Considering Resurrection and Redemption

I have an odd “relationship” with Richard Gaffin. While in seminary, he came to teach a one week course Studies in New Testament Eschatology. I sat in for a few, but missed at least half of them.

At some point I bought his book Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology. Based on the ink used to underline in it, I have been reading it at 3 different points in my pastoral ministry. Often, I suspect, just prior to Resurrection Day. I would inevitably get bogged down or distracted by some other book I needed to read.

That being said, this is a difficult book to review now that I have finally finished it. I suspect that much of what was in that class is found in this book. For Gaffin, as it was for Vos, soteriology is eschatology!

In the forward, Sinclair Ferguson notes:

“In particular, Resurrection and Redemption raises important critical questions for the traditional formulations of the ordo salutis in Reformed theology. … One of our more serious malfunctions in some contemporary evangelical teaching has been the tendency to offer the benefits of the gospel virtually separated from Jesus Christ as the Benefactor. Consequently salvation is severed from the lordship of Christ.”

This points to a few of the important threads of this book. First, taking a redemptive-historical approach Gaffin does indeed challenge the traditional views of the ordo salutis since it neglects our union with Christ in which we receive all the benefits of salvation. The absence of this union with Christ is what lies behind many of the then contemporary issues regarding the lordship of Christ.

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Considering The Walk

One of the things I don’t like about buying books on line is that you really can’t flip through it (Amazon is trying) and see if it is what you are looking for in the first place. The Walk by Stephen Smallman is one of the books I wish I’d been able to flip through. It was recommended in another book about discipleship. Since he’s in the same denomination in which I serve. It, unlike the book I had read, would come from a more consistent covenantal perspective.

This is not to say this is a bad book, because it isn’t. It just isn’t the book I had thought it would be. I was looking for a more theoretical book that had application. This is a book intended to actually be used to disciple new and renewed followers of Jesus. I guess I should have noticed that subtitle. But I do have a good resource to recommend to those, or use with those, who want or need to be discipled.

One of the strengths is the progression that he uses from basics to discipleship thru the gospel on to mission. The goal is not information accumulation, but growth in grace, sanctification into greater obedience and maturity to disciple others and join Jesus in His mission (2 Cor. 5).

“If ‘going to heaven’ is the key objective of evangelism, perhaps that begins to tell us why discipleship is viewed as optional by so many ‘converts.’”

It is a 12 lesson course that could be used in SS, or throughout a year in a small group. He has a reading plan that goes with each lesson which he refers to often (largely Mark and Romans). He also has a reading plan in an appendix that can be used afterwards. We aren’t talking a verse to proof text. These are longer chunks that coincide with the material in the chapter. They build on one another to develop the context of the larger text. It gets people reading the Bible, since this is a large part of discipleship.

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Considering 1 Corinthians 15

I wrapped up my personal reading of 1 Corinthians last week. While I was in chapter 15, a few things stood out to me. You might be interested. Or not.

²³ But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴ Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷ For “Go has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. ²⁸ When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

Christ is the vice-regent. I mentioned this while preaching about Joseph as vice-regent to Pharaoh (for all intents and purposes). Jesus, on the throne of David, rules under the authority of the Father to accomplish the purposes of the Father. Someone, understandably, asked me about this. It is not common to speak this way.

Here we find that Jesus presently rules and is currently subduing His enemies. When He completes this work, the end comes and Jesus hands it all over to the Father. He is not independent of the Father, but subdues their injuries.

Death is the Final Enemy. Death is the last enemy that He will destroy. We are moving toward this. Keep this thought in mind!

⁵¹ Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. ⁵³ For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
⁵⁵ “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”

⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Resurrection is the End of Death. Paul ties the resurrection at the return of Jesus with the death of death. We who are in Christ will no longer sin, and therefore we will no longer die. Death is swallowed up at the resurrection. This, according to Paul, includes the transformation of those who are still alive.

This passage presents a huge problem for those who advocate a pre-tribulational or mid-tribulational rapture. We who are alive are not taken up and changed prior to the resurrection according to Paul. This is the death of death- the final enemy is destroy at the resurrection. Therefore, the resurrection cannot take place prior to the judgment when the enemies of God are thrown into the abyss.

We see here that Jesus, as the 2nd Adam, does what the first Adam failed to do. He subdued and ruled the world! We see this fulfilled most clearly in Revelation 21-22. Our future is an earthly future. Ponder that, an eternal earthly future in the world that Jesus subdued, ruled and renewed.

No, not the most earth shattering thoughts for most of us. But perhaps a few of you might consider, or reconsider, a few things.

