Geerhardus Vos mounted a heavenly vantage point from which he surveyed the world and all its happenings. From the high tower of God’s Word, he saw with eagle-eye clarity the beauty and majesty of the Lord in nature and history, creation and providence. “The whole earth is full of his glory!” was his theme (Isa. 6:3). With his heart brimming with seraphic wonder, he addressed his verses to the King (Ps. 45:1).

In Vos’ nature poems, he saw the mystery of the gospel reflected in creation as in a mirror. To highlight this, he entitled one volume of his nature poetry Spiegel der Natuur (Mirror of Nature). In the mirror of nature, through the spectacles of Scripture, Vos saw that death never had the final say. He saw that the path of life was the path of the cross. He saw evil deeds ironically reversed to bring about good by the providence of God. He saw the truth of Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 42 that he had learned as a child:

Q. Since Christ has died for us, why do we still have to die?
A. Our death is not a payment for our sins, but only a dying to sins and an entering into eternal life.

In sum, he saw the glory of Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).

Vos shares with us a glimpse in his poem “Ex Arbore Navis.” In this poem, he finds the hope of resurrection life in Christ reflected in a tree torn from the earth’s embrace but made into a beautiful ship for the open seas of eternity. Isaiah, the “salvation-poet,” as Vos called him, had once prophesied,

For the coastlands shall hope for me,
the ships of Tarshish first,
to bring your children from afar,
their silver and gold with them,
for the name of the LORD your God,
and for the Holy One of Israel,
because he has made you beautiful (Isa. 60:9).

EX ARBORE NAVIS[1]

Bound is the tree in all his growing;
Sprouting and his flowers showing,
His evening and his morning glowing,

His winter sleeping, summer waking,
His silence and the sounds he’s making.

Still grounded in his mother’s place,
Confined within a tiny space;

Until one day a tragedy,
An axman swings with cruelty.

His market value lights his face,
And tears him from the earth’s embrace.

A woeful groan he then raises,
A fit of death through him races,
Down to his roots it abases.

But behold! the cry he utters,
From the pain of death he shudders,
Finished, it forever severs,

Makes for him, a state to hope in,
A wondrous new world to open.

In the woods a hidden pillar,
Now he journeys to the miller,

Who from the thickness, round and broad,
Of his large trunk cuts plank unflawed,

And for the beams of higher estate,
The right measure he must calculate.

Then onward from the miller’s yard,
Coastward goes he to the shipyard;

There the fragrant wood, like a vow,
Is built for keel and hull and bow.

Secured from wind and weather far,
Sealed with wax, baptized with tar.

The master sees him with delight,
Glide down the slope now to alight,

Like a bird over ocean blue
To his new element he flew.

Longing for the wonders at sea,
Ready to sail, restless lies he,

Tighter and tighter pulling on
The anchor that he might be gone.

It came at last the hour set,
By tugboat pulled to an outlet,

With flag and pennants high he’s free
To sail into the open sea;

Bedecked in white, his bridegroom sail,
On crested billows rides his tail,
Like were his own currents and gale;

Like every droplet in the slough
Of despond was his servant low;

Freer than the sea from bonds and bands,
Up rivers rushes he to distant lands.

You say this is a poetic device,
In real life groundless, it cannot suffice.

Believe me I know of what I sing,
A ship is also a living thing.

Lord, when death soon draws itself near,
Through trunk and branch goes his shear,

Freed from this narrow earthly space,
Let me go to a wider place;

After the escape, make of me,
A ship for Yourself graciously,

Assembled and made beautifully,
For the grand sail of eternity.

Reflected in this poem is that what the axman meant for evil, God meant for good (Gen. 50:20). Vos personifies the tree in the same way trees are found clapping their hands and singing for joy in Scripture (Ps. 96:12; Isa. 55:12). But here the tree is mercilessly torn from the nurturing arms of the earth. He groans and convulses in death. But death is not his destiny.

But behold! the cry he utters,
From the pain of death he shudders,
Finished, it forever severs,
Makes for him, a state to hope in,
A wondrous new world to open.

A kind of resurrection is reflected in the master shipbuilder raising the tree to new life as he forms and fashions him into a beautiful ship. Now the tree, once bound and confined, is loosed upon the open seas. Through a kind of death, his previous narrow existence has now opened into a broader existence of boundless currents of joy.

For Vos, this is more than a mere poetic device. It touches reality. It is the lifepath of the believer in Christ reflected as in a mirror. So, with the seaways to Zion in his heart (Ps. 84:5), he prays to the Lord in the final eight lines. He asks him that when he is torn from the earth by death’s cruel blow,

After the escape, make of me,
A ship for Yourself graciously,
Assembled and made beautifully
For the grand sail of eternity.

It is the true Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will raise his people from the dead to a more beautiful, more glorious existence. “[O]ur citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil. 3:20–21). Glimmering in Vos’ prayer is the good news that though we die, yet we shall live, that by grace alone we will be resurrected “at the hour set” to glorify and enjoy our Lord forever in the boundless joys of heaven—joys which earth cannot afford and none but Zion’s children know. The sea of crystal is forever before us. On its still, clear waters glisten the eternal glory of the gospel of Christ, the firstborn from the dead. With this end in mind, Vos encourages us in his sermon “Heavenly-Mindedness,” saying,

Being the sum and substance of all the positive gifts of God to us in their highest form, heaven is of itself able to evoke in our hearts positive love, such absorbing love as can render us at times forgetful of the earthly strife. In such moments the transcendent beauty of the other shore and the irresistible current of our deepest life lift us above every regard of wind or wave. We know that through weather fair or foul our ship is bound straight for its eternal port.[2]

Carried along by heavenly winds, even the Spirit of Christ in our sails, we pray: “In accord with Your covenant promise, O Lord, make of me a ship for Yourself.” Those last two words reach the apex of the religious longing of our hearts. For God, we were constituted as his image bearers in creation. From God, we fell in the sin of the first Adam. To God, we are restored and perfected by our union with the resurrected Christ in redemption. In Christ, we confess by his Spirit that even the glory of the escape of death is outshone by our God who has made us beautiful in his Son “for the grand sail of eternity.”

[1] Geerhardus Vos, Spiegel der Natuur en Lyrica Anglica (Princeton, NJ: Geerhardus Vos, 1927), 33–34. The translation is my own. I attempted to maintain the meter and rhyme scheme of the original.

[2] Geerhardus Vos, “Heavenly-Mindedness,” in Grace and Glory: Sermons Preached at Princeton Seminary (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2020), 120–21, emphasis mine.

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob discuss Louis Berkhof’s little book, Summary of Christian Doctrine. We turn to chapter XXII, “Sanctification and Perseverance.” After too long of a break from recording, Rob and Bob were able to sit down together to discuss God’s work of sanctifying his people, the nature of good works, and how God’s people persevere to the end. 

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob discuss Louis Berkhof’s little book, Summary of Christian Doctrine. We turn to chapter XXI, “Justification.”

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob discuss Louis Berkhof’s little book, Summary of Christian Doctrine. We turn to chapter XXI, “Justification.”

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob discuss Louis Berkhof’s little book, Summary of Christian Doctrine. We turn to chapter XX, “Conversion: Repentance & Faith.” This week we continue our discussion how Berkhof addresses the doctrine of conversion focusing on faith.

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

Lane Tipton and Camden Bucey reflect on the recent Reformed Forum Theology Conference on J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism before turning to a discussion of their new booklet, Unfolding Redemption: Exploring the History and Order of Salvation.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:03:35 Reflecting on the 2023 Reformed Forum Conference
• 00:08:27 Machen and Denominational History
• 00:17:02 The Church and Culture
• 00:28:09 The History and Order of Salvation
• 00:35:41 The Unchanging Person of the Son
• 00:42:29 Jesus Declared to Be the Son of God in Power
• 00:55:05 The Benefits of Adoption
• 01:07:44 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob discuss Louis Berkhof’s little book, Summary of Christian Doctrine. We turn to chapter XIX, Calling and Regeneration. This week we discuss the doctrine of regeneration.

