The Institutes (29)

Book 1 Chapter 15

Calvin moves on from the work of God in creation to anthropology, the study of man. For Calvin, talking about man is still talking about God. Man, he believes, is the pinnacle of God’s Creation, and if there is any battle to be won over the character of God, it must be won as we examine the nature and character of His utmost creation.

For many today, the ultimate proof that God cannot exist is all the death and suffering in the world. All of life is bound to the law of death… no one escapes from it. Many will look at this and claim that God’s goodness must be a farce due to all the pain in the world. Calvin (and many other Christians) would respond that the effect of sin on the world was not brought in by God, but by man. It was man’s sin that brought about God’s curse; God did not arbitrarily determine to place His curse upon the earth. The blame goes to man, not God.

Now we must guard against singling out only those natural evils of man, lest we seem to attribute them to the Author of nature. For in this excuse, impiety thinks it has sufficient defense, if it is able to claim that whatever defects it possesses have in some way proceeded from God. It does not hesitate, if it is reproved, to contend with God himself, and to impute to him the fault of which it is deservedly accused. And those who wish to seem to speak more reverently of the Godhead still willingly blame their depravity on nature, not realizing that they also, although more obscurely, insult God. For if any defect were proved to inhere in nature, this would bring reproach upon him.

Calvin moves on from this initial consideration to the nature of man. Calvin is clearly a dichotomist (man consists of two parts, body and soul/spirit), and goes about proving his point. In the first part of the chapter, Calvin seeks to identify the “image of God” that was present in man at Creation. He believes that “the proper seat of the image is in the soul” and, quoting Ovid, says:

…while all other living things being bent over look earthward, man has been given a face uplifted, bidden to gaze heavenward and to raise his countenance to the stars.

This is Calvin’s take on the imagio deo… an ability to relate to the divine.

… although the soul is not man, yet it is not absurd for man, in respect to his soul, to be called God’s image… the integrity with which Adam was endowed is expressed by this word, when he had full possession of right understanding, when he had his affections kept within the bounds of reason, all his senses tempered in right order, and he truly referred his excellence to exceptional gifts bestowed upon him by his Maker. And although the primary seat of the divine image was in the mind and heart, or in the soul and its powers, yet there was no part of man, not even the body itself, in which some sparks did not glow.

It is not uncommon to hear this side in the debate over the imagio deo. Others think that it’s moral accountability, others think that it’s reason. Calvin here asserts that it is the ability to relate to God, which includes all the other viewpoints on the imagio deo. But Calvin doesn’t stop here…

… we do not have a full definition of “image” if we do not see more plainly those faculties in which man excels, and in which he ought to be thought the reflection of God’s glory. That, indeed, can be nowhere better recognized than from the restoration of his corrupted nature… consequently, the beginning of our recovery of salvation is in that restoration which we obtain through Christ.

… “we… with unveiled face beholding the glory of Christ are being transformed into his very image.” Now we see how Christ is the most perfect image of God; if we are conformed to it, we are so restored that with true piety, righteousness, purity, and intelligence we bear God’s image.

The image of God is being restored in us daily as we’re conformed to Christ. Truly there is a restoration taking place in the Creation, and that is part of the Gospel. But it’s not a restoration of the earth in some enviromentalist-friendly way. The Gospel is, in some sense, the restoration of God’s image in mankind.

From the discussion of the image of God in man, Calvin moves onto the constitution of men’s souls. Calvin believes that man’s mind directs the other parts of his psyche. Here Calvin moves outside Scripture, something unusual for the Institutes. No Scripture is mentioned to back all of this up. But it’s thoroughly Scriptural… our minds lead our emotions and actions. So we’re to set our minds on things above according to Colossians 3:2, and on the basis of that we’re to change out the old clothing of evil works for the new clothing of spiritual fruit. Our minds lead our emotions and actions!

… the understanding is… the leader and governor of the soul; and that the will is always mindful of the bidding of the understanding, and in its own desires awaits the judgment of the understanding… shunning or seeking out in the appetite corresponds to affirming or denying in the mind.