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Considering Union With Christ

“In Christ” is one of Paul’s favorite phrases. A parallel phrase he uses is “with Christ”. Both of these phrases are his shorthand for union with Christ. This is undeniably one of the most important theological concepts in the Scriptures, for our salvation is “in Christ”. Yet, this subject has been largely ignored by theologians for over 100 years. The contemporary church is much weaker as a result of the neglect of this foundational doctrine.

There have been a much needed spate of books that have sought to address this weakness and restore this doctrine to its rightful place in our minds and hearts. That this took so long reveals one of the weaknesses of the current state of publishing. Even Christian publishers are too focused on sales at the expense of needed truth. Thankfully, some smaller publishers have been acting contrary to common practice.

One of the authors of these books is Robert Letham. I must confess that I had not read any of his books, nor owned any until this past year. Now I own three of his books, including Union with Christ: In Scripture, History, and Theology. It shares its subtitle with his book on another neglected subject, the Trinity. The other work of his I recently purchased and began to read is on the also neglected Work of Christ (part of the excellent Contours of Christian Theology series).

Letham, for those unfamiliar with him, is the Senior Lecturer in Systematic and Historical Theology at Wales Evangelical School of Theology. He has advanced degrees from Westminster Theological Seminary and the University of Aberdeen. The book has an academic feel to it, and I was intellectually stretched while reading much of it. This is not a bad thing, people. This is not a fluffy topic, but one that requires rigorous thinking in addition to the illumination of the Spirit to grasp.

I was well rewarded for my efforts. This book is only about 140 pages long, but it is a dense 140 pages. It is full of meat as he grapples with the topic at hand. True to the subtitle, Letham examines Scripture, the history of the Church and theological formulations to help us understand and apply this most important subject. The importance of this subject is evidenced by how many doctrines Letham addresses in the course of examining it: creation, incarnation, the atonement, justification, adoption, resurrection, sanctification etc.

“Because man was created in the image of God, he was made for communion with God, to rule God’s creation on his behalf.”

Letham begins with creation, which surprised me. But since Jesus is the 2nd Adam, this is the best place to begin. Humanity’s communion with God was destroyed by the first Adam’s sin. Jesus would become man in order to restore this communion, and be the means of that communion. So you see that the book takes a few unexpected twists (I’ll be interested to see how the other books I’ve picked up on the subject work thru this). He spends a chapter on the Incarnation, surveying the development of the doctrine. The Eternal Son united himself with human nature, joining Himself with humanity in order to secure our salvation. In salvation, He then unites Himself with the elect as the means of their salvation thru the Spirit. We only partake of the benefits of salvation if we are so united to Him. This is one of the tougher chapters since it grapples with the nature of the hypostatic union. He traces its development through the ecumenical councils and expressions by Athanasius, Cyril, Nestorius and others. He also shows how this is not neglected by the Westminster Confession of Faith but expressed most often in the Larger Catechism.

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Considering Mexico 2011, Day 6

I was exhausted when I woke up.  That was not really a surprise after tossing and turning half the night away.  In some ways the alarm on CavNav’s phone going off was a relief.  Our room was …. interesting.  I think I already mentioned the beds, and I’ll get to the TV later.  Due to the A/C it was always noisy which turns into a blessing when you have intestinal issues.  And everyone who travels to Mexico ends up with intestinal issues.  The carpet was a bright red, and littered with a plethora of stains whose origin I never want to know.  Sometimes it is just better no knowing, you know?  There was no meaningful dresser to put your clothes in- just one drawer on the unit that held our 19 inch, ancient TV.  So we lived out of suitcases.  My dirty clothes were piled behind my suitcase, longing for the day when CavWife would make them clean.

The sink area did not look exceptionally clean.  The sink itself had a big crack in it that had been sealed.  Down the street was a “store” called El Arabe, specializing in used goods.  I’m thinking the Motel Continental did lots of there shopping at El Arabe.  The hot water did not work.  The cold water was one of those abused faucets that didn’t really have an off.  You could keep turning it and it would go on again.  It was about getting the “right spot”.  The shower seriously needed to be redone.  I took no pleasure in showering in there.  At least it was big.  But knowing that the water itself was not particularly clean gave me no incentive to linger there.

I was so tired that breakfast was largely a blur.  At the work site we worked on putting up dry wall all morning.  I spent much of the time working with El Jefe Americano- our work foreman.  During my turn to pray, I was able to focus on some of my friends I know are in need of prayer.  I was eagerly anticipating our very special lunch.

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Considering What Happened in A.D. 70?

A Good Response to Ed Steven

I’ve begun preparing a Sunday School series on The Revelation (note to all Hollywood screenwriters, there is not “s” on the end!).  This is no simple undertaking.  There are so many presuppositions that play a role in interpreting Revelation that is just is insane.

One of the things I’m doing early on is to address the four primary views of Revelation: historicist, futurist, preterist and idealist.  These views feed into millennial positions, but are foundational.  They include presuppositions and interpretative issues.  Though I am a partial preterist and idealist (yes, I use bifocals in looking at Revelation), I wanted to spend some time trying to understand the full preterist position.

Why?  I ask myself that same question.  It is such a minority viewpoint that it seems pointless.  But, sometimes I do crazy things.

Years ago I worked my way through someone’s personal library after their death.  It had been willed to a few people, one of whom I knew, who no longer lived in the area.  They asked me to catalog it in exchange for the books they did not want.  Oddly, they didn’t want the eschatology.  The deceased had a thing for eschatology, but not the Hal Lindsey thing.  He liked full preterism.  So I kept those.

This past week I spent some of my spare time going through What Happened in A.D. 70? by Edward Stevens.  It is a booklet.  In this booklet, the author seeks to demonstrate that all of the prophecies regarding the end of time and the return of Jesus were fulfilled in AD 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem.  I know, most of you are not just thinking, but saying out loud, “Is that guy crazy?”

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Considering a Disaster

I don’t think anything could prepare us for what happened in Japan.  It is a perfect storm of disaster that would make Irwin Allen proud.  I thought we’d seen the worst disasters possible, but we apparently hadn’t.  One of the most powerful earthquakes on record, a tsunami and the possibility of Chernobyl.

I’m reading a book about prayer that talks about helplessness.  This picture, sadly, captures that reality more powerfully than any I have ever seen.

We need to pray for the people of Japan.  Money does not fix something like this.  That doesn’t mean we should not provide resources for emergency relief.  But rebuilding the soul of Japan will take far longer than rebuilding the nation.  And rebuilding the nation may take close to a generation (ask New Orleans).

To put this in perspective, this was a nation that somehow recovered from WWII to become one of the most productive economies in the world.  They enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the world.  But they have been brought to their knees, this time by the groaning of creation triggered by the sin of Adam.

It reveals just how close we are to the edge.  Life can change in a New York minute.  And when it does, there is not simple fix.  We all live by grace, common grace, whether we realize it or not.  We live by the sheer mercy of God.  Let us throw ourselves into the hands of a merciful and compassionate God, even as we intercede at the throne of grace for the people of Japan.  We pray to One who was torn asunder, but conquered death.  He can give hope to those on the brink of death.  He can give hope to Japan.

 

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Debating the Marrow and the Naked Gospel

I recently wrote a post on Gospel Pardon as part of my interaction with Edward Fisher’s The Marrow of Modern Divinity.  That book is about the errors of both legalism and antinomianism.  In that post I mentioned Andrew Farley’s The Naked Gospel which I had read and reviewed earlier this year ( Part 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 with increasing frustration).  He has what I consider to be extreme views based on a hyper-dispensationalistic hermeneutic.  We engaged in an on-line discussion where it became increasingly clear to me that we were talking past each other as a result of our very different approaches to interpreting Scripture.

While I thought I was ending communication he left one last ginormous comment.  So, I’ll use that comment to have one last installment of our discussion.  If you have questions about the relationship of the OT and NT, law and gospel, and what really is the rule of life for Christians you may find some interesting points made here.  Then again ….

Thanks for this! It’s been fun to dialogue. The ideas you are presenting are familiar to me, but it has been good practice for me to think about which Scriptures to share. In this post, I will clarify that:

1. the New Covenant was put into effect at Jesus’ death (Hebrews 9:16-17)

This is not at issue at all.  What is at issue is the relationship between the Old Covenant and New Covenant.  Both the Old and New Covenants were manifestations of the Covenant of Grace (Live & Do This).  As we will note later, some treated the Old Covenant as if it was the Covenant of Works (Do this & live).  As John Piper notes, “The flesh turns the law into a ladder.”  As people born in Adam (Romans 5), we are under the covenant of works.  As a result the Law works death in us since we are sinners.  But even the Mosaic covenant was given to redeemed people.  It was not given for them to earn life, but to manifest life.  All who believe in the promises of God (keeping in mind the progressive nature of revelation, we know more than Abraham) are under the Covenant of Grace.  This why Hebrews 4:2 says they (the wilderness generation) had the gospel preached to them.  The gospel is not only in the New Covenant.  In fact, Paul often uses OT figures to explain the truth of the gospel.  For instance, Paul quotes Ps. 32 about the bliss of forgiveness/justification in Romans 4.  You’ll note it is not tied to the sacrificial system but his confession of sin as the instrumental means (this after David had been a believer for years- gospel pardon!)

The Old and New Covenants are not identical though.  There was real progress, and the issue in Hebrews was a temptation to leave the newer, better covenant for the Old Covenant, which at that point in the history of redemption (and now) amounts to apostasy.

2. Jesus was born under Law (Galatians 4:4) and his audience was too (Galatians 4:4) and Jesus expanded on the Law (Matthew 5:21-48).

Yes, Jesus redeems all those under the Law as a Covenant of Works.  He does this in 2 ways.  First, he perfectly fulfilled the law as our Substitute.  Second, he suffered the curse of the law as our Substitute (Galatians 3).

3. The Lord’s Prayer teaches a conditional forgiveness (“as we forgive others”) while in contrast Colossians 3:13 and Ephesians 4:32 teach the opposite (unconditional forgiveness) after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

I’m not so sure it teaches conditional forgiveness.  But if it did … think about who is teaching this.  Am I to disregard anything the Eternal Son of God in flesh teaches?  In your hermeneutic, yes.  In a biblical one?  No.  We find no basis for this, unless we do violence to 2 Timothy 3 as you have done by neglecting ALL that Paul says the law is useful for.

In fact, the Great Commission (given AFTER his death & resurrection!!) includes the instruction to “teach them to obey EVERYTHING I have commanded you.”  That would seem to include how to pray from earlier in that same gospel.

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Considering New Books on the Horizon

Since I’m feeling ill, I’ve got a bit more time to poke around the internet today.  With the return of a book allowance I was interested in what books might be coming out soon.

He's a Cavman fav!

O happy day!  Sinclair Ferguson has a new book coming out.  If you’ve been on this blog much, you’ll soon discover that Dr. Ferguson is one of my favorites.  His new book is called By Grace Alone: How the Grace of God Amazes Me.  He addresses the sad reality that many in the church are no amazed by God’s love & grace.  A bit of that entitlement mentality that plagues us in many ways.  I look forward to reading this.

Sorry, that is just one book.  But it promises to be a good one that is worth reading often.

Update:

Scandalous: The Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus by D.A. Carson.  Carson is another one of my favorite contemporary authors.  This series to designed to simply and clearly present central doctrines.  With them under attack (again), this should be a good defense of historical orthodoxy.

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Preaching the Gospel to Yourself with Luther

In my prep for the beginning of Galatians, I read this in Luther’s commentary:

“Let us therefore arm ourselves with these and like verses of the Holy Scripture, that we may be able to answer the devil (accusing us, and saying: You are a sinner, and therefore you are damned) in this sort:  “Christ has given Himself for my sins; therefore, Satan, you shall not prevail against me when you go about to terrify me in setting forth the greatness of my sins, and so to bring me into heaviness, distrust, despair, hatred, contempt and blaspheming of God.  As often as you object that I am a sinner, you call me to remembrance of the benefit of Christ my Redeemer, upon whose shoulders, and not upon mine, lie all my sins; for ‘the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all,’ and ‘for the transgression of the people he was striken’ (Isaiah 53:6,8).  Wherefore, when you say I am a sinner, you do not terrify me, but comfort me above measure.”"

We tend to get cowed down by our guilt.  We need to start saying “So what, Satan?” because we look to the crucified and risen One, and “there is no condemnation for those who are in Messiah Jesus.”

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Considering In Christ Alone

I finally finished reading In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel Centered Life by Sinclair Ferguson.  You can preview the first 3 chapters. 

This book, as I mentioned earlier, is the compilation of articles written by Sinclair Ferguson.  As a result, it is more accessible for the busy lay person.  You don’t need to invest lots of time and energy into reading a chapter since they are short.  But that doesn’t mean they don’t have some rich content.  There are some great chapters and ideas in this book.  But it isn’t written with lots of technical jargon.

The book is broken up into 6 sections.  The first, The Word Became Flesh, addresses issues regarding the Incarnation.  The second, The Heart of the Matter, focuses on issues related to the gospel.  It goes into justification, substitutionary atonement, the offices of Christ and how the resurrection matters to us.  Section 3, The Spirit of Christ, briefly explores the Spirit’s role in our salvation.  He then addresses the Privileges of Grace – union with Christ, indwelling of the Spirit, regeneration, sanctification, prayer etc.  He moves to a more practical theology in A Life of Wisdom which talks about discernment, humility, God’s will and more.  In concludes with Faithful to the End addressing issues of perseverence.  So in many ways this functions as a brief systematic theology.

The one weakness would be the “YBH Factor”.  Huh?  “Yes, but how?”  Due to the brevity of the articles he obviously couldn’t develop the application as much as he normally would or could.  This can be mildly frustrating at points, but the the other factors greatly outweigh this to make a book I would highly recommend to my not so theologically oriented friends and those with overburdened schedules.  I think it would be helpful for young Christians to gain a good theological foundation.  A study group of young Christians could learn much from reading and discussing this book.

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