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

Danny Olinger and Camden Bucey discuss the sixth chapter of Machen’s classic book, Christianity and Liberalism. In this chapter, J. Gresham Machen explores the differences between the liberal and Christian views of salvation. He argues that liberalism finds salvation in man, while Christianity finds it in an act of God. Machen critiques the moral influence theory of the atonement, which denies the substitutionary character of Christ’s death and the wrath of God. In contrast, he emphasizes the need for a propitiation for sin and the centrality of the cross of Christ in the Christian view of salvation.

Machen concludes that the doctrine of salvation is essential to the Christian faith and that liberalism and Christianity are fundamentally incompatible on this question. The chapter provides a clear and detailed analysis of the theological and biblical foundations of the Christian view of salvation, and highlights the importance of this doctrine for the Christian life.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:05:40 Review of Christianity and Liberalism
• 00:09:28 The Liberal View of Salvation
• 00:16:14 Liberalism, Roman Catholicism, and the Atonement
• 00:26:24 The Significance of What Christ Did
• 00:31:47 Fundamentalism and Social Progress
• 00:34:30 Theological Categories
• 00:40:08 The Goal and Fruit of Liberalism
• 00:44:45 Machen and Hymns
• 00:54:09 Heavenly-Mindedness
• 01:02:11 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger

The Westminster Larger Catechism, 65 through 69, describes, in part, union with Jesus Christ. And John Calvin in Book Three of Institutes of the Christian Religion describes union with Christ, among other things, as a spiritual union. And that union between Christ and the Christian is effected by the secret energy or power—the work of the Holy Spirit. So, in biblical texts like Ephesians 3:16–17—the Spirit dwells in you, Christ dwells in your heart the spirit joins Christ to the Christian and the Christian to Christ—that’s true individually and then corporately as the body of Christ. But not only is union with Christ in life experience affected by the Spirit, it’s affected by the Spirit as the Spirit grants or produces faith in the Christian. So that union with Christ has the Spirit as its bond from the divine side; union with Christ has Spirit-produced faith as the bond of union from the human side.

That faith is a gift from God (Eph. 2:8). It is not by works. It does not have its origin in the creature. It has its origin as a gift from God. And Philippians 1:6 says that the one who began this good work of Spirit-generated faith will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ. Now that faith, union with Christ by the Spirit, can further be qualified most basically as a union with Christ, the person, so it’s a spiritual union. It’s a union by faith, and it’s a union with the person of Jesus Christ, crucified and raised. Paul can say that in Christ the church has every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. There are more things we could say about union with Christ but present personal union with Christ is a union that is produced by the Spirit, through faith, with the person of the crucified and ascended Christ. And it consists in a bond of vital, reciprocal, never-ending, always ascending fellowship with Jesus Christ in grace in this age and in glory in the age to come.

Adapted from a transcript of the video.

We welcome Dr. Brandon Crowe to the program to discuss the obedience of Christ and the salvation of his people. In his latest book, Why Did Jesus Live a Perfect Life?: The Necessity of Christ’s Obedience for Our Salvation, Dr. Crowe sets out to answer the basic but all-important question: Is perfect obedience necessary for salvation?

Listen as we explore the covenant of works, the atonement, the nature of Christ’s obedience, his resurrection, and the doctrine of justification.

Brandon D. Crowe (PhD, University of Edinburgh) is professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary and author of The Last Adam and The Hope of Israel.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:04 Thinking about Righteousness and Obedience
• 06:47 Changes in Theological Disciplines
• 13:21 Perfect Obedience Is Necessary for Salvation
• 20:30 Death Reigned from Adam to Moses
• 26:45 The New Testament and the Law of Moses
• 34:02 Christ’s Obedience and Our Faith
• 40:18 Christ’s Active and Passive Obedience
• 43:53 Christ’s Obedience as High Priest
• 47:11 Christ’s Resurrection
• 50:58 The Author’s Hopes for Readers of the Book
• 54:55 Conclusion

Participants: Brandon Crowe, Camden Bucey

Ryan Noha and Camden Bucey discuss Reformed Academy and the newest course to launch on the platform, titled Union with Christ: The Benefits of His Suffering and Glory. This latest course is taught by Lane Tipton, and we include the tenth and final lecture toward the end of this episode.

Video Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction
00:04:13 The Courses at Reformed Academy
00:11:49 Future Course Availability
00:14:15 Podcasts, Videos, and Chapter Markers
00:16:06 The Process of Producing a Course
00:22:53 Translating the Course Videos
00:29:26 The Global Reach of Reformed Academy
00:38:06 How to Help
00:45:05 Union with Christ and Sanctification
01:37:42 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Ryan Noha

What does it mean to be predestined, and to what end does God predestine his people? Robert Arendale joins us again in an exposition of this important passage, including a discussion exploring what part polemics play in a sermon.

Participants: Mark A. Winder, Robert Arendale

Carlton Wynne, Lane Tipton, and Camden Bucey open Cornelius Van Til’s book, The Defense of the Faith to pages 33–39 wherein Van Til discusses the doctrine of salvation. Van Til is insistent to maintain the incommunicable attributes of God in all aspects of theology, even here in soteriology. Throughout this section, Van Til refuses to admit any form of mutualism or correlativism in the God-man relation. He writes, “If we refuse to mix the eternal and the temporal at the point of creation and at the point of the incarnation we must also refuse to mix them at the point of salvation.”

If God is omnipotent, for example, and he desires to save, it is not possible for man to frustrate that plan. This carries through in the doctrine of church as well as the doctrine of last things, wherein the absolute sovereignty of God is maintained at every point throughout history.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carlton Wynne, Lane G. Tipton

Ryan Noha poses several questions submitted by our listeners and views. Along with Jeff Waddington and Camden Bucey, the panel discusses Thomas and Van Til on the doctrine of God, how the eternal decree relates to the well-meant offer of eschatological life in the covenant of works, aspects of our union with Christ, and several matters of eschatology.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jeff Waddington, Ryan Noha

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob reads J. I. Packer’s (1926-2020) well known “Introductory Essay” to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ as a tribute to this great Anglican theologian.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

Alan D. Strange, Imputation of the Active Obedience of Christ in the Westminster Standards. Explorations in Reformed Confessional Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2019. Pp. xviii + 154. $10.00 (paperback).

The rush of books, articles, reviews, and even a hymnal that has flowed from the pen (or, more likely, keyboard) of Dr. Alan D. Strange has been a most appreciated and welcomed gift to the church. His latest work is no exception as it takes up the vital gospel issue of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ—“no hope without it,” voiced the dying Machen. Strange’s focus is primarily historical, investigating the Westminster Assembly and the Westminster Standards, but this does not keep him from skillfully integrating this history with precise dogmatic formulations, warm pastoral exhortations, penetrating polemical argumentations, and judicious ecclesiastical implications—a truly masterful feat that is both academic and devotional, for both the classroom and the coffeehouse.

Strange’s stated aim is to advance the argument that “while the Assembly may never have explicitly affirmed active obedience in what it finally adopted, nonetheless, the Westminster documents, taken as a whole, tend to affirm it” (2). He seeks to accomplish this by carefully considering both the original intent of the framers of the Westminster Assembly and the animus imponentis, that is, the way in which subsequent ecclesiastical assemblies have understood the Standards (128-29). In his own words:

It is my contention, however, that a few lacunae remain which, when examined, will fill in the picture and permit us to see more clearly that the Assembly affirmed active obedience when it specifically addressed the issue. Although the final language of the Assembly’s documents may not have reflected it as some other formulations do (such as the Savoy Declaration of 1658), they reflect a two-covenant structure that affirms (indeed, that entails and requires…) the doctrine of active obedience. Furthermore, I will argue that the original intent of the Westminster divines favors active obedience, as does the interpretation and application of those standards over the years of those churches that have adopted them (in other words, the animus imponentis favors such an affirmation). Moreover, the Assembly’s constitution as a body to give advice to Parliament rather than as a ruling body of the church materially affected how it did its work; consideration of this is relevant in a variety of controversies, including the question of whether the Assembly affirmed active obedience. (3)

But before arriving in Westminster Abbey in the 17th century, Strange excavates the ancient and medieval church to find seeds of the doctrine of Christ’s active obedience. While some (like Norman Shepherd) have denied any such antecedents, Strange demonstrates that such denial is wrongheaded. In the early church, Irenaeus’s recapitulation theory, anticipated by Justin Martyr, included Christ obeying where Adam disobeyed, and Athanasius’s reasoning for the incarnation expressed the positive need for Christ to fulfill the law “that stood in danger of never being fulfilled because of the sin of Adam and his progeny” (22). In the medieval church, theologians such as Hugh, Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Biel contended that Christ had no need to merit anything for himself, which implies that what he did merit, he merited for us. 