Finally, Calvin discusses “free” will and Adam’s original sin.

Man in his first condition excelled in… pre-eminant endowments, so that his reason, understanding, prudence, and judgment not only sufficed for the direction of his earthly life, but by them men mounted up even to God and eternal bliss. Then choice added, to direct the appetites and control all the organic motions, and thus make the will completely amenable to the guidance of the reason.

But upon the snake introducing a new thought, man’s appetite and will was bent to do what was evil. Why had God created man thus? Here, it’s too much for Calvin’s mind, as it should be for any Christian.

… the reason [God] did not sustain man by the virtue of perseverance lies hidden in his plan; sobriety is for us the part of wisdom. Man, indeed, received the ability provided he exerciser the will; but he did not have the will to use his ability, for this exercising of the will would have been follower by perseverance. Yet he is not excusable, for he received so much that he voluntarily brought about his own destruction indeed, no necessity was imposed upon God of giving man other than a mediocre and even transitory will, that from man’s Fall he might gather occasion for his own glory.

If God did allow the Fall in order that the Cross might appear to be more glorious… does that cause us to balk? Do we proclaim the evil of a God who would exalt His own glory in our sin and salvation? Or do we shut our mouths when we realize that the cross is more supreme in God’s own mind than creation? In the cross we find the maximum display of God’s glory… in the cross we don’t just find the means of our salvation. We find the end of our salvation. God Himself.

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

1 Peter 1:20-21

Catching Up

Been about a month since I’ve posted; in that time, we’ve started a student outreach on Friday nights at church, we went to the island of St. Vincent and taught systematic theology, and we’ve looked to God for answers in going to seminary. I’ll be taking classes at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville part time this upcoming semester, with the intent of moving down this summer and taking classes full time.

In short, a lot has happened, and this blog has been greatly neglected. I’m planning (key word) on continuing through Calvin’s Institutes, even if it means I take five years to get it done. Reading through Calvin and A Theology for the Church again… after you’ve taught systematic theology, the big textbooks come alive again as you read them. I remember the first time I picked up Grudem’s Systematic Theology, and how impressed I was with the practicality of it all. Now I’m finding that to be even more true. It’s quite the blessing.

Looking forward to getting back to writing…

The Institutes (28)

Book 1 Chapter 14 Sections 20-22

… let us not be ashamed to take pious delight in the works of God open and manifest in this most beautiful theater. For… although it is not the chief evidence for faith, yet it is the first evidence in the order of nature, to be mindful that wherever we cast our eyes, all things they meet are works of God, and at the same time to ponder with pious meditation to what end God created them.

What did the first moment of existence look like? Was it an amalgamation of particles and matter that resulted a huge bang? Was their an intelligence behind that? Was it random? Will we never know? Or does something lie behind the beginning that too wonderful for us to imagine, as Richard Dawkins has theorized? Or is the most wonderful thing imaginable… God’s words splitting through the dark, creating light?

For Calvin, the thought of God as Creator is the most thankworthy thing in the universe. That God would choose to create men at all is the first in a long list of natural graces given to us. The only thing that supersedes this in time is God’s choice to save us in Christ before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). So why, when Calvin has already gone through the nature of general revelation and creation, is he rehashing it? Here he’s not talking about the content of the revelation, but the spiritual benefits of meditating on and believing the doctrine of creation.

Calvin sees two chief steps in doing this: approaching the doctrine orthodoxically and orthopathically. In other words, thinking the right thoughts about these things, and then applying them to our own hearts.

The first part of the rule is exemplified when we reflect upon the greatness of the Artifacer who stationed, arranged, and fitted together the starry host of heaven in such wonderful order that nothing more beautiful in appearance can be imagined; who so set and fixed some in their stations that they cannot move; who granted to others a freer course, but so as not to wander outside their appointed course…

All of this is used to frame how much love is displayed in our salvation, which is the second step in this process. That God would start this grand master symphony with salvation already in mind and all the benefits thereof for us already in place… well, a picture doesn’t begin without a canvass. In this way God is good. God is good to make known His power and strength through creation, and his power and strength in our salvation.

… he willed to commend his providence and fatherly solicitude toward us in that, before he fashioned man, he prepared everything he foresaw would be useful and salutary for him. How great ingratitude would it be now to doubt whether this most gracious Father has us in his care, who we see was concerned for us even before we were born! How impious would it be to tremble for fear that his kindness might at any time fail us in our need, when we see that it was shown, with the greatest abundance of every good thing, when we were yet unborn!

Creation is intricately wrapped up in the story of redemption. God didn’t conceive creation apart from the fall and redemption. This realization, that creation would take place even though God foresaw the fall should bring us to worship Him all the more. Praise God!

The Fading Fashion Trend in Liberalism

Rob Bell saw down for an interview recently. In it, he said he would embrace the term “evangelical” if it meant:

… a belief that we together can actually work for change in the world, caring for the environment, extending to the poor generosity and kindness, a hopeful outlook. That’s a beautiful sort of thing.

The emergent church is just a recasting of theological liberalism. That much has been clear for some time. Part of a new polemic for the 21st-century is confronting the next generation of liberal word-hijacking. This means making sure that the words that Scripture uses to define Christianity are not redefined to create a new religion.

J Gresham Machen saw this coming in Christianity and Liberalism, where he clearly recognized that the rise of liberal “Christianity” was in fact a false religion rather than any heresy arising from within Christianity:

The plain fact is that liberalism, whether it be true or false, is no mere “heresy”–no mere divergence at isolated points from Christian teaching. On the contrary it proceeds from a totally different root, and it constitutes, in essentials, a unitary system of its own. That does not mean that all liberals hold all parts of the system, or that Christians who have been affected by liberal teaching at one point have been affected at all points. There is sometimes a salutary lack of logic which prevents the whole of a man’s faith being destroyed when he has given up a part. But the true way in which to examine a spiritual movement is in its logical relations; logic is the great dynamic, and the logical implications of any way of thinking are sooner or later certain to be worked out. And taken as a whole, even as it actually exists today, naturalistic liberalism is a fairly unitary phenomenon; it is tending more and more to eliminate from itself illogical remnants of Christian belief.

It differs from Christianity in its view of God, of man, of the seat of authority and of the way of salvation. And it differs from Christianity not only in theology but in the whole of life. It is indeed sometimes said that there can be communion in feeling where communion in thinking is gone, a communion of the heart as distinguished from a communion of the head.

But with respect to the present controversy, such a distinction certainly does not apply. On the contrary, in reading the books and listening to the sermons of recent liberal teachers–so untroubled by the problem of sin, so devoid of all sympathy for guilty humanity, so prone to abuse and ridicule the things dearest to the heart of every Christian man–one can only confess that if liberalism is to return into the Christian communion there must be a change of heart fully as much as a change of mind. God grant that such a change of heart may come! But meanwhile the present situation must not be ignored but faced.

This is the battle cry of today… liberalism’s new garb must not ignored, but faced. Confronted. Denounced. Told that it cannot hide behind the next philosophical incarnation of individualism. Just in talking to people who are fond of Bell’s writings, there is a definite disconnect between their understanding of his teachings and the Bible. Which is why we don’t argue against it with our own reasonings… but the reasonableness of absolute truth that is found in the Word. It is ultimately our only resort in the encroaching night: the light that is the Word of God.

Michael Patton declared the death of the movement earlier this year. It’s already passing in many ways out of the public eye; it’s dubious that Rob Bell will ever be the next Billy Graham as a newspaper mused a few years back. Nevertheless, I want to be on guard for the next way that liberalism will reinvent itself in an attempt to subvert Biblical Christianity. Wonder what it’ll be next…

The Institutes (26)

Book 1 Chapter 14 Sections 1-12

Calvin moves into Angelology, offering a somewhat  guarded examination of angels. Why guarded? Because, as Calvin readily admits, there’s not a lot of information on angels in Scripture. However,

… to prevent believers from deserting to the fabrications of the heathen, we must depict the true God more distinctly than they do. Since the notion of God as the mind of the universe (in the philosophers’ eyes, a most acceptable description) is ephemeral, it is important for us to know him more intimately, lest we always waver in doubt.

…

[J]ust as eyes, when dimmer with age or weakness or by some other defect, unless aided by spectacles, discern nothing distinctly; so, such is our feebleness, unless Scripture guides us in seeking God, we are immediately confused.

Calvin prefaces all of his remarks about angels with the above for one simple reason: for Calvin, understanding angels is understanding God. This is probably the primary thing about popular conceptions of angels, whether they be in Frank Peretti’s novels or the HBO series that’s named after them. Angels are not operating independently of God, much less existing apart from His knowledge and interest. Instead, they always come as messengers, pointing back to God. This is what is missing from all our conversations about angels. Their interactions with mankind always include God.

Beginning with the creation of angels, Calvin notes that they were all created perfect. It was because of sin that any of them fell. Christians are not dualists, thinking that Satan has equal power with God. His pithy statement comes in the middle of section three. “For the depravity and malice both of man and of the devil, or the sins that arise therefrom, do not spring from nature, but rather from the corruption of nature.” Nothing is naturally evil, in the sense that God didn’t create anything that way. Instead, it was only because of Satan’s fall and man’s fall that evil entered the world.

Calvin’s goal in all this is to head off at the pass any vain speculation. This is typical of his age, when theologians a hundred years later would not easily be stopped by the silence of Scripture. The coming Enlightenment would affect even theology… so depending on your perspective, Calvin’s insistence not to pursue some of these things further is either refreshing or frustrating. For me, I find it to be both. I think he can go farther with some things, and doesn’t with others. Here, though, he seems to be on solid ground.

He points out his objective before launching into the meat of his examination of angelic beings:

The theologian’s task is not to divert the ears with chatter, but to strengthen consciences by teaching things true, sure, and profitable.

***

Calvin’s stresses the angel’s role as protector to the believer, and the messenger of and one who “renders conspicuous” God’s majesty. Still, it is we who benefit from them, not God. Angels, as our protector, are meant to

One thing, indeed, ought to be quite enough for us: that the Lord declares himself to be our protector. But when we see ourselves beset by so many perils, so many harmful things, so many kinds of enemies – such is our softness and frailty – we would sometimes be filled with trepidation or yield to despair if the Lord did not make us realize the presence of his grace according to our capacity. For this reason, he not only promises to take care of us, but tells us he has innumerable guardians whom he has bidden to look after our safety; that so long as we are hedged about by their defense and keeping, whatever perils may threaten, we have been placed beyond all chance of evil.

They are agents of grace, under God’s sovereign hand. Calvin may paint too rosy a picture here, as if God will not allow trial or evil to come into our lives. However, Calvin is so explicit on this point elsewhere so as to negate any objection here.

The thing that I’ve seen in American culture, and noted above, is the obsession with angels as good beings. “Touched By an Angel” is probably notable for this, that angels can operate independently of God. So much other speculation has been stirred up so as to make angels the subtle enemies of God, stealing away from Him His rightful glory and honor. Calvin speaks, as it were, into our own time:

How preposterous… it is for us to be led away from God by the angels, who have been established to testify that his help is all the closer to us!

…

God does not make them ministers of his power and goodness to share his glory with them… he does not promise us his help through their ministry in order that we should divide our trust between them and him.

Angels are extensions of His grace, add to His glory, and point back to His throne. Everything about them is entrenched in Yahweh and His Son, Christ, whom they serve and worship (Psalm 91:11-13, Hebrews 1:6).

In the next section, Calvin will explore what Scriptures have to say concerning fallen angels.

Whither Dispensationalism?

Came across an interesting video that I posted below. He takes a little while to start rolling, but he’s got some decent arguments that are worth your thoughts. I don’t agree with all of his theology, but his critiques should cause pause for those of us that have grown up soaking in dispensationalism. The thing that’s always gotten me about a pre-trib rapture is the misuse and weaving of Scripture before a coherent theology emerges. For instance, how many times have you heard this passage (Matthew 24:40-42) used as an argument for pre-trib rapture?

Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

But all the preceding context is forgotten: these individuals aren’t being taken in a rapture, they’re being taken in judgment!

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

Those who are being judged are the ones taken, not the ones left behind.

Watch this video, and at least think about it. Prophecy and the end times are not so cookie cutter clear… as most dispensationalists would have you believe.

I welcome comments!

The Institutes (25)

Book 1 Chapter 13 Sections 25-29

The war continues. Calvin moves from refuting anti-Trinitarian arguments from Scripture to refuting their arguments from extra-biblical sources. As he does so, he provides perhaps the clearest expression of the Trinity I’ve ever read. Isn’t that how it is? The Church grows and is strengthened when it is tested by heresy. This is all throughout history… what a reminder to us in the midst of so much confusion and outright blasphemy!

The essence of all three Persons is deity, not just the Father.

… although the essence does not enter into the distinction as a part of a member of the Trinity, nevertheless the persons are not without it, or outside it; because the Father, unless he were God, could not have been the Father; and the Son could not have been the Son, unless he were God. Therefore we say that deity in an absolute sense exists of itself; whence likewise we confess that the Son since he is God, exists of himself, but not in respect of his Person; indeed, since he is the Son, we say that he exists from the Father. Thus his essence is without beginning; while the beginning of his person is God himself.

… those who want to make a Trinity of these three – Essence, Son, and Spirit – are plainly annihilating the essence of the Son and the Spirit; otherwise the parts joined together would fall apart, and this is faulty in any distinction. Finally, if Father and God were synonymous, thus would the Father be the deifier [sic]; nothing would be left in the Son but a shadow; and the Trinity would be nothing else but the conjunction of the one God with two created things.

The essence of deity is shared by all three Persons; all three Persons are properly God. To be the Son of God is to be God, and to be the Spirit of God is to be God. But, as Calvin infers above, we cannot comprehend all of God in any one of the three Persons. God is not totally synonymous with any of the three; He is more fully understood in the three.

Anti-Trinitarians quote Irenaeus and Tertullian to give their viewpoint some theological cred. Calvin soundly defeats both of these appeals to authority. Instead, he shows how both of these church fathers continually argued for the the deity of Christ. Irenaeus said,

…he who in Scripture is called God in an absolute and undifferentiated sense is in truth the only God, and that Christ indeed is called God in an absolute sense.

Similarly, Tertullian, in refuting a heretic, explicitly declares that there are as many names for God as there are persons.

Finally, Calvin appeals to the judgment at Nicaea, where orthodox doctrine concerning the Trinity was established. Arius was soundly defeated, and Augustine was triumphant. The Trinity as a doctrine was embraced by the whole of the church fathers, and thus should be embraced by us today.

The Institutes (24)

Book 1 Chapter 13 Sections 21-24

Finally, Calvin goes to war. Joke. He’s always at war. The Institutes have a perpetual edge, as if Calvin’s arguing against something. Biblical doctrine means firmly holding to and loving truth, and vehemently attacking and dismantling error. There is corresponding love for truth and hate for falsehood in the Christian life.

Here he begins to name specific Trinitarian heresies against which the church should set itself and authoritatively should declare the Word. Part of me was actually left saying: “isn’t Calvin going a bit overboard?” Well, in fact he probably is, as is evidenced by the way he treated Servetus when the latter was captive in Geneva. However one might try, it’s not excusable, although there’s good evidence that Calvin wanted some measure of mercy for the man.

With that in mind, Calvin goes about systematically (surprise!) demolishing the arguments of anti-Trinitarians. He summarizes what he’s going to do near the beginning of the section:

Indeed, if we hold fast to what has been sufficiently shown above from Scripture – the the essence of the one God is simple and undivided, and that it belongs to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; and on the other hand that by a certain characteristic the Father differs from the Son, and the Son from the Spirit – the gate will be closed not only to Arius and Sabellius but to other ancient authors of error.

In short, Scripture is enough to tell us about God. All we must to is show positively what is true about God therein, and all heresy can be confronted, condemned, and brushed aside as such.

He goes about naming particular anti-Trinitarian heresies: Severtus is mentioned for the first time at length. For him, there is no Trinity, but instead a sort of modalism (where God has different modes that He chooses to display Himself through). He thought of belief in the Trinity as a belief in three gods, and that you couldn’t argue for the Trinity otherwise. Specifically, Servetus thought that Genesis revealed God as Creator, and John revealed God as Logos. Jesus was really God, but only came to be at the  moment that God the Father conceived Him to be the next expression of His glory.

Calvin begins to refute these things by going straight to John’s Gospel: Jesus Christ always existed as the Word in eternity past. The Word was both with God and was God… and then became flesh. The Word was not just a separate force; He was God Himself. And then the Word became flesh… the Word Who was both God and separate from God.

Calvin moves on to address heresies that promote the Spirit and Christ being finite creations of the Father that He infused with His a measure of His own deity. But Calvin shows that Christ receives worship as if He was the Father. If Christ receives worship, then one of two possibilities exist: He is God, or He is God’s rival.

Calvin points out that this is the same tension in the way the Father treats Christ: in Philippians 2, Christ is so exulted that it is obvious that He is deity.

… unless he had been God manifested in the flesh he could not have been raised to such a height without God himself striving against himself.

It wouldn’t make sense for Christ to be so exulted by both God and man unless Christ was God.

The Institutes (23)

Book 1 Chapter 13 Sections 16-20

Slowing down the last few weeks as I’ve gone through the Institutes: been reading through book two, working, and spending time ministering at my church. Hopefully I’ll get to posting once a day again, or at least once every other day.

In chapter thirteen, Calvin is systematically presenting the Trinity as a foundational doctrine to Christianity. One cannot take Jesus Christ to be mere man and still claim His name for themselves. Calvin has taken time to show that the Son and the Spirit are indeed Yahweh in the Scriptures… now he begins to show that there is a unity in their distinction. He wisely cautions:

… Scripture sets forth a distinction of the Father from the Word, and of the Word from the Spirit. Yet the greatness of the mystery warns us how much reverence and sobriety we ought to use in investigating this.

He goes on to quote Gregory of Nazianzus:

I cannot think on the one without quickly being encircled by the splendor of the three; nor can I discern the three without being straightway carried back to the one.

Of all Scriptural mysteries, the Trinity is probably the most impenetrable by our human minds. In the Old Testament, the shema carries so much weight: “hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” And yet, Christianity doesn’t abrogate or change anything about the shema. It only clarifies the nature and character of Yahweh as He reveals Himself through the Son and the Spirit. So… if God is One, where do the Son and Spirit come from?

Christian doctrine has attempted to come to grips with the reality of the Trinity over the last 2000 years. The Christian doctrines that deal with this “origin” of the Son and the Spirit are called the eternal generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit. What is meant by these? Essentially, both of these doctrines attempt to show that in eternity all three Persons of the Trinity existed. As we can tell, the revelation of the Son and of the Spirit did not take place fully until the New Testament, but in no way does this mean that the Father decided to create the Son or the Spirit at that time, or at any other time.

What Scripture reveals is that the Son is the only begotten of the Father, and the Nicene Creed makes clear that He is begotten, not made. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and yet resided in eternity with them. Confused yet? Hopefully so: the Trinity is one of the most mysterious aspects of God, and yet the Scriptures bear testimony to it, as has previously been seen.

Calvin attempts to harmonize all the Scriptural statements concerning the nature of the Son and the Spirit. His conclusion regarding their nature is classic Calvin:

… this distinction is so far from contravening the utterly simple unity of God as to permit us to prove from it that the Son in one God with the Father because he shares with the Father one and the same Spirit; and that the Spirit is not something other than the Father and different from the Son, because he is the Spirit of the Father and the Son.

For instance, some of the proof Calvin turns to is found in John 14-15, where the Spirit is distinct from the Father and the Son. Jesus declares that there is “another” who is coming after His departure, one that proceeded from the Father. Thus, the Spirit mentioned was neither the Father nor the Son, but distinct and proceeding from them from them. How does this procession work out in Scripture?

[T]o the Father is attributed the beginning of activity, and the fountain and wellspring of all things; to the Son, wisdom, counsel, and the ordered disposition of all things; but to the Spirit is assigned the power and efficacy of that activity.

This quote seems to show the overarching position that each of the three holds. As concerns our salvation and election, nothing seems better than Peter in 1 Peter 1:2. Concerning our election, he writes:

… according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.

The Father is the source of our salvation in eternity past, the Spirit is the means in the present via sanctification, and the Christ is both the object of our faith in the future and the means by which we are sealed into the New Covenant. All three are active in our salvation. For me, this three-fold description of the Christian faith is more than enough to consider the Trinity to be a reality. God is the only one that brings salvation, and each of these three are labeled God throughout the Scriptures.

The only way to hold these in tension is to admit that Scripture teaches all three are deity, and yet there is an utter an absolute unity between the three. This is the Scriptural mystery of the Trinity.

The Subtle Sovereign (5)

A few months ago, I started a series examining the subversive nature of culture. I was part of a small group that was reading through Ideas Have Consequences, and I wanted to draw some parallels between Richard Weaver’s observations about modernism and postmodernism, and the Christians experience in the kosmos, the present age.

The more I read, the more I realize that the subversion of Christianity, especially in America, must be realized before the church can corporately proclaim Christ. Beyond that, it must be fought. Christianity in America cannot be merely a subculture; it must be counter-cultural. There is a war raging, one of the heart and mind first, of hands and feet second. Where will professing Christians set their affections?

John Piper writes in Don’t Waste Your Life:

… the “war” that I have in mind when I speak of a “wartime mind-set” or a “wartime lifestyle” is not being fought along geographical lines. It is being fought first along the line between good and evil in every human heart, especially the hearts of Christians where Christ has staked his claim, and where he means to be totally triumphant. The “war” is being fought along the line between sin and righteousness in every family. It is being fought along the line between truth and falsehood in every school . . . between justice and injustice in every legislature. . . between integrity and corruption in every office . . . between love and hate in every ethnic group . . . between pride and humility in every sport . . . between the beautiful and the ugly in every art . . . between right doctrine and wrong doctrine in every church . . . and between sloth and diligence between coffee breaks. It is not a waste to fight the battle for truth and faith and love on any of these fronts.

The war is not primarily spatial or physical—though its successes and failures have physical effects. Therefore, the secular vocations of Christians are a war zone. There are spiritual adversaries to be defeated (that is, evil spirits and sins, not people); and there is beautiful moral high ground to be gained for the glory of God. You don’t waste you life by where you work, but how and why. [emphasis his]

This is most vividly portrayed in my life first thing in the morning. For years, I’ve read and prayed by light of laptop, using various programs and Notepad to type out thoughts and prayers concerning Scripture and its interaction with my life. This has always gone better without the allure of the internet: when there hasn’t been a WiFi connection, I study and pray and think and feel and love without distraction or subversion. But add a WiFi connection, and there is Facebook and Twitter and a thousand other distractions to defeat the purposes of God for me in the mornings. Is is overt? No, it’s covert. Subtle. Slow poison instead of swift sword.

I wonder what it would be like to be like Jonathan Edwards. Pastoring without aid of the internet, without the distractions of technology and the modern world. Books. Family. Bible. Congregation. I long for that, for the time that I would get back if my life were stripped to bare essentials.

I’ve not yet learned how to use technology well for the glory of God. Sure, I use it to give Him glory, but as often as not it’s a tool for the kosmos to declare its worth above the One Who is due all glory.

Let us fight on this front, too.