underdog Theology: Personal Tragedy to Apostasy, Oct. 29, 2012)

Zwingli the Flattener

"The death of Adam is not only a bodily death, even though that also came with time, for the passage 'then you will certainly die' means the following: the loss of the grace and friendship of God, the loss of the indwelling, ruling or leading of the spirit of God, the loss of the perfect order of human nature, and the fall into sin." (Huldrych Zwingli, Short Christian Instruction [1523], emphasis mine)

You can't lose what you didn't have prior.

Grace in Turretin's CoW

Dr. J. Mark Beach of Mid-America Reformed Seminary, in his PhD dissertation (undersigned by Dr. Richard A. Muller) presented to Calvin Theological Seminary, finds grace in Francis Turretin's conception of the Covenant of Works.

What now??!! LOL.

Christ and the Covenant: Francis Turretin's Federal Theology As a Defense of the Doctrine of Grace, pp. 86-90

Prelapsarian Grace in the CoW—A No Tread Zone?

Was there an element of grace in the CoW? If, as John Owen states, Adam had the Holy Spirit, was not this an indication of grace? Does this view constitute a "flattening of the COW and COG [that] will actually get you somewhere... where Christians should never tread"? What if divine grace was actually part of God's essential attributes? Should Christians really not go there?

Let's allow Dr. Richard A. Muller to provide some precision here:

Dr. Richard W. Daniels on Providence and Spiritual Desertion

Click on link: Hearts in the Hand of the Lord (An Exposition of the Savoy Declaration of Faith, Chapter V: 5-6

Hope at the End of Dr. Powlison's Rope

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Chaotic Change

The process of being conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, called sanctification, is a lifelong dynamic of the Holy Spirit revealing the nature and extent of indwelling sin, with the attendant horrors of being confronted with the reality of our ugly selves in the light of God's beautiful holiness. This also involves the Spirit leading us by the hand and incessantly reorienting our hearts and minds toward the Goal through the Gospel. Exhausted and horrified, we are grateful for the righteousness, peace, and joy that is ours in the midst of our failures and we are invigorated by undeserved grace. We get up, dust ourselves, and pursue Christ once again in grateful obedience.

The fact of the matter is that change is most often a process and seldom an event. Change happens chaotically. It comes unannounced, in fits and starts. We don't wake up and say, "Hey, I think I'll create all kinds of change today." Change is pushed upon us by a persevering Redeemer, who will not walk away from the work he has begun...He will put the need of change before us in the most inopportune moments. He will not submit to our schedule or agenda for our day. He has not promised that change will be enjoyable each time or a comfortable process over the long haul. He has promised to stay near us, giving us everything we need, and he has guaranteed that we will be more than we ever thought we could be. (He will not cease working until we are like Jesus. Now, how's that for a goal!) So, he calls us to be patient. He calls us to be willing to wait. He calls us to continue when continuing is hard, and as we are continuing, to look for any way we can to incarnate his transforming love. (Paul D. Tripp, What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage [Illinois:Crossway, 2010], 131-132)

Van Til the Street Preacher

These images of Cornelius Van Til street preaching may seem uncharacteristic of a Reformed apologist and churchman like himself. The stereotype is that numbers are added to the church through the procreation of covenant children by believing parents. While this is certainly true and not something to be embarrased about, there is also nothing un-Reformed about what Van Til did. He simply made the antithesis hit hard. What does this mean?

It means every human being is guilty and is aware of this guilt to one extent or another by virtue of being made in the image of God. Even Francis Turretin posits that there is actually no such entity as an absolute, theoretical atheist, though practical ones abound. The voice of conscience is strong in every man, condemning imperfect obedience to the Law. While the unbeliever tries incessantly to suppress this voice, the Holy Spirit uses the means of the declaration of the Law and the guilt it brings, followed by the Gospel with its attendant grace, to effect the faith that justifies. When the unbeliever is translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, he passes from one side of the antithesis to another.

So, in fact, Van Til was merely being a good agent of divine concursus!