Strange further observes that any historical survey of the doctrine of active obedience must consider not only the doctrine of Christ, but also the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. In fact, it was when the Westminster divines were addressing the latter at the Assembly that the debate about active obedience commenced. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit did not come into its own until the Reformation—most notably with Calvin, whom Warfield knighted “the theologian of the Holy Spirit.” This explains why “the imputation of the active obedience of Christ, which is distinctly the work of the Holy Spirit, received comparatively little attention until the Reformation”: the church had yet to enjoy the proper categories by which to understand the doctrine more robustly (29-30).

In the Reformation, the seeds of active obedience are found in Luther and Melanchthon, which eventually bloomed in their successors, like Martin Chemnitz, and in the Formula of Concord (3.14-15). Calvin may not have clearly distinguished the active from the passive obedience of Christ, but there is considerable evidence that he “does teach a doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness that includes what later writers distinguished into Christ’s active and passive obedience” (35). This would be stated more explicitly by his successor, Theodore Beza, as well as in the Heidelberg Catechism 60-61 and the Belgic Confession article 22. Johannes Piscator “became the first, particularly in response to the affirmation of Beza, to argue that the imputation of Christ’s righteousness was restricted to His obedience in making satisfaction for the sins of His people” (38). But many Reformed theologians rose to oppose him and affirm active obedience, including the international French Reformed synods of Privas (1612) and Tonneins (1614). Lastly, the Irish Articles of 1615, the most immediate antecedent to Westminster, explicitly affirmed Christ’s active obedience in articles 30, 34, and 35.

This brings us to the heart of Strange’s book in which the debate over active obedience at the Westminster Assembly in 1643 is carefully documented and analyzed within its historical, political, and ecclesiastical context. The Assembly’s original task was not to draft a new confession of faith, but to revise the Thirty-Nine Articles, in which only a single article, article 11, treated justification. This article “had to bear the entire weight of all the major aspects of the doctrine of justification.” The divines, therefore, had relatively brief space, putting precision at a premium (51-52). In this context, the word whole (to qualify Christ’s obedience) carried significant weight as short hand for affirming active obedience.

A heated and drawn-out debate ensued over that weighty word, whole, but when it finally came to a vote, only three or four men out of fifty voted against affirming active obedience. Furthermore, their reasons for opposing it were not owing in the least to a desire “to introduce any element of human merit or works (as a part of our faithfulness) into the equation of our justification” (61). Rather, the minority opposition was mainly owing to fear of antinomianism, “the main theological error among Protestants” at that time (56-57). Yet, despite the potential misuse of the affirmation of active obedience, the Assembly affirmed it anyway, for they believed such “to be at the heart of the gospel” (58).

Thus, the Assembly in its initial debate overwhelmingly affirmed active obedience. Why then is the precise language of whole obedience absent from the Standards they later drafted? Strange answers,

[A]ctive obedience was affirmed in the revision of article 11 in 1643, and there is no reason to suppose that it was not also affirmed in WCF 11 and in the other relevant chapters of the WCF, even though the specific wording of revised article 11 never again appears. It is my contention that it did not need to appear in that form because the wording of WCF 11.3 and 8.5 did everything that the revision of article 11 by the addition of the word whole was intended to do (and arguably more). (67)

Strange supports his thesis with a survey of the Westminster Standards to demonstrate the ubiquitous presence of active obedience, despite the absence of the exact wording of whole obedience. Furthermore, he provides a global perspective of the Standards in terms of its covenant theology, showing how the system of doctrine contained therein falls apart when active obedience is denied. He correctly points out that those who deny active obedience today will “not stop at a mere denial of active obedience; they would likely have problems with the whole theological scheme of Westminster, of which active obedience is merely an important plank” (136). In other words, active obedience is not something one can reject without doing substantial damage to the whole system, and those who do “are wanting as Reformed theologians” (136-37).

The bulk of the book has been concerned with the original intent of the framers of the Westminster Assembly, but Strange concludes with an important consideration of the animus imponentis in the final chapter. To give just a cursory overview: both the PCA and OPC have had committees address the broader question of justification in which active obedience was affirmed. This is on par with judicatories in both denominations requiring the affirmation of limited atonement, despite the original intent being unclear. “Similarly,” says Strange, “the recent reports of committees erected by such bodies also testify that an animus has developed in the church that reads our standards to require the affirmation of active obedience, even as they routinely require the affirmation of the doctrine of limited atonement” (134). A similar animus is also evidenced in the PCA, OPC, RCUS, OCRC, URCNA, and RPCNA who have received committee reports that “have either condemned FV [Federal Vision] and NPP [New Perspective on Paul] errors or have adopted statements that reaffirm and highlight confessional statements that militate against positions of at least some of their supporters” and affirm active obedience (137n10).

The compact size of this book would be a false indication of its massive achievement in historical and confessional theology. In a word, it punches well above its weight-class, especially in contemporary debates concerning justification, like Federal Vision. Strange’s thesis that the Westminster Assembly and Standards affirm the imputation of the active obedience of Christ is carefully and persuasively argued. This volume will be of great service to the church in her task to guard the good deposit of the gospel.

Dr. Alan D. Strange has graced Christ the Center on numerous occasions, including an interview on the book reviewed above:

• The Imputation of Active Obedience in the Westminster Standards
• History and the Life of the Church
• The Spirituality of the Church in the Ecclesiology of Charles Hodge
• Charles Hodge and the Spirituality of the Church
• Confessional Subscription and the Animus Imponentis

Dr. Alan Strange discusses the Westminster Assembly and the Westminster Standards and whether they affirmed the imputation of Christ’s active obedience as necessary for our justification. Strange has written, The Imputation of the Active Obedience of Christ in the Westminster Standards, which is published by Reformation Heritage Books in their Explorations in Reformed Confessional Theology series.

In the book, Strange gives a survey of church history before and during the Reformation to see how the Assembly relates to the tradition before it. He reflects on the relation of imputation to federal theology, modern challenges to the doctrine, and important rules for interpreting the confessional document.

Dr. Strange is professor of church history at Mid-America Reformed Seminary in Dyer, Indiana.

Links

Strange, “The Imputation of the Active Obedience of Christ“

Participants: Alan Strange, Camden Bucey

Dr. Cornelis Venema speaks about the doctrine of election. His book, Chosen in Christ: Revisiting the Contours of Predestination, is available in Mentor’s Reformed, Exegetical, and Doctrinal Studies series. Venema addresses the subject from exegetical, historical, contemporary, and pastoral vantage points. In this conversation, he addresses the doctrine of election in the Old and New Testaments, the relationship between covenant and election, the polemical discourse between Augustine and Pelagius, and the revisionist doctrine of Karl Barth.

Dr. Venema is President and Professor of Doctrinal Studies at Mid-America Reformed Seminary in Dyer, Indiana. He is the author of several books, including Promise of the Future, Christ and Covenant Theology, and Children at the Lord’s Table? Assessing the Case for Paedocommunion.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Cornelis Venema

Participants: Adam York, Jim Cassidy, Mark A. Winder

Today we provide an introduction to the doctrine of justification with a consideration of several basic categories. We begin with a confessional doctrine of justification from the Westminster Standards. We then consider justification’s relationship to faith. Then we turn to the believer’s relationship to the person and work of Christ and consider how we are united to him. Finally, we speak about the relationship of that union to faith.

Westminster Shorter Catechism

Q. 29. How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ?
A. We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us by his Holy Spirit.

Q. 30. How doth the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ?
A. The Spirit applieth to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.

Q. 31. What is effectual calling?
A. Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.

Q. 32. What benefits do they that are effectually called partake of in this life?
A. They that are effectually called do in this life partake of justification, adoption and sanctification, and the several benefits which in this life do either accompany or flow from them.

Q. 33. What is justification?
A. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.

Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 11—Of Justification

1. Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness, by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.

4. God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did, in the fullness of time, die for their sins, and rise again for their justification: nevertheless, they are not justified, until the Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

William Perkins (1558–1602), often called “the father of Puritanism,” was a master preacher and teacher of Reformed, experiential theology. Greg Salazar speaks about Perkins’s works on predestination and his influence upon the Puritan and Reformed tradition. In speaking of predestination, we also cover related topics on Perkins’s theology such as his Christology, his understanding of the ordo salutis, and even his views on Christian forms of memory recall.

Dr. Salazar is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology for the PhD program at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Along with Dr. Joel Beeke, he has edited volume six of Perkins’s works with Reformation Heritage Books.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Greg Salazar, Jim Cassidy

Glen Clary and Camden Bucey discuss the apostle Paul’s teaching in Romans 8:28–30. Paul speaks of the purpose of God’s foreknowledge and predestination—leading to conformity to the image of Christ.

²⁸ And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰ And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:28–30, ESV)

Participants: Camden Bucey, Glen Clary

Lane Tipton delivers the first plenary address at the Reformed Forum 2018 Theology Conference at Hope Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Grayslake, Illinois. Download the lecture notes to follow along.

Participants: Lane G. Tipton

Camden Bucey delivers the opening and introductory address at the Reformed Forum 2018 Theology Conference at Hope Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Grayslake, Illinois.

Participants: Camden Bucey

Dr. Whitney Gamble speaks about antinomianism and the Westminster Assembly. She has written Christ and the Law: Antinomianism at the Westminster Assembly, which is part of the Studies on the Westminster Assembly series published by Reformation Heritage Books. Dr. Gamble is associate professor of biblical and theological studies at Providence Christian College. She holds a PhD in historical and systematic theology from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, a master of theological studies from Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and a B.A. in biblical studies from Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. Along with seventy other leading scholars from around the world, she is contributing a chapter in the forthcoming multi-volume series, The History of Scottish Theology, published by Oxford University Press. Dr. Gamble is also a frequent guest on The White Horse Inn podcast.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy, Whitney Gamble

We have compiled a list of suggested reading to help those coming to the 2018 Theology Conference. We realize people like have neither the time nor financial budget to work through each of these titles in advance of the conference. Nonetheless, even a first-level reading of a few of these resources will help attendees make the most out of the conference. One of the things we love most about our events is the personal interaction. Working through the issues together is what makes the Reformed Forum community so special. Study and contemplate the deep mysteries of the God-man relationship and the future consummation. In October, let’s take the discussion to the next level.

Primary Sources

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
• Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics
  • CD I/2, section 14.
  • CD II/1, section 31.3
  • CD I/1, section 6
  • CD III/1, section 41.2
  • CD III/1, section 45.1
• Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, Preface to the Second Edition
• Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 1: Theology Proper
• Logos Resources
  • Barth’s Church Dogmatics: https://www.logos.com/product/5758/barths-church-dogmatics.
  • Vos: https://www.logos.com/product/48797/reformed-dogmatics
  • Van Til: https://www.logos.com/product/3994/the-works-of-cornelius-van-til

General Reading on the Beatific Vision

• Hans Boersma, Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition

Thomas Aquinas

• Daria Spezzano, The Glory of God’s Grace: Deification According to St. Thomas Aquinas
• Dominic Legge, The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas
• Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters
• Levering and Dauphinais, eds., Rediscovering Aquinas and the Sacraments

Karl Barth

• Keith L. Johnson, Karl Barth and the Analogia Entis
• McCormack and White, eds., Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: An Unofficial Catholic-Protestant Dialogue
• James J. Cassidy, God’s Time For Us: Barth on the Reconciliation of Eternity and Time in Jesus Christ

Catholicism and Protestantism

• Cornelius Van Til, The Confession of 1967
• Cornelius Van Til, The New Synthesis Theology of the Netherlands
• Cornelius Van Til, The Great Debate Today
• John W. O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican II?
• William M. Shea, The Lion and the Lamb: Evangelicals and Catholics in America

* Check back for updates.

Theologians often speak of regeneration, the work of the Holy Spirit to bring someone to the new birth. But the Westminster Standards speak of effectual calling as the work of the Spirit to give people new hearts, enlightening their minds and renewing their wills. Are effectual calling and regeneration the same thing? If not, how do they relate? In this episode, we discuss the relationship between these two aspects of the ordo salutis.

Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 10: Of Effectual Calling

1. All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace. 2. This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.

Participants: Adam York, Camden Bucey, Glen Clary

We speak with Dr. Stephen G. Myers about Ebenezer Erskine and the important events of Presbyterian history with which he was involved.Dr. Myers is Professor of Historical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In his book, Scottish Federalism and Covenantalism in Transition: The Theology of Ebenezer Erskine, he touches upon many significant issues, including the Marrow Controversy, the relationship of law and grace, covenant theology, and church-state relations. In learning about this era of Presbyterian history, we come to understand how Erskine also serves to refine modern understandings of still controversial theological issues.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Glen Clary, Jeff Waddington, Jim Cassidy, Stephen Myers

Each presbytery meeting, we usually have the opportunity to examine candidates for licensure and ordination.As you’d expect, these exams cover important topics pertaining to the doctrine of Scripture, theology proper, anthropology, Christology, soteriology, and ecclesiology. I enjoy these exams. It’s a joy to hear a candidate speak of his Lord Jesus Christ and the system of doctrine revealed to us in Holy Scripture. The better exams usually include language from the Westminster Standards along with Scriptural references. Strong candidates demonstrate that they not only have portions of the standards memorized but have facility to work with them. They can convey important doctrines in their own words and demonstrate that they understand them and the key portions of Scripture upon which they rest. One of the regular questions asked of candidates regards the ordo salutis or order of salvation. It refers to specific salvific benefits and how they relate to one another. Oddly enough, here people stray from the precise language of the standards opting for something of a pro forma golden chain description. Candidates often say the ordo salutis is election, effectually calling, conversion (which is faith and repentance), justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. It is well-attested in our tradition and many respected theologians have developed such a chain in accord with Scripture. And so, I’m not surprised to hear this answer, but I often wonder why it never solicits any followup from the examiner or questions the floor. What exactly does a candidate mean? For example, are we to understand this as a logical order? Is it a causal or even temporal order? And where is union with Christ? More importantly: what is the language of the Westminster Standards on these matters and how does it relate to Scripture (e.g. Romans 8:29–30; 1 Cor 1:30–31; 6:11, 2 Cor 3:18; et al)?

Shorter Catechism

Q. 32. What benefits do they that are effectually called partake of in this life? A. They that are effectually called do in this life partake of justification, adoption and sanctification, and the several benefits which in this life do either accompany or flow from them. Q. 36. What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption and sanctification? A. The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption and sanctification, are, assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end.

Larger Catechism

Q. 66. What is that union which the elect have with Christ? A. The union which the elect have with Christ is the work of God’s grace, whereby they are spiritually and mystically, yet really and inseparably, joined to Christ as their head and husband; which is done in their effectual calling.