Street Smart

It is enough for us to know that he bare our infirmities, though free from sin and undefiled. Then, as to the ancient and Levitical priests, the Apostle says, that they were subject to human infirmity, and that they made atonement also for their own sins, that they might not only be kind to others when gone astray, but also condole or sympathize with them. This part ought to be so far applied to Christ as to include that exception which he mentioned before, that is, that he bare our infirmities, being yet without sin. At the same time, though ever free from sin, yet that experience of infirmities before described is alone abundantly sufficient to incline him to help us, to make him merciful and ready to pardon, to render him solicitous for us in our miseries. The sum of what is said is, that Christ is a brother to us, not only on account of unity as to flesh and nature, but also by becoming a partaker of our infirmities, so that he is led, and as it were formed, to show forbearance and kindness. (John Calvin, Commentary on Hebrews 5:1-6)

The Lord Jesus Christ, as Mediator, was and is, as it were, street smart. He welcomed sinners to Himself in order to give of Himself to them, to unite them to Himself and thus redeem and transform them into His likeness. He was not a sheltered "pastor's kid" who recoiled at every sin and slight. He suffered the effects of sin without being contaminated by it, and thus was able to be a sympathetic Savior.

This aspect of His ministry is not among those exclusive to His charge as Christ. His undershepherds would do well to be street smart on account of His sheep.

Better Than a Pre-Fall Adam

Herman Bavinck explains how Adam, in his pre-Fall state, lacked "absolute certainty" regarding his present state of bliss and its continuity, whereas the believer in Christ, now in this present sin-ravaged age, possesses it:

Still, on the other hand, the state of the first man should not be exaggeratedly glorified as is so often done in Christian doctrine and preaching. No matter how high God placed man above the animal level, man had not yet achieved his highest possible level. He was able-not-to-sin, but not yet not-able-to-sin. He did not yet possess eternal life which cannot be corrupted and cannot die, but received instead a preliminary immortality whose existence and duration depended upon the fulfillment of a condition. He was immediately created as image of God, but he could still lose this image and all its glory. He lived in paradise, it is true, but this paradise was not heaven and it could with all of its beauty be forfeited by him. One thing was lacking in all the riches, both spiritual and physical, which Adam possessed: absolute certainty. As long as we do not have that, our rest and our pleasure is not yet perfect; in fact, the contemporary world with its many efforts to insure everything that man possesses is satisfactory evidence for this. The believers are insured for this life and the next, for Christ is their Guarantor and will not allow any of them to be plucked out of His hand and be lost (John 10:28). Perfect love banishes fear in them (1 John 4:18) and persuades them that nothing shall separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus their Lord (Rom. 8:38-39). But this absolute certainty was lacking to man in paradise; he was not, together with his creation in the image of God, permanently established in the good. Irrespective of how much he had, he could lose it all, both for himself and for his posterity. His origin was Divine; his nature was related to the Divine nature; his destiny was eternal blessedness in the immediate presence of God. But whether he was to reach that appointed destination was made dependent upon his own choice and upon his own will.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)

What a Gospel!

T.G.I.S.!

Whenever Fridays come, the social networking sites are awash with "TGIF" posts. Notwithstanding the casual and irreverent use of God's name, the sentiment speaks of the innate longing of man for rest. While work itself is not part of the curse (work is a creational mandate), the world wherein this work is done, after the Fall, is indeed cursed and makes work not devoid of pain.

What may not be privy to many who spew this banal phrase is that the weekend heralded by it is actually founded on another creational principle: the Sabbath. The 4th Commandment was kept by the Israelites even before the Mosaic Covenant was ratified, which speaks of its enduring validity, going beyond the abrogation of the said covenant.

The following posts speak of what the Sabbath is for the worn-out pilgrim: Westminster Wednesday: Refreshment for the Weary and The Weekly Antidote to Worldliness

Whereas the unbeliever exults in the opportunity to indulge more of his autonomy over the weekend, the Christian sees this time as a privilege and blessing afforded by God for making His people have a foretaste of heaven, to which they may exclaim with true reverence and gratitude, "Thank God It's Sunday!"

Sinclair Ferguson's "A Preacher's Decalogue"

I've been teaching in my church's Saturday theology and Sunday School classes for about a month now and I still can't shake off the feeling of inadequacy. Perhaps this is actually a good thing, as it keeps me begging for fresh supplies of God's grace and enablement every time I wear the teacher's moccasins. I am greatly encouraged (and surprised!) that my pastor is very supportive and has told me that the congregation actually enjoys my Sunday School classes—surprised because I can't see why. I feel that my oral communication sorely needs improvement (I have a stutter), and to hear that the people of my church profit from my blunderings is a great consolation.

Dr. R. Scott Clark told me the following, after I asked for advice following a Sunday School class wherein I particularly felt that I did a poor job: "Teaching requires practice & trust in the Lord's mercy. Real teaching is a dying to self." Needless to say, this was just what the doctor ordered. I realized that teaching is a giving of oneself to the student, done in the spirit of service, with his edification in heart and mind. From then on, I resolved to approach teaching mindful of the fact that I am serving my Lord and tending to His sheep, and performance anxiety introspection is best countered by assuming the humble posture of a servant.

The following article by Sinclair Ferguson, from Themelios (Vol. 36, Issue 2, Aug 2011), although about the preacher and preaching, I believe has wisdom to impart even to the mere teacher:

The Best from Warfield's Pen

The following may represent the greatest product of B.B. Warfield's ruminations:

It belongs to the very essence of the type of Christianity propagated by the Reformation that the believer should feel himself continuously unworthy of the grace by which he lives. At the center of this type of Christianity lies the contrast of sin and grace; and about this center everything else revolves. This is in large part the meaning of the emphasis put in this type of Christianity on justification by faith. It is its conviction that there is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ's sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only "when we believe." It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be. It is always on His "blood and righteousness" alone that we can rest. There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or that can take a place along with Him. We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace. Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we are still in ourselves just "miserable sinners": "miserable sinners" saved by grace to be sure, but "miserable sinners" still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude which the Reformers took, and that is the attitude which the Protestant world has learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to Christ.

Sourced from Dr. Carl Trueman's post at Ref21.

Liquid Tension Experiment and Michael Horton on Grace

Liquid Tension Experiment's State of Grace.

Punch-Drunk on Grace?

How many times have you heard someone claim that "Rules and regulations, do's and dont's, these don't apply to me—I'm under grace!"? While it would be too damning to call them antinomians (some may just be too punch-drunk on the notion of grace), I believe the preceding sentiment is really born out of the ignorance of the enduring significance of the law in the life of the Christian. If the law is the expression of God's moral will, then as long as God endures, the law follows suit.

Dr. Joel Beeke, talking about Calvin's doctrine of piety, offers some profitable insights on the matter:

"To promote piety, the Spirit not only uses the gospel to work faith deep within the souls of his elect, as we have already seen, but he also uses the law. The law promotes piety in three ways:

1. It restrains sin and promotes righteousness in the church and society, preventing both from lapsing into chaos.

2. It disciplines, educates, and convicts us, driving us out of ourselves to Jesus Christ, the fulfiller and end of the law. The law cannot lead us to a saving knowledge of God in Christ; rather, the Holy Spirit uses it as a mirror to show us our guilt, shut us off from hope, and bring us to repentance. It drives us to the spiritual need out of which faith in Christ is born. This convicting use of the law is critical for the believer’s piety, for it prevents the ungodly self-righteousness that is prone to reassert itself even in the holiest of saints.

3. It becomes the rule of life for the believer. 'What is the rule of life which [God] has given us?' Calvin asks in the Genevan Catechism. The answer: 'His law.' Later, Calvin says the law 'shows the mark at which we ought to aim, the goal towards which we ought to press, that each of us, according to the measure of grace bestowed upon him, may endeavor to frame his life according to the highest rectitude, and, by constant study, continually advance more and more.'" (Calvin's Piety, Mid-America Journal of Theology 15 [2004], 45)

Common to Both the CoW and the CoG: Justice

"Grace is of course the term we use for the principle operative in the gospel that was missing from the pre-Fall covenant. Properly defined, grace is not merely the bestowal of unmerited blessings, but God's blessing of man in spite of his demerits, in spite of his forfeiture of divine blessings. Clearly, we ought not apply the term grace to the pre-Fall situation, for neither the bestowal of blessings on Adam in the very process of creation nor the proposal to grant him additional blessings contemplated him as being in a guilty state of demerit. Yet this is what Fuller and company are driven to do as they argue for a continuum between the pre-Fall and the redemptive covenants. Only by thus using the term grace (obviously in a different sense) for the pre-Fall covenant can they becloud the big, plain contrast that actually exists between the two covenants (cf. Rom. 4:4).

Not grace, but simple justice, was the governing principle in the pre-Fall covenant; hence, it is traditionally called the covenant of works. God is just, and his justice is present in all he does. That is true of gospel administrations, too, for the foundation of the gift of grace is Christ's satisfaction of divine justice. If you are looking for an element of continuity running through pre-Fall and redemptive covenants (without obliterating the contrast between them), there it is—not grace, but justice. Recognizing that God's covenant with Adam was one of simple justice, covenant theology holds that Adam's obedience in the probation would have been the performing of a meritorious deed by which he earned the covenanted blessings" (Meredith G. Kline, Covenant Theology Under Attack, italics original).

More here.

Groan, Do Not Grumble

How many excursions into sin could have been avoided if in our suffering we groaned but did not grumble? When discontent over our lot in life gets the best of us, any form of relief (be it of the destructive kind) suddenly takes on the appearance of the best of graces, and grumbling makes way to giving in.

"Diseases, aches, sicknesses, pains—they are all the daughters of sin, and he who is not sensible of them as the births and products of sin, does but add to his sin and provoke the Lord to add to his sufferings (Isaiah 26:9-11). No man shall ever be charged by God for feeling his burden, if he neither frets nor faints under it. Grace does not destroy nature, but rather perfects it. Grace is of a noble offspring; it neither turns men into stocks nor to stoics. The more grace, the more sensible [one is] of the tokens, frowns, blows, and lashes of a displeased Father.

Though Calvin, under his greatest pains, was never heard to mutter nor murmur, yet he was heard often to say 'How long, Lord, how long?'

A pious commander being shot in battle, when the wound was searched, and the bullet cut out, some standing by, pitying his pain, he replied, 'Though I groan, yet I bless God I do not grumble.' God allows his people to groan, though not to grumble. It is a God-provoking sin to lie stupid and senseless under the afflicting hand of God. God will heat that man's furnace of affliction sevenfold hotter who is in the furnace but feels it not." (Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod [Pensacola, FL: Chapel Library, 2007], 26, italics original).

Let us feel the weight of our sin and of being alive in a fallen world. Savor it to the core, mindful of the truth that all this is from the hand of God, exclaiming along with the Psalmist, "Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation" (Ps. 68:19).

Good Times, Bad Times, Gimme Some O' That

"For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" — Psalm 30:5.

Their mourning shall last but until morning. God will turn...

- their winter's night into a summer's day,

- their sighing into singing,

- their grief into gladness,

- their mourning into music,

- their bitter into sweet,

- their wilderness into a paradise.

The life of a Christian is filled up with interchanges of

- sickness and health,

- weakness and strength,

- want and wealth,

- disgrace and honor,

- crosses and comforts,

- miseries and mercies,

- joys and sorrows,

- mirth and mourning.

All honey would harm us; all wormwood would undo us, a composition of both is the best way in the world to keep our souls in a healthy constitution. It is best and most for the health of the soul that the warm south wind of mercy, and the cold north wind of adversity do both blow upon it. And though every wind that blows, shall blow good to the saints, yet certainly their sins die most, and their graces thrive best, when they are under the frigid, drying, nipping north wind of calamity, as well as under the warm, nourishing south wind of mercy and prosperity.

— Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod [Pensacola, FL: Chapel Library, 2007], 9-10.

Some Reflections on Divine Providence

What better way to start off my blog this year than with some reflections on divine providence, and what better source of Scripture's teaching on the subject as understood by the Reformed consensus than the fifth chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith?

As the father of a 6 yr. old daughter and a 2 1/2 yr. old son—with another child in its 8th week of brewing who I hope will  be a boy so that I could name him "Cauvin Paul"—providence has weighed heavily upon my mind these days. I must also confess that I am of the sort that is not endowed with a measure of imperviousness to anxiety and worry, especially as pertaining to the welfare of my family, so reviewing Scripture's teachings on this subject has been a tremendous comfort to my soul.