Confession of Faith

10.1. All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace. 11.1. Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness, by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God. 12.1. All those that are justified, God vouchsafeth, in and for his only Son Jesus Christ, to make partakers of the grace of adoption, by which they are taken into the number, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of God, have his name put upon them, receive the Spirit of adoption, have access to the throne of grace with boldness, are enabled to cry, Abba, Father, are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by him, as by a father: yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption; and inherit the promises, as heirs of everlasting salvation. 13.1. They, who are once effectually called, and regenerated, having a new heart, and a new spirit created in them, are further sanctified, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, by his Word and Spirit dwelling in them: the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified; and they more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.

What do you think?

Is a golden chain the only way to read the standards? Does such a reading do justice to the standards? Should we give more attention to our language regarding the ordo salutis in theological examinations? Does it even matter? Share your thoughts in the comments.

What did the Tree of Life symbolize in the Garden of Eden? Why does it reappear in Revelation 2:7 and 22:2? We discuss the symbolism of the tree and the eschatological mode of life it signifies and seals.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Glen Clary, Jim Cassidy

This episode was recorded just prior to our 2017 Theology Conference on The Reformation of Apologetics. We discuss the theological approach of scholasticism as it pertains to Thomas Aquinas, the Reformers, and Cornelius Van Til.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Glen Clary, Jeff Waddington, Jim Cassidy

This episode was recorded live at our 2017 Theology Conference on The Reformation of Apologetics. In celebration of the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation and the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Cornelius Van Til, we consider the connection between Reformed apologetics and the five solas. The solas summarize the theological principles of the Reformation, and while one may not consider apologetics to be a major discipline of the Reformation, we seek to show how the Reformation dictates a consistent apologetic method. We contend that to be a covenantal apologist, one must be a Reformed theologian. Moreover, to be a consistent Reformed theologian, one must be a covenantal apologist.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Glen Clary, Jeff Waddington, Jim Cassidy, Lane G. Tipton

Today, Rob and Bob talk about John 3:16 in the context of God’s inclusion of the Gentiles into the New Covenant. Was this something that we hear about before the coming of Christ?

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

The Reformation restored the holistic nature of faith to include both knowledge and trust in keeping with the organic unity of the whole person and our union with the whole Christ as taught in Scripture. These two elements, however, were again pulled apart more and more under the stress of Enlightenment thinking and criticisms. Faith was positioned on the chopping block of human autonomy which rushed down upon it like a guillotine. Despite attempts to save it, its lifeblood was emptied. True restoration would again be found only in reformation, in renouncing the absolute freedom of man and returning to God’s revelation in Scripture.

A New Dualism: Cold Orthodoxy and Pietism

Herman Bavinck provides a helpful summary of the dichotomy that resulted,

On the one hand, a cold orthodoxy emerged that interpreted faith only in terms of doctrine, and on the other hand, a Pietism that valued devoutness above truth. This dualism in religion, church, and theology was strengthened by a twofold orientation of the newer philosophy, that, after Descartes and Bacon, eventually ended up in dogmatism and empiricism (“Philosophy of Religion (Faith),” 26).

This new dualism sat uncomfortably with many—but was a new reconciliation even possible within the system of Enlightenment thinking? The attempted solution by Immanuel Kant would argue, No. Kant’s epistemology was especially influenced by the criticism of David Hume, so that “he turned his back on dogmatism and became convinced that rationalism in theology and metaphysics was untenable” (27). In turn, he divided reality into two worlds, the noumena and the phenomena. The noumena consisted of things as they are in themselves, while the phenomena, in distinction, included things as they are knowable by the senses. Kant argued that genuine scholarship and science was only possible in the world of the phenomena since it alone is accessible to the human mind. The transcendental and supernatural world of the noumena was inaccessible and all proofs adduced for it end up in an antinomy.

Kant’s (Unsuccessful) Attempt to Save Faith

But Kant did not want to surrender the supernatural, nor the concept of faith, yet he knew neither could rest on cogent reasons and proofs of rationalism. He needed another, firmer foundation, which he discovered in the writings of Rousseau, the father of Romanticism. Rousseau, conscious of the sharp contrast between nature and culture of his time, “became the enthusiastic preacher of the gospel of nature.” Bavinck goes on,

In [Rousseau’s] teaching about society and state, education and religion, he turned from the corrupt culture of his time to the truth and simplicity of nature. In all areas, the historical had to make room for what was originally given, [abandoning] society for innocent nature, positive Christianity for natural religion, the false reasons of the mind for the impulse of feeling. Certainty about the truths of religion was also to be found in feeling. … For him the final certainty of these truths of the faith [including the existence of God] are not to be found in the theoretical but in the practical sphere, in the original and immediate witness of feeling that is deeper and much more reliable than the reasoning mind. Each person is assured in his heart about a supersensory world (27).

This idea would have a tremendous influence on the philosophy of Kant (and the theology of feeling of Schleiermacher among others). Specifically what Kant learned from Rousseau was that “religious truths possess a different certainty for people than truths of the mind or reason, of science or philosophy.” Religion and morality contain their own kind of certainty, that is, a certainty that is distinct from the certainty of natural phenomena. With this being the case, “metaphysics does not need to provide all kinds of proofs for God’s existence, the freedom of the will, and the immortality of the soul. Moreover, science could then freely go its own way and be bound only by its own character and laws” (28). In short, the certainty of the noumena (religion) rests on a different foundation than the certainty of the phenomena (science). Herein is the dualism of Kant’s philosophy: there are two, separate foundations of a two-story reality constructed of the noumena and the phenomena. Kant, however, does not adopt Rousseau’s idea that the foundation of the noumena is feeling; instead, he posits the foundation as “practical reason, the moral nature of man. In his conscience, man feels himself bound to a categorical, unconditional, absolute imperative” (28). The certainty of the world of the noumena rests on the foundation of man’s morality as he finds in himself the “thou shalt” of the moral law, which transcends all other powers in nature. From here, Kant argues, man can find certainty of other noumena realities: the freedom of his will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God.

If this moral world order is to be true reality and not an illusion, and if it is to triumph one day over all that is great and strong and mighty in this world, then man must be free in his actions and his soul must be immortal to receive his reward in the hereafter, and God must exist in order to reconcile in eternal harmony the terrible opposites between virtue and luck that exist on earth. These are not conclusions legitimately deduced from preceding scientific premises, but they are postulates put forth by man according to his moral nature. He cannot prove, he cannot demonstrate, that it is all true, but he is subjectively certain of it; he believes and acts as if it were true; he does not know, but he believes, and he has moral grounds for his belief” (28).

The Destruction of Faith in Kant, Schleiermacher and Hegel

At this point, we have come far afield from the Reformation and biblical view of faith as including both knowledge and trust in an organic unity. Kant sought a safer place for faith by relinquishing all elements of knowledge about divine truth and relocating it solely to a supernatural order, but, ironically, in so doing he destroyed it. Schleiermacher will move in a similar direction in theology, having basically the same epistemological commitments as Kant, but instead of a moral/ethical direction, he will move toward the mystical sense of absolute feeling. In distinction from Kant, Schleiermacher “held that willing and acting and knowing do not disclose the supersensible world, because this willing also moves in opposites and never reaches unity. This unity, enjoyed only in feeling, which precedes thinking and willing and is completely independent of absolute power” (29). In the opposite direction of both Kant (ethical) and Schleiermacher (mystical) was the German Idealist, Hegel (speculative/rationalism). He elevated reason to a cosmic principle with the progress of history being the absolute Spirit or Mind realizing itself. Religion, then, is merely a developmental stage in the movement of absolute thought in history.

Van Til’s Critique of Kant

Cornelius Van Til wrote, “If Kant’s position were to be retained, both knowledge and faith would be destroyed.” That is, not only does Kant fail to arrive at any true knowledge in the realm of the noumena by way of practical reason and faith, but equally so he fails to arrive at any true knowledge in the realm of the phenomena by way of theoretical reason. Despite his desire to salvage God, morality, and all else that belongs to the noumena, he makes wreckage of the noumena along with the phenomena. After totaling both realms on the speedway of human autonomy, Kant is left with an irreparable theory of knowledge. The reason for this totalizing failure is his starting point in man, rather than in God’s revelation. Kant imprisoned God to the noumena and made the link between the noumena and phenomena not God’s self-revelation but man’s sense of morality. Accordingly, God is ignorant of the phenomena and man is enthroned over the natural world as an autonomous interpreter of the facts of the phenomena. Both God and the world are man-contained, dependent on him and relative to him. Man does not think God’s thoughts after him, that is, in accordance with and submission to the comprehensive knowledge of God, but comes to the natural world as if it was comprised of uninterpreted, brute facts. Man has therefore replaced God in Kant’s theory as the world’s primary interpreter and definer. Van Til writes,

Knowledge and faith are not contradictories but complementaries. Kant did not make room for faith, because he destroyed the God on whom alone faith is to be fixed. It is true of course, that Kant spoke of a God as possibly existing. This God, however, could not be more than a finite God, since he at least did not have, or did not need to have, original knowledge of the phenomenal world. Kant thought that man could get along without God in the matter of scientific knowledge. It is thus that the representational principle which we saw to be the heart of the Christian theistic theory of knowledge is set aside. If man knows certain facts whether or not God knows these facts, as would be the case if the Kantian position were true, man’s knowledge would be done away with. Whatever sort of God may remain, on Kant’s view, he is not the supreme interpretive category of human experience (A Survey of Christian Epistemology, 109; see esp. pp. 106-13 for his full critique).

No One Can Serve Two Masters

On the basis of God’s self-revelation in Scripture, Bavinck counters the dualism of Kantian philosophy by returning to the central unity in man. He argues that Kant’s ethicisim, Schleiermacher’s mysticism and Hegel’s rationalism suffer from “a significant one-sidedness” and “diminish man’s universal character.” These anti-theistic systems divide man in two and separate what belongs together. The result is that true religion is lost since it is reduced to either moral duty or aesthetic emotion or a philosophic view. “But according to the Christian, confession [sic] religion is other than and higher than all those views; religion must not just be something in one’s life, but everything. Jesus demands that we love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength. In our thinking and living, there can be no division between God and the world, between religion and culture; no one can serve two masters” (29).

The Westminster Larger Catechism defines justifying faith as

a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation (72).

Faith is not merely the intellectual assent of the mind to the redemptive revelation of God, it is also a receiving and resting upon the person of Christ. By this definition the Reformed go beyond Rome’s demand for nothing more than an historical assent to the truth by including a heartfelt trust of the whole person. This personal and active dimension of faith is evident in the words used throughout the Old Testament to express the concept of believing. We’ll turn to Geerhardus Vos’ survey of these words in the fourth volume of his Reformed Dogmatics on soteriology (the doctrine of salvation) to see this.

אמן (“To Believe”)

The first and most often used word is אמן. Vos notes that in the hiphil form the word is best rendered as “demonstrating faithfulness,” “generating faithfulness,” or “establishing oneself.” It has to do with “an active disposition of the soul, an action that produces change” (72). The word also takes on certain nuances depending on the preposition connected with it. With the preposition לְ (“to”) it generally has to do with holding something to be true. This is seen in Deuteronomy 9:23, which speaks of Israel’s failure to actively believe: “you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God and did not believe him…” With the preposition בְּ (“by,” “in”) it usually denotes a trustful resting in a person or in a truth. This is used of Abraham in Genesis 15:6, “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” Now Abraham’s faith was more than just his holding the promise of God to be true. “As this promise was a matter of life for Abraham, so this promise was also a living testimony for him, and his faith was not merely concerned with the truth in the abstract but with the God of the truth. A personal relationship came about between the consciousness of Abraham and God. Thus we may already say in general that [Abraham’s believing here] is the trustful acceptance of the testimony of a person that becomes a basis for certainty for us through the conscious conception of that person” (73).

בטח (“To Trust”)

A second word that is used in the Old Testament is בטח which means “to be sure,” and so with the preposition בְּ (“in”) it means to trust in someone. So Psalm 28:7, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped.” Vos comments, “Here, too, the personal relationship comes out. Depending on the testimony is accompanied by and derives its strength from this personal relationship” (74). The imagery of the Lord being the psalmist’s personal shield is a helpful picture of what it means to trust in him.

חסה (“To Take Refuge”)

We find a third word used in Psalm 57:1, “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.” The Hebrew word here is חסה, which means “to hide” or “to take refuge in.” This trust of the psalmist’s soul is not a mere intellectual assent to the truth, but an active trusting in God. The intense imagery of taking refuge in the midst of a destructive storm would be incongruous with a mere acceptance of the truth with the mind. The whole trusts in the Lord and so seeks refuge in him.

קוה (“To Wait”)

A fourth, and final, word used is קוה—an intense, active word that can mean “focusing the mind on something.” At times it might carry the sense of “hoping” in the biblical sense that carries certainty and conviction or “an intensive focusing of the intellect that definitely expects the realization of what is desired” (74). It is usually translated as “wait”: “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Ps. 27:14). “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isa. 40:31). “This waiting … is not a passive state, depleted of all expression of life. Rather, it is an extending and securing of the heart, a reckoning on Jehovah connected with the inner strength of the soul” (74).

Summary and Conclusion

Vos summarizes the various elements that belong to the concept of believing in the Old Testament (pp. 74-75):

1. Faith is an activity of the intellect as it accepts the testimony of another.
2. Faith can be much more than an activity of the intellect. As trust it is that deeply moral action by which, in order to have stability, man, as it were, puts himself into another.
3. As such, faith does not have a passive but an active, dynamic form.
4. As trust, faith is accompanied to a greater or lesser degree by a sense of security. Faith not only seeks certainty but finds it and also produces certainty. It knows itself to be certain and safe and lives in a reality with its conceptions that is not yet present.

Faith is a free gift from God that is kindled in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. All of the benefits we have spoken of are not true of faith in the abstract—our faith is not in faith itself—but because of the concrete object of our faith, namely, Jesus Christ. By faith we are united to him (you might say with Paul we are put in him) as our living and personal Savior, in whom we have died and in whom we have also been raised to new life. Today he not only supplies us with a place of security and rest as we navigate the tempestuous waters of this present age, but also works in us faith by his Spirit so that we do not fail to arrive on the shores of the crystal waters flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. 22:1).

Saving faith is the instrument by which the whole person is united to the whole Christ in the unbreakable bond of the Holy Spirit. I am not my own, confesses the believer, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. Faith is not merely an activity of the mind assenting to the truth, nor merely an activity of the heart being assured of God and salvation, but an activity of the whole person. This faith, which the Holy Spirit kindles in our hearts, “embraces Jesus Christ with all His merits, appropriates Him, and seeks nothing more besides Him” (Belgic Confession art. 22). In the same way faith does not embrace half a Savior, as the Belgic Confession goes on to say, so also it is not an activity of half a person. Saving faith is nothing less than the whole self embracing a whole Savior. It is a matter of the heart, in the biblical sense, as that from which proceed all expressions of life in mind, feeling, and will. This is consistent with the way Paul speaks of our union with Christ, which is by faith. He writes to the Colossians, “You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). Similarly to the Romans, he writes, “We were buried … with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). And to the Corinthians, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). Paul does not qualify as if only part of you died with Christ; he has in mind a total death. And the same is true of the new life in Christ. By faith our whole self is brought into union with the whole Christ in his death and resurrection. This holistic view of faith is at the basis of true religion, as the means of fellowship with the living God. In creation we learn that man, as the image of God, was to serve and enjoy him with his whole self in true knowledge, righteousness and holiness, that is, as his prophet, priest and king. Likewise, in God’s work of redemption, regeneration is in principle a renewal of the whole person to this once forfeited, but now regained service in Christ. True religion, then, is not something that can be relocated to certain areas of a person’s life, but is the animating principle of all of life. Our view of faith must coincide with this.

The Roman Catholic Captivity of Faith and True Religion

This view of faith was something that was thankfully recovered by the Reformation. The Roman Catholic Church had reduced the full-orbed nature of faith to a mere activity of the mind assenting to revealed divine truth, and in doing so corrupted the true religion. Herman Bavinck, in his excellent essay, “Philosophy of Religion (Faith),” accurately summarizes the Roman Catholic view of faith:

It generally is the acceptance of a witness on the basis of the trustworthiness of the spokesman, and it retains this meaning also in the religious arena. It is true that an operation of the Spirit is necessary to illumine the mind and to bend the will. Still, faith is and remains an activity of the mind. It exists in the acceptance of and agreement with God’s truth as contained in Scripture and tradition, on the basis of the inerrant authority of the church (25-26).

While Roman Catholic theology is far from unified, this summary of Bavinck is consistent, for example, with the Catechism of the Catholic Church. First, for Rome faith is merely the assent of the mind. While they may speak of personal adherence and insert such language as “his whole being,” they never go beyond mere assent. For example, “By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer.'” (143). While the language, “whole being” is used, the action attributed to the “whole being” is only that of assenting. So either the whole being of man is reduced entirely to his mind or his whole being is brought in subordination to his mind. Even when speaking of Mary—in whom Rome venerates “the purest realization of faith”—the catechism only states that she “welcomes the tidings and promise brought by the angel Gabriel, believing that ‘with God nothing will be impossible’ and so giving her assent.” Aquinas is also cited as saying, “Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.” Second, Rome supplants the Holy Spirit with the Church as the source of faith. It is the Church, according to Rome, who teaches the believer to say both “I believe” and “We believe” (167). Furthermore, “It is the Church that believes first, and so bears, nourishes and sustains my faith…” (168). And the Church is considered the believer’s mother because through her “we receive the life of faith” and so “she is also our teacher in the faith” (169). This view of faith severs the unity of the person, embraces rationalism, and injects a heavy dosage of impersonalism, imposing an institutional mediator between the believer and Christ, thus corrupting the true religion of fulsome fellowship with the living triune God.

The Reformation Rescue of Faith and True Religion

In response, “the Reformation,” writes Bavinck, “presented a completely different view of faith. Even though faith could properly be called knowledge, it was, as Calvin said, still more a matter of the heart than of the mind” (26). This is embodied in the great document of the Reformation, the Heidelberg Catechism. After stating in Q/A 20 that salvation is only for those who by true faith are grafted into Christ and accept all his blessings, it expectantly asks, “What is true faith?” The answer encompasses the whole person, mind and heart, intellect and soul, knowledge and assurance. It reads, “True faith is not only a knowledge and conviction that everything God reveals in his Word is true; it is also a deep-rooted assurance, created in me by the Holy Spirit through the gospel, that, out of sheer grace earned for us by Christ, not only others, but I too, have had my sins forgiven, have been made forever right with God, and have been granted salvation” (Q/A 21). In contrast to Roman Catholic theology, “faith thus received from the Reformers a unique, independent, religious meaning. It was distinguished essentially from the faith of which we speak in daily life, and also from historical and temporal faith, or faith in miracles. It was not just an acceptance of divine truth, but it also became the bond of the soul with Christ, the means of fellowship with the living God” (26). In this we have the restoration of true religion.

Following the Reformation we find unfortunate attempts to again sever the unity of the person with either rationalism and cold orthodoxy (reducing faith to the intellect) or pietism, mysticism and ethicism (reducing faith to feelings and morality), along with Immanuel Kant’s failed attempt to unite them once again. We will explore this, along with some of the manifold implications of the Reformation’s proper and wholesome view of faith for Christian living, preaching, evangelism, etc. in future articles. We will also look at some of the insights from Geerhardus Vos on the various words used throughout the Old and New Testaments for “faith,” so as to find biblical confirmation of the Reformed view.

Dr. Robert J. Cara speaks about his book, Cracking the Foundation of the New Perspective on Paul: Covenantal Nomism versus Reformed Covenantal Theology (Mentor, 2017), which is published in the Reformed Exegetical and Doctrinal Series. The New Perspective on Paul is broadly united on its view of the theology contained in Second Temple Jewish literature. Arguing that these documents do not contain a doctrine of works righteousness, Paul certainly cannot be arguing against such a view—quite simply because it didn’t exist. Dr. Cara examines the Jewish sources and “cracks the foundation” of the NPP by demonstrating how they incorporate meritorious works and thus establish the traditional Protestant view of Paul and his doctrine of justification. Dr. Cara is Provost, Chief Academic Officer, and Hugh and Sallie Reaves Professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jeff Waddington, Robert Cara

Chris Castaldo compares the respective doctrines of justification of the Reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli and the Roman Catholic John Henry Cardinal Newman. Castaldo is the author of Justified in Christ: The Doctrines of Peter Martyr Vermigli and John Henry Newman and Their Ecumenical Implications. In the book, he compares the doctrines of the Reformed convert from Catholicism (Vermigli) and the Catholic convert from Anglicanism (Newman), drawing conclusions that prove insightful both for ecumenical dialogue and pastoral ministry. Rev. Dr. Castaldo serves as Lead Pastor of New Covenant Church in Naperville, Illinois. You can visit him online at chriscastaldo.com.

Books by Chris Castaldo

• Holy Ground: Walking with Jesus as a Former Catholic
• Talking with Catholics about the Gospel
• The Unfinished Reformation: What Unites and Divides Catholics and Protestants after 500 Years (co-authored with Gregg Allison)

Previous Episodes with Chris Castaldo

• Speaking with Catholics about the Gospel
• The Unfinished Reformation

Participants: Camden Bucey, Chris Castaldo, Jim Cassidy

We welcome Dr. Brandon Crowe to speak about his book, The Last Adam: A Theology of the Obedient Life of Jesus in the Gospels, in which he sets forth the soteriological significance of the life of Jesus in the Gospels. He offers an exegetical case for understanding the Adam-Christ parallel in the Gospels themselves, and thereby allows us to see the great glory of person and work of Christ as he is revealed in all of Scripture.

Other episodes with Brandon Crowe

• Deuteronomy and Christology in the Gospel of Matthew
• The Virgin Birth of Christ
• The Message of the General Epistles
• The New Testament Foundations of Trinitarian Theology

Participants: Brandon Crowe, Camden Bucey

Dr. Keith Stanglin joins us to speak about the theology of Jacobus Arminius. Arminius was a Dutch theologian who served as a professor of theology at the University of Leiden. Many Calvinists will be familiar with his name as well as some version of his theological views. But are those views accurate? Today we discuss Arminius’s actual views as opposed to those of Arminians and semi-Pelagians or merely the caricatures that have been leveled against him through the generations. Many listeners will gain a new perspective on Arminius. Dr. Stanglin is associate professor at Austin Graduate School of Theology and has written extensively on the subject.

Books and Articles by Keith Stanglin

Published Books:

• The Reformation to the Modern Church: A Reader in Christian Theology
• Reconsidering Arminius: Beyond the Reformed and Wesleyan Divide
• Jacob Arminius: Theologian of Grace
• The Missing Public Disputations of Jacob Arminius
• Arminius, Arminianism, and Europe
• Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation: The Context, Roots, and Shape of the Leiden Debate

Scholarly Articles:

• “Methodological Musings on Historiography (A Rejoinder),” Church History and Religious Culture 92 (2012): 121–9.
• “The New Perspective on Arminius: Notes on a Historiographical Shift,” Reformation & Renaissance Review 11/3 (2009): 295–310.
• “S. M. Baugh and the Meaning of Foreknowledge: Another Look,” Trinity Journal 26 (2005): 19–31.

Popular-Level Articles:

• “‘Baptism in the Sea’: An Invitation to Typological Interpretation,” Leaven 21/2 (2013): 70–4.
• “Knowledge: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” Salt, Leaven, and Light (April 26, 2012): 1–3.
• “‘Faith Comes from What is Heard’: The Reformers on the Ministry of the Word and the Holy Spirit,”Leaven 12/3 (2004): 161–6.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Glen Clary, Jim Cassidy, Keith Stanglin

It’s not clear to me how the Confession of Sins and Prayer for Pardon [in Calvin’s liturgy] is compatible with the Reformed idea that man’s sins are completely forgiven at the moment of Justification and that God only views man in light of the Righteousness of Christ imputed to him. Why ask for forgiveness of sins every Sunday if you believe all your sins were already forgiven and that God never counts your sins against you?

It is true that Calvin’s liturgy—like the liturgies of Luther, Cranmer, Bucer, and Knox—included a Corporate Confession of Sin and Declaration of Pardon. In Calvin’s Strasbourg service, after the Confession of Sin, Calvin would deliver “some word of Scripture to console the conscience”; then, he would pronounce “the Absolution in this manner:”

Let each of you truly acknowledge that he is a sinner, humbling himself before God, and believe that the heavenly Father wills to be gracious unto him in Jesus Christ. To all those that repent in this wise, and look to Jesus Christ for their salvation, I declare that the absolution of sins is effected, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Calvin’s Strasbourg service followed the pattern of Martin Bucer’s liturgy, which began with a Confession of Sin followed by a “Word of Comfort” from holy scripture (1 Tim. 1:15; or John 3:16; 3:35–36; Acts 10:43; 1 John 2:1–2; etc.) and the “Absolution.”

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Let everyone, with St. Paul, truly acknowledge this in his heart and believe in Christ. Thus, in His name, I proclaim unto you the forgiveness of all your sins, and declare you to be loosed of them on earth, that you be loosed of them also in heaven, in eternity. Amen.

Bucer’s liturgy makes it clear that the Absolution is an exercise of the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 16:19; 18:18). As excommunication declares that the impenitent are bound by sins, absolution declares that the penitents are loosed from them. We find a similar pattern of Confession of Sin followed by an Absolution in the liturgies of Luther, Cranmer and Knox. How is it that Nick and Stellman can see so clearly what all these Reformers failed to see? The Confession of Faith that Stellman at one time believed and defended clearly explains why praying for forgiveness of sins every Lord’s Day does not contradict the Reformed doctrine of justification.

God doth continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified; and, although they can never fall from the state of justification, yet they may, by their sins, fall under God’s fatherly displeasure, and not have the light of his countenance restored unto them, until they humble themselves, confess their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance (WCF 11:5)

J. G. Vos explains,

The justified person still can and daily does commit sin in thought, word and deed…. These “daily failings” cannot cancel his standing as a justified person; they cannot bring him into condemnation. But they can offend his heavenly Father, and cause him to withdraw the light of his countenance from the person’s soul for a time. They cannot destroy the believer’s union with God, but they can interrupt and weaken his communion with God. Therefore, the believer is daily to confess his sins and to pray for God’s pardon for his daily failings.

It is not uncommon for a drunken man to believe that he has a brilliant idea that no one else has ever thought of. His sober buddies, of course, realize that he’s making a fool of himself.

Jim Cassidy provides notices of several significant recent books.

• Christopher Holmes, The Holy Spirit
• Thomas Schreiner, Faith Alone: The Doctrine of Justification
• David VanDrunen, God’s Glory Alone
• Oliver Crisp and Fred Sanders, eds., Locating Atonement: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics
• Andrew Purves, Exploring Christology and Atonement: Conversations with John McLeod Campbell, H. R. Mackintosh, and T. F. Torrance
• Yaroslav Viazovski, Image and Hope: John Calvin and Karl Barth on Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting

Links

• David VanDrunen on Christ the Center, episode 425

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy

In his superb book The Whole Christ, Sinclair Ferguson reminds us of an absolutely critical point of salvation:

The benefits of the gospel (justification, reconciliation, redemption, adoption) were being separated from Christ, who is himself the gospel. The benefits of the gospel are in Christ. They do not exist apart from him. They are ours only in him. They cannot be abstracted from him as if we ourselves could possess them independently of him (Ferguson, 44).

Dr. Ferguson is addressing the early 18th century’s Marrow Controversy, the theological and historical lessons of which apply directly to the Church’s present struggles over legalism, antinomianism, and gospel assurance. The thesis of the selection above may seem too basic to mention. Yet in our theologizing, we can have the tendency to drift away from the central truth that we are saved in and through the person and work of Jesus Christ. While it is imperative that we understand the precise biblical doctrine of each benefit, we must never turn our gaze away from Christ unto an abstracted doctrine. The Whole Christ is an absolute must read for visitors of this site. Buy it, read it, mark it up, meditate upon it, and share it with others.

Now, if there be a somatic resurrection, we can not otherwise conceive of it than as a somatic transformation. There is not a simple return of what was lost in death; the organism returned is returned endowed and equipped with new powers; it is richer, even apart from the removal of its sin-caused defects. The normal, to be sure, is restored, but to it there are added faculties and qualities which should be regarded supernormal from the standpoint of the present state of existence.

—Geerhardus Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, 154–155.

The term “grace” can sometimes take on a use that, in a seemingly harmless way, treats it as an object in and of itself; a valuable commodity for walking the Christian life. Some turn its meaning into something that functions like a gift of spiritual gold, motivational pixie dust from which believers siphon for their spiritual nourishment. In his upcoming book, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ, Tony Reinke uses John Newton (and a few others) to illustrate a helpful corrective to models of pop-grace that have been popular both in our day and in Newton’s:

[I]n our modern culture, where grace has become a synonym for kindness, “Amazing Grace” becomes a sort of hymn to the transforming power of niceness or, a little better, grace becomes abstracted divine benevolence. In either case, grace is depersonalized.

This misunderstanding of grace has led Sinclair Ferguson to go so far as to say there actually is no such thing as grace. It has led Michael Horton to declare that grace is “not a third thing or substance mediating between God and sinners, but is Jesus Christ in redeeming action.” Their point is the same. We must resist the temptation to morph grace into spiritual currency or some abstracted spiritual power that mysteriously ebbs and flows. Grace is not dished out in spiritual gold coins of merit (a serious medieval Roman Catholic error confronted in the Reformation). No. Thinking of grace as spiritual currency is mistaken. To say there is no such thing as grace means that all the grace we have and can ever hope to have—all the sovereign grace, all the all-sufficient grace—is bound up in the favor of the Father and in our union with the Son. (p. 45-46)

I’ll have a full review at Reformation21 when the book comes out. In the meantime, for helpful supplemental material on grace check out this post by Camden Bucey on the topic, written here at Reformed Forum.

Building upon Geerhardus Vos’s foundational essay “The Eschatological Aspect of the Pauline Conception of the Spirit” Dr. Lane Tipton develops the role of the Spirit with regard to redemptive history, the law and soteriology. Vos remarks that the core of Paul’s eschatology lies in the sphere of the Spirit. The Spirit, given to the resurrected Christ, inaugurates the eschatological age of the world to come. This world to come is realized climactically in the resurrection of Christ as the firstfruits of the one great resurrection of harvest in the Spirit.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Jim Cassidy reviews Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way, by J.I. Packer and Gary Parrett, published by Baker Books.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy

Jim Cassidy and Camden Bucey introduce Christification: A Lutheran Approach to Theosis, by Jordan Cooper, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment, by Gregg Allison, Christ Crucified: Understanding the Atonement, by Donald Macleod, China’s Reforming Churches, edited by Bruce Baugus, Heaven (Theology in Community), edited by Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson, and The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity (Oxford Handbooks), edited by Gilles Emery O. P. and Matthew Levering. Camden mentions Reformed Media Review 58 in the podcast.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy

Camden M. Bucey preaches from Romans 8:29 during the Sunday morning worship service over the 2014 Reformed Forum Theology Conference.

Participants: Camden Bucey

Dr. Lane G. Tipton builds upon his first plenary address by developing a biblical-theological and systematic approach to considering whether there is a republication of the Covenant of Works in the Mosaic economy.

Unedited and Unprocessed Recording of the Livestream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTB7r10Ap-4

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton