The Differences: Covenant Theology, New Covenant Theology, Dispensationism, and the Covenant of Promise
10/24/2015 @ 2 pm Live Link:
Paul and Susan Discuss Bible Covenants
Listen to archived podcast at your convenience at same link.
If there is an area where the laity is very confused, it is in regard to biblical covenants. Listen in and join the conversation.
Notes for program, actual program material will vary.
Welcome truth lovers to Blog Talk radio .com/False Reformation, this is your host Paul Dohse. Tonight, another Paul Dohse parenthesis in our Heidelberg Disputation series, “The Differences: Covenant Theology, New Covenant Theology, Dispensationism, and the Covenant of Promise.”
Greetings from the Potters House and TANC ministries where we are always eager to serve all of your heterodox needs. Our teaching catalog can be found at tancpublishing.com.
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Have you ever wondered what all of these theologies are that Christian scholars talk about, and what the differences are? This is another one of the ironies of the institutional church; these theologies go hand in glove with one’s gospel, but few parishioners know what their pastors believe in regard to this issue. It’s like psychology: people will go to any psychologist because they have the credentials, but there are roughly 200 different metaphysical schools of thought among them. Being interpreted, 200 different views of reality itself. So, people go and pay 85-100 dollars an hour while being clueless as to whether or not the therapist is Rogerian, Freudian, or whatever. They could be, and probably are, taking advice from someone who doesn’t even see reality the same way—it’s absurd.
Let’s start with Covenant Theology. What is it? Let’s borrow some excerpts from Wikipedia to define it:
Covenant theology (also known as Covenantalism, Federal theology, or Federalism) is a Calvinist conceptual overview and interpretive framework for understanding the overall flow of the Bible. It uses the theological concept of covenant as an organizing principle for Christian theology. The standard description of covenant theology views the history of God’s dealings with mankind, from Creation to Fall to Redemption to Consummation, under the framework of the three overarching theological covenants of redemption, works, and grace.
These three covenants are called theological because, though they are not explicitly presented as such in the Bible, they are thought to be theologically implicit, describing and summarizing the wealth of Scriptural data. Within historical Reformed systems of thought, covenant theology is not merely treated as a point of doctrine or a central dogma, but the structure by which the biblical text organizes itself…
The covenant of works (Latin: foedus operum), also called the covenant of life, was made in the Garden of Eden between God and Adam who represented all mankind as a federal head. (Romans 5:12-21) It promised life for perfect and perpetual obedience and death for disobedience. Adam, and all mankind in Adam, broke the covenant, thus standing condemned. The covenant of works continues to function after the fall as the moral law.
The term foedus operum was first used by Dudley Fenner in 1585, though Zacharias Ursinus had mentioned a covenant of creation in 1562. The covenant of works became common in Reformed theology by 1590, though it was not adopted by all, and some members of the Westminster Assembly in the 1640s opposed it. While John Calvin had spoken of a probationary period for Adam, a promise of life for obedience, and the federal headship of Adam, he does not speak of a covenant of works.
Though it is not explicitly called a covenant in the opening chapters of Genesis, the comparison of the representative headship of Christ and Adam, as well as passages like Hosea 6:7 have been interpreted to support the idea. It has also been noted that Jeremiah 33:20-26 (cf. 31:35-36) compares the covenant with David to God’s covenant with the day and the night and the statutes of heaven and earth which God laid down at creation. This has led some to understand all of creation as covenantal: the decree establishing the natural laws governing heaven and earth. The covenant of works might then be seen as the moral law component of the broader creational covenant. Thus the covenant of works has also been called the covenant of creation, indicating that it is not added but constitutive of the human race; the covenant of nature in recognition of its consonance with the natural law in the human heart; and the covenant of life in regard to the promised reward…
The covenant of grace promises eternal life for all people who have faith in Christ. He also promises the Holy Spirit to the elect to give them willingness and ability to believe. Christ is the substitutionary covenantal representative fulfilling the covenant of works on their behalf, in both the positive requirements of righteousness and its negative penal consequences (commonly described as his active and passive obedience). It is the historical expression of the eternal covenant of redemption. Genesis 3:15, with the promise of a “seed” of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head, is usually identified as the historical inauguration for the covenant of grace…
The covenant of redemption is the eternal agreement within the Godhead in which the Father appointed the Son to become incarnate, suffer, and die as a federal head of mankind to make an atonement for their sin. In return, the Father promised to raise Christ from the dead, glorify him, and give him a people. Two of the earliest theologians to write about the covenant of redemption were Johannes Cocceius and John Owen, though Caspar Olevian had hinted at the idea before them. This covenant is not mentioned in the Westminster Standards, but the idea of a contractual relationship between the Father and Son is present. Scriptural support for such a covenant may be found in Psalms 2 and 110, Isaiah 53, Philippians 2:5-11and Revelation 5:9-10. Some covenant theologians have denied the intra-Trinitarian covenant of redemption, or have questioned the notion of the Son’s works leading to the reward of gaining a people for God, or have challenged the covenantal nature of this arrangement.[citation needed] Robert Letham has criticized the idea of a covenant between the persons of the trinity as a departure from trinitarian orthodoxy and tending towards tritheism, pointing to the historical fact of tritheistic heresy in Presbyterian circles during the generations immediately following the Westminster Assembly.1
Here is the long and the short of it: God made a covenant of works with Adam, which failed, and Christ came to fulfill the covenant of works, through fulfilling the law, for all that believe in him. Let me start off by making this really simple: it’s the same idea that Paul was attacking in Galatians chapter three; It’s salvation by law, not promise. “But Paul! It’s Jesus who fulfills the law covenant, not us!” So what? So what? And, furthermore, so what? What part of “by promise” and “not law” does one not understand? Again, and once again, and moreover, again, it doesn’t matter who keeps the law, the law CANNOT give life, only the new birth can give life, “You must be born again.” This is what Paul is turning himself into a pretzel to try to make clear in his letter to the Galatians, particularly chapter 3. This is the most common theology proffered in the evangelical church.
Before we move on to New Covenant Theology, let’s look a little deeper at problems with CT. The following is taken from a TANC Publishing booklet that I highly recommend, “Biblical Covenants: An Overview and Relevance to the Gospel.” That is catalog #B009, but I have uploaded it to Academic.edu for your free reading pleasure.
God never made a covenant with Adam. How do we know this? Because when God makes a covenant, He states it as such. God never calls any arrangement He made with Adam a “covenant.”
In the Garden of Eden, God calls them “trees” not a covenant. How do we get “covenant” from “tree”? In the six actual covenants, God says, “I will make a covenant.” God’s work arrangement with Adam was never called a covenant. His relationship with Eve was never called a covenant. When God covered Adam and Eve’s nakedness after the fall, He didn’t call that a covenant either. In all cases it’s pure assumption. However, when God says, “I will make a covenant,” that’s not an assumption.
Curiously, Adam is said to have broken the covenant, but the issue is that he disobeyed and ate from the tree of good and evil which is a separate issue from these other considerations: his task of caring for the garden, being fruitful, etc. Clarifying what this covenant was exactly and how Adam broke it by eating from the tree is speculative at best. Whenever God makes a covenant, He calls it a covenant, He specifies who the covenant is to, and also specifies the terms.
Granted, the tree of life ends up in the New Jerusalem, but what we primarily look for as Christians is the city built by God, not the tree. The tree of life is one of the results of the Abrahamic covenant, but it isn’t THE covenant or even a salvific covenant. The tree is never called a covenant. Those who posit the idea that God made a covenant with Adam must now split that covenant into two different covenants: the Edenic covenant of innocence, or the covenant of works prior to the fall and the Adamic Covenant of grace. This is what happens when you make something a covenant that isn’t a covenant; you have to come up with more covenants to explain the first covenant that wasn’t a covenant. You search in vain for the covenants of innocence, works, or grace.
Ultimately, Christians look for the fulfilment of the Abrahamic covenant, not some Adamic covenant. Let’s look at some Scripture:
2Peter 3:13 – But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
We aren’t waiting for a tree, we are waiting for a new heaven and a new earth.
Hebrews 11:10 – For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
Abraham was looking for a city, not a tree.
The definition of a salvific biblical covenant follows: they are NEVER based on anything man does, nor are they predicated on an agreement between God and man. Covenants are predicated on one thing and one thing only: God’s promises. The six covenants are covenants of promise. They are NOT agreements between God and man, they are promises TO man.
Let’s now look at New Covenant Theology. This theology has a fascinating history that is very recent. I am going to borrow from a comment I made on PPT the other day with some editing:
Jon Zens, is one of the core 4 of the Australian Forum which brought the real Protestant gospel of progressive justification back to the Protestant church in 1970. Jon Zens is the undisputed father of New Covenant Theology. What’s that? Well, Zens went to Robert Brinsmead and said, in essence,
“Hey Bob, we have a good gig here with rediscovering the real Protestant gospel, but Calvin missed the boat on the law’s relationship to gospel. The idea that Christ fulfilled the law of Moses so that His perfect obedience can be imputed to the believer will not hold New Testament water. The problem here Bob is that the simple theological math doesn’t figure and somebody is going to eventually figure that out. So, Bob, we need to say that Christ came to totally abolish the law and usher in the New Testament law of love which is defined by however the gospel narrative reveals truth to our conscience. Besides, this is more what Luther had in mind: all reality is interpreted by the gospel, viz, ‘Jesus.’ This is more Augustinian as well”
HOWEVER, in both cases, there is only ONE law which makes both false gospels. The key is the Spirit’s 2 uses of the same law. That’s the gospel: all other gospels are false. I am posting a lengthy post on this tonight that I started working on at 6am this morning which is freewriting for our 2016 project. Under law is the Spirit’s first use of the law and is still in effect for the unsaved. They are “under law.” The second use of the Spirit’s law is for those under grace. It’s the same law, but it no longer condemns, but is used to love God and others. This is where the literal new birth is essential, but only given lip service by the other 2 camps. The old you that was under the law of Moses and its condemnation literally dies with Christ, and then is resurrected with Christ as a new creature under the same law, but stripped of its condemnation which frees the believer to obey God in love and for love–not justification. Under grace doesn’t mean you are no longer under the law, it means that you are no longer under its condemnation. Those under law are not totally depraved and can do good works, but the only wages they can receive are death and lesser condemnation. Those under grace can sin because of the weakness of the flesh, but can only receive life to more or lesser degree. This is what the slave/master construct is all about.2
Let me explain this a little further with another excerpt; this somewhat repeats the previous point but adds some additional points:
It is the idea that the law is the standard for justification. And since that is the case, a perfect keeping of it must be maintained by Jesus THROUGH faith alone by us in sanctification. That’s the simple math of Protestantism’s soteriology of death. Instead of the law being ENDED for justification paving the way for it to be the guiding instruction of the law of the Spirit of life for sanctification, the law is restricted to the single dimension of condemnation, sin, and death.
Hence, sin maintains all of its power over us because its ENDING for justification, or APART from justification, does not exist in Reformed orthodoxy. Clearly, the power of sin and death is the law’s ability to condemn, and “Christians” are kept under that condemnation with the prescription being a COVERING for sin by institutional absolution and the “active obedience” of Christ.
When those who have sense enough to be disillusioned take another look, this simple fact of law and gospel will be obvious to them. And during the resurgence of real Protestantism in the 70’s, a man named Jon Zens knew that this simple math posed a problem for the Resurgence in the future. He was viciously attacked by Reformed Baptists early on like Walter Chantry, but like all of the rest, Chantry was clueless. Zens was only trying to correct the faulty theological math.
What was his solution? It follows: Christ in fact came to end the law, and replaced it with…depending on which New Calvinist theology (NCT) camp you are referring to…the single law of love. Instead of ONE law with two different applications/perspectives/dimensions, two different laws: one abrogated, one ushered in. A helpful book that explains the many variants of this viewpoint is “All Old Testament Laws Cancelled: 24 Reasons Why All Old Testament Laws Are Cancelled And All New Testament Laws Are for Our Obedience” by Greg Gibson. Like all of the Reformed, Gibson is confused and fundamentally full of it, but he does an excellent job of explaining all of the variant positions of NCT. However, in the final analysis, all of it is the same old progressive justification song and dance.3
Dispensationalism
This is the dreaded nemesis of both CT and NCT. Let’s go back to Wki to get a beginning definition:
John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism, which was later adopted, modified significantly and then made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield’s Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–96, with his popular style spread Darby’s teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. Mackintosh popularized Darby more than any other Brethren author.
As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the “secret rapture” theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove his bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because “God is able to graft them in again”, and they believe that in his grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, his purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as he has shown unmerited favour to the Church, he will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham…
They also gave the dispensationalist movement institutional permanence by assuming leadership of the new independent Bible institutes such as the Moody Bible Institute in 1886, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (now Biola University) in 1908, and Philadelphia College of Bible (now Cairn University, formerly Philadelphia Biblical University) in 1913. The network of related institutes that soon sprang up became the nucleus for the spread of American dispensationalism.
The efforts of CI Scofield and his associates introduced dispensationalism to a wider audience in America through hisScofield Reference Bible. The publication of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909 by the Oxford University Press for the first time displayed overtly dispensationalist notes to the pages of the Biblical text. The Scofield Reference Bible became a popular Bible used by independent Evangelicals and Fundamentalists in the United States. Evangelist and Bible teacher Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871–1952), who was influenced by Scofield, founded the Dallas Theological Seminary in 1924, which has become the flagship of dispensationalism in America. More recently, the Baptist Bible Seminary in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, became another dispensational school.
The Grace Movement, which began about 1938 with the teaching ministries of JC O’Hair, Cornelius R. Stam, Henry T. Hudson, and Charles Baker has been labeled “ultra” or “hyper” dispensationalism.4
The last paragraph is really what I wanted to get to. Did the forest ever get lost in the trees with all of the eschatology debate; wow! What a mess! Add it to the election debate as well. Are you pretrib, post trib, premil, postmil, amil, prewrath, postwrath, 1 point, 2 point, 3 point, preterist, Arminian, Palagian, Semi-Pelagian, etc., etc., etc., etc. What should the focus really be here? Yes, aside from the rapture debate, and the future of Israel, what is the soteriology (doctrine of salvation)? And what is dispensationalism? The same old song and dance of progressive justification and its singular perspective on the law.
Enter in the Law Dispensation and the Grace Dispensation, the two primary or foundational dispensations of dispensationalism. If you follow this ministry at all you can see where this is going right away. Dispensationalism goes something like this: God used the dispensation of law to show mankind that it is impossible for him to keep the law…right…“perfectly.” So here comes Jesus to do what? Right, keep the law perfectly for us. Folks, it’s all the same stuff.
So how is the right theology, the biblical theology different, and what is it? It’s the covenant of promise. 5 Note footnote #5, it’s my latest post on the covenant of promise and it goes into a lot of detail. It’s not CT, it’s not NCT, and it’s not Dispensationalism. It is the promise made to Abraham based on one seed and the other promises (covenants) that are part of the one promise. This post explains the covenant of promise, but most importantly, how it is related to the gospel, and how everything else fits into it. Very difficult it was to find a defining paragraph in the article, but here is what I decided to use:
The covenant of promise is a gospel that stands in contrast to all other gospels which make the law of sin and death the standard for righteousness and a co-life-giver with God. There is only one mediator of life. Christ did not come to fulfill the law of sin and death, the Old Covenant, which holds sin captive. He came to end that law for those who believe. Nor did Christ come to be a substitute for that law in the lives of believers for that law is for the unbelieving—not the saved. Instead, Christ came to set the captives free from that law in order to serve the righteousness of the law in loving service with no fear of condemnation. There is no fear in love because fear has to do with judgment (1Jn 4:16-19).
With that let’s go to the phones.
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1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_theology
2History of the Australian Forum is detailed in The Truth About New Calvinism vol.1
Clarification From Galatians 3: The Trinity is Not a Paradox, Christians Don’t Live by Faith Alone, and the Covenant of Promise Defined
“Again, it’s the same gospel with Jesus added as perfect law-keeper; it fuses law with gospel. That’s what the Judaizers did, and that’s what Protestant elders do…There is no law in perfection; there is only law in love.”
“All of true Israel will be saved. That’s the promise made to Abraham, and from that promise all the nations find their salvation as well. Any denial of a future redemption of national Israel according to its original identity is a plenary rejection of the gospel.”
“Do you believe a gospel that makes the New Covenant a fulfillment of the Old Covenant rather than an ending of it for those who believe? Have you substituted the fulfillment of the New Covenant via love for a substitutionary fulfillment of the covenant of death? This is what sets the covenant of promise apart from all other gospels. If you are a true Christian, you don’t live by faith alone, you live by love alone, and you are the one doing the loving because you are free from condemnation. Your love is not a substitution; Christ’s death is the only substitution that sets you free to love without fear of condemnation.”
Galatians chapter 3 corrects some significant misnomers that routinely plague those who have to listen to incessant Christian blathering coming from the same who are completely comfortable with contradictions. Faith has become a license for mindlessness, and paradox is now a legitimate hermeneutic.
Since the Bible says God is one person, and also three persons, and the Bible cannot contradict itself, gee whiz, that’s a paradox, and gee whiz, there must be other paradoxes in the Bible as well, and gee whiz, only our “leaders” (dictators) know what a paradox is or isn’t. So, another paradox is the idea that Christians do things by faith alone. We do stuff, but we are not really the ones doing it. “Christians” are very comfortable with this lingo: we didn’t do it, when clearly we did do it, but supposedly, Jesus really did it, lest we get credit for the deed even though Jesus does assign merit for good deeds, but to whom is unclear since we didn’t do it.
And of course, supposedly, people don’t buy into this nonsense because it’s nonsense, but are rather “totally depraved” and will accept the offer of salvation if it is really a promise made to them even though God tells us to tell them that the promise is to them though it may not be. And so it goes; we will pay someone 85,000 dollars a year with a hefty medical package to say things like, “You don’t keep the law by keeping the law.”1 Our job is to say “amen” in between sips of coffee served up from the large vat in the lobby. If the coffee has a little burn in the taste, we wonder, “Is this the day, or just another dry run?”
I am not going to get into the trinity debate, but rather, the point of this post is that the Bible isn’t making a statement about the trinity when it states that God is one. The biblical idea is a statement that makes it clear that there are no other mediators between God and man other than God Himself. Galatians chapter 3 makes this clear. Hence, Protestant popes love to keep the masses distracted with debates about paradoxes lest we figure out that God was drawing a contrast between Himself and them who will travel land, sea, and air to make someone three times the child of hell that they are. And of course, paid for by the Protestant peasantry enslaved to the material world and its knowledge. And of course, from that perspective, spiritual truth can be expected to appear as paradox. In fact, those who demand a logical exegesis of Scripture are deemed as lacking faith, and making Jesus a “precept rather than a person.” By the way, the idea of faith over logic/reason was a major clarion call of the Nazi party during its formative years and expressly Lutheran in origin.2
Galatians chapter 3 is a vivid clarification of the relationship between law and gospel—or better stated biblically, the relationship between law and promise which also excludes every kind of mediator other than God Himself. This is one of the major points of Galatians 3. Paul begins by stating the following in his epistle to the Galatians:
Galatians 3:1 – O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
The dictators of the Protestant super-cult focus on the words, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” The case is therefore made that we must be perfected the same way we began. This is the Protestant false gospel of progressive justification in a nutshell. It begins with the idea that perfection, viz, justification, is a process. And next, we keep that process going by faith alone. And next, if we live by some sort of faith-alone formula, the same formula that originally saved us, the Holy Spirit will continue to keep us justified. In other words, we have to live by the same gospel that saved us in order to keep ourselves saved which is backdoor works salvation.
What is Paul really saying? His rhetorical question focuses on the erroneous idea that “perfection” (justification) is based on a process. The crux is any kind of process period, but in this case, the process involves the law of Moses. Protestantism uses this text to make the exact case that Paul is arguing against. Except, they add the law to the process in the same way that the Judaizers did albeit in a less direct way. Take note: the very false gospel that Paul is arguing against in Galatians 3 is the same gospel propagated by Protestantism in our day, and the exact same gospel that the Judaizers propagated with Jesus added. In this letter, Paul argues that law cannot be part of the gospel because that would make the law a co-mediator/life-giver with God, and only God can give life. The Judaizers taught that the law does give life, and that “believers” have to continue to draw life and justification from the law.3
But we must now stop and define what Paul meant by “law” in context of keeping it for justification. Judaizer-like false gospels never promote a truthful and perfect keeping of the law in order to remain justified because they know that’s impossible. So, the traditions of men are added as a Cliff Notes keeping of the law that fulfills the “righteous demands of the law.”4 Men are mediators between God and mankind that determine the sub-law that satisfies the holy law, and supposedly, they are appointed by God. Luther and Calvin merely added Jesus to this idea. If we obey the “Christ-centered,” “gospel-centered,” orthodoxy of Protestant elders, Jesus’ perfect obedience to the law of Moses will be imputed to our account, and we will remain “perfect” or justified. Again, it’s the same gospel with Jesus added as perfect law-keeper; it fuses law with gospel. That’s what the Judaizers did, and that’s what Protestant elders do.
Let’s nail this down a little more before we progress further. It entails an understanding of what Paul meant by the receiving of the Spirit. That’s the new birth. That’s the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That changes the believers relationship to the law. Paul’s protest regards the fusion of the law of Moses with perfection which takes place upon the receiving of the Spirit. Paul is protesting a progression or process of perfection by law-keeping. The Judaizers propagated a fulfilling of the law for righteousness via adherence to their traditions5 whereas Protestants demand an adherence to their traditions which supposedly results in Jesus’ perfect law keeping being imputed to the “believer.”
Paul said, in essence, “No, if you want to be justified (perfected) by the law of Moses (the law of sin and death), you have to keep it perfectly. No, circumcision and the observance of days is not a substitution for fulfillment of the law. The law has no part in justification, one is justified (perfected) by the new birth that is received by faith alone. The justified are not justified by the law—law-keeping is what they do, but it is not the law of sin and death for purposes of law-keeping, it is the law of the Spirit of life for purposes of love. There is no law in perfection; there is only law in love.” Hence…
Galatians 4:10 – You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain…21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?…5:2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace…6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
In addition, the law being the standard for justification rather than the receiving of the Spirit always leads to a “relaxing of the law” (Matt 5:19). Why? Because some dumbing down of the law as a replacement for true law-keeping for love, or faith working through love, always leads to neglect of the law and true love accordingly. Hence…
Galatians 2:17 – But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God…5:7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you…13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
The fulfillment of Moses’ law, the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2), cannot be fulfilled for justification, but said false gospel (Gal 1:6ff.) attempts to do so through mediation in addition to God. This always leads to a dumbing down of the law for purposes of justification. The traditions of men end up being a cloak for unrighteousness under the auspices of being friends of the law. Tradition fulfills the law as a standard for righteousness when the real standard for righteousness is the new birth resulting in the loving of God’s law for purposes of loving God and others, not justification. Justification is a finished work totally apart from the law of sin and death; the only work left is “faith working through love.”
Sure, we don’t do that perfectly, but in regard to justification, so what? The motives of those born of God are love because part and parcel with the new birth is a love for the truth (2Thess 2:10). The law’s ability to condemn was ended by Christ (Rom 10:4) and where there is no law there is NO sin (Rom 4:15). If you now say: “So, the law is the Spirit’s law, and for those who are under law, He uses it to condemn them, but to those who have received Him, He uses it to lead them”; you rightly assess with an additional caveat…Moses’ law of sin and death, while being a ministry of death, still serves the same purpose for New Testament unbelievers as it did for Old Testament believers, that is, it holds sin captive until they believe in Christ, then their sins are ended along with the law that the old them was under, but one who is dead is no longer under the jurisdiction of law that can condemn6 (Romans 7:1-6). Those who receive the Spirit are now free to “serve another” (Rom 6:6). The “new life of the Spirit” enables us to fulfill the law in our acts of love (Rom 8:1-8). The apostle Paul develops these same ideas as we move along in Galatians 3.
Galatians 3:7 – Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
This is set against what the Judaizers were telling the Galatians. They were telling the Galatians that in order to be a true son of Abraham, you have to follow the recognition of days and circumcision; traditions that supposedly satisfied the law of Moses. Paul wrote this letter to set them straight. Paul wrote the letter to explain how one becomes a true son of Abraham, the man of faith. Note that the baptism of the Spirit is somewhat different from the new birth. As we will see in chapter 3 of this letter, the law of Moses had a particular purpose: to hold all sin captive. As the law increased, so did sin, but all sin is against the law (1Jn 3:4) and imputed to the law; the law of sin and death holds sin captive.
Old Testament believers were born again and ministered to by the Spirit, but their sins were still held captive by the law because the promise of the Spirit had not yet come. The promise of the Spirit would resurrect Christ from the grave who had already ended the law and its condemnation by dying on the cross, and baptize Jew and Gentile into one body.7 The promise of the Spirit was therefore to Abraham and Christ both (Gal 3:16). As King David had prophesied, God would not leave Christ in the grave to see corruption (Acts 2:27, 31, Ps 16:10).
Until then, Old Testament believers dwelt in a place called Hades which was divided into two parts with a gulf separating them (Luke 16:19-31). One side was occupied by those under law and its condemnation, and the other side was occupied by “the captives.” Why were they called “the captives”? Because Jesus had not yet ended the law’s condemnation, and the saints were yet held captive by the law. While Christ was in the grave, he went to Hades and proclaimed victory to the captives, and when the Spirit resurrected Him, according to the promise, He led the captives out of captivity because the law was ended (Eph 4:8, Ps 68:18, 1Pet 3:19). This is the gospel that God preached to Abraham face to face.
Galatians 3:10 – For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
Paul is telling the Gentile Galatians, as a Jew of the Jews, that they were part of the gospel from the beginning, and are given access to the commonwealth of elect Israel (Eph 2:12) in the same way that Abraham was saved, by faith alone completely apart from the law. Paul will go on to argue that if the law is justification’s standard, the law is an additional seed, or offspring. In other words, the law is a co-life-giver with God. This is the crux of “one God.” However, don’t misunderstand and think that the law cannot give life to anyone for it can, but not those who are under its condemnation. It is impossible as Paul stated in Romans 8 for anyone under the curse of the law to find life in the law. That’s what Paul is stating here in Gal 3:10-14. Believers “live” (are justified) by faith alone in the free gift of the promise completely apart from the law. Those under grace love God’s law (Ps 119) and it can, in fact, give life to those who are born again (Jn 17:17, 1Pet 2:2).8
Those under the law can only find condemnation in the law. They can only receive the free gift by faith alone in the death and resurrection of Christ.9 When they believe, the Spirit falls on them,10 puts them to death with Christ, and thereby ending the law that all of their sins are against and imputed to, and resurrects them to new life in Christ where they walk according to the Spirit and find life in obedience to the Spirit’s law… “If you love me, keep my commandments.”11 The believer does not question motives in obedience—they know they cannot be justified by the law. They know they are justified by the new birth apart from the law. Paul furthers the point this way:
Galatians 3:15 – To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 17 This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
It simply boils down to this: justification is completely void of law (Rom 3:19, 21, 28). Salvation and new birth come by believing the promise of miraculous new birth:
Romans 9:9 – For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” 10 And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac,
And…“For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’” What did he believe exactly? He believed that God would bring about miraculous new birth demonstrated in Sarah, make his descendants like the sand of the sea, bless the Gentiles through him as well, and that his offspring would live forever in a city built by God (Heb 11:8-12). The miraculous conceptions of Sarah, Rebekah, Elizabeth, and Mary are not mere fodder for mystery, but speak of miraculous new birth and God’s elected means for the promised free gift. It’s by new birth, not law. There is no law in justification; the law is a protector that holds our sin captive until faith comes. Faith only believes in the promise like Abraham—the law did not come until 430 years after God made a covenant with him; the free gift—the promise. The law in NO WAY “ratified” the original covenant which had no law, but was based on the promise to Abraham and the ONE seed, Christ.
Why then the law?
Galatians 3:19 – Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
This brings us almost full circle. The law of Moses was put into place by angels on Mount Sinai in the apocalyptic event recorded in the Old Testament. Moses was the mediator, but he was the mediator for a ministry of death:
2Corinthians 3:7 – Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? 9For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. 10Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. 11For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.
Note that Moses’ ministry of death has not completely ended, but is in the process of being abolished (Heb 8:13). Why? Because it still serves a purpose. It will be used to condemn those under it if they do not rid themselves of it. Meanwhile, all sin is imputed to it:
Hebrews 9:15 – Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. 16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. 17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. 18 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. 19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Note that “a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.” That’s because all sin is committed under the first covenant. If the first covenant is completely abolished, there is no sin for anyone. This is why unbelievers are “under law” (Rom 6:14). However, note that Christ has already ended the sin under that covenant for those who believe. The law, both that of the conscience written on every heart (Rom 2:14-16) and the Bible, is a “guardian” (protector) of which all sin is imputed and held captive, and also drives people towards a solution to its condemnation; that solution being the mediator of a better covenant. Again, this brings us full circle to the meaning of God being one, it refers to ONE MEDIATOR: “Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.” Also, it refers to the idea that God is the only life-giver as well:
Galatians 3:21 – Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
Even though the law has no part of new birth or justification, viz, perfection, it is not contrary to the promise. Why? Because it takes all sin captive until faith comes, and its condemnation drives one to the mediator of the better covenant, the ONE mediator, Christ. Moses is not a mediator of a covenant that can give life, but yet he is not a mediator of a covenant that is contrary to the promise.
On the flip side, once a person receives the Spirit apart from the law (Gal 3:2), the law can in fact give life:
Ephesians 6:1 – Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Of course, the new birth guarantees eternal life and cancels the law’s ability to condemn, but the believer can “love life and see good days” in the present via love, or obedience to the law (1Pet 3:10). In other words, one must use the law of God “lawfully” (1Tim 1:8). Not in any regard for justification, but for love. The law cannot under any circumstance give life for justification, but as the law of the Spirit of life (Romans 8:2), it enables us to serve God in the new way of the Spirit found in the Bible (Rom 7:6, 25).
Due to the weakness of the flesh, NOT the inherent evil of the flesh which is a Gnostic misnomer,12 the Christian can still be tempted to sin through “sinful desires.” The power of sin is broken because sin is empowered by its ability to condemn13 through the use of the law of sin and death:
1Corinthians 15:56 – 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.
Before one is saved and under the condemnation of the law, the law that the unsaved have no love for provokes them to sin with strong desires lending assistance as well. The law, for them, actually makes sin come alive leading to death (Rom 7:7ff.). In the believer, sin is no longer empowered by the condemnation of the law, but sinful desires still exist. However, obeying sinful desires as opposed to the desires of the Spirit defined by Scripture can enslave a Christian to a particular sin (Rom 6:16). Providing provisions to sin can produce overwhelming desires that can control us (Rom 13:14). Wrong thinking or beliefs, in short, false doctrine, also contributes to God’s children leading confused and defeated lives.
What is the New Covenant?
The New Covenant is the second part of the covenant of promise. The Old Covenant was the first part, the New Covenant is the second part of the same covenant of promise.14 The promises (plural) are the other covenants that are the building blocks of the covenant of promise (Eph 2:12). The New Covenant was made to Israel and the father of that nation from which all other nations will be blessed. The Old Covenant proclaimed the New Covenant and held sin captive until Christ came to die. In this way, the Old Covenant was the family will executed upon Christ’s death. Old Testament believers were written into the will/inheritance:
Hebrews 9:15 – Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. 17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. 18 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. 19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant, and Christ is the mediator of the New, but it is only the New Covenant that gives life. The Old is in no way contrary to the promise (Gal 3:21), but is a ministry of death that serves two purposes: it holds sin captive until faith comes, and will judge those who are under it. The angels are the enforcers of both covenants. They enforced the Old Covenant on Mount Sinai, and will enforce the New Covenant as detailed in the book of Revelation towards completion of the one covenant of promise. The angels are also ministers to the overall covenant of promise throughout time. Hence, their emphasis in regard to the tabernacle etc.
The New Covenant was made to Israel specifically (Jeremiah 31) because they are God’s elect people/nation from which all nations will be blessed. The New Covenant fulfilled the Old Covenant will, and baptized the Gentiles into the commonwealth of Israel. Part of the New Covenant plan was to use the baptism of the Gentiles into the family of God and its commonwealth to make the Jews jealous:
Deuteronomy 32:21 – They have made Me jealous with what is not God; They have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation,
However, the New Covenant, which promises Israel eternal peace and safety in their own land, will finally be consummated after the fullness of the Gentiles come in:
Romans 11:25 – Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; 27 “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
All of true Israel will be saved. That’s the promise made to Abraham, and from that promise all the nations find their salvation as well. Any denial of a future redemption of national Israel according to its original identity is a plenary rejection of the gospel.
The covenant of promise is a gospel that stands in contrast to all other gospels which make the law of sin and death the standard for righteousness and a co-life-giver with God. There is only one mediator of life. Christ did not come to fulfill the law of sin and death, the Old Covenant, which holds sin captive. He came to end that law for those who believe. Nor did Christ come to be a substitute for that law in the lives of believers for that law is for the unbelieving—not the saved.15 Instead, Christ came to set the captives free from that law in order to serve the righteousness of the law in loving service with no fear of condemnation. There is no fear in love because fear has to do with judgment (1Jn 4:16-19). However, there is a fear of present consequences for obeying sinful desires as we work out our other “salvation” so to speak: the saving of ourselves from potential death that still dwells in the mortal body, and from which we will be saved from in the future, also known as “redemption.”16 Justification and obedience in sanctification ending in redemption should not be confused.
Do you believe a gospel that makes the New Covenant a fulfillment of the Old Covenant rather than an ending of it for those who believe? Have you substituted the fulfillment of the New Covenant via love for a substitutionary fulfillment of the covenant of death? This is what sets the covenant of promise apart from all other gospels.
If you are a true Christian, you don’t live by faith alone, you live by love alone, and you are the one doing the loving because you are free from condemnation. Your love is not a substitution; Christ’s death is the only substitution that sets you free to love without fear of condemnation.
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1Pastor Jon Young: Dayton Avenue Baptist Church, Xenia, OH.
2https://paulspassingthoughts.com/2014/12/15/something-more-virtuous-than-reason-and-the-road-to-holocaust-2/
3https://paulspassingthoughts.com/2015/01/04/the-potters-house-biblical-covenants-an-overview-and-relevance-to-the-gospel-parts-1-2/ Note citation about perpetually offering the obedience of Christ to God for the satisfying of the law.
4In the Protestant case, rituals that satisfy the law by imputing Christ’s perfect obedience to the law. One of these is church membership which is considered to be one of the “means of grace” found in the institutional church.
5This was an often cited indictment by Jesus against the Pharisees who were rank antinomians for that very reason.
6This is also the real point behind Galatians 2:20 which is a justification verse, not a sanctification verse.
7The book of Acts is the historical account of what Paul is writing about in Galatians 3.
8For the unbeliever the law is death, for the believer it is life.
9Note that Paul emphasizes Christ’s death in the receiving of the Spirit, not Christ’s law-keeping (Gal 3:1ff.).
10As seen all through the book of Acts per the order of salvation: 1. The hearing of the word 2. Faith 3. The baptism of the Spirit.
11Love also fulfills the law. Christ’s ONE act of love makes it possible for us to fulfill the Spirit’s law apart from the law of sin and death. The law is for love—not justification.
12Romans 12:1 along with many other texts makes it clear that the body can be used for holy purposes. In fact, it’s a biblical imperative. It is a weak vessel, but not inherently evil.
13Therefore, be leery of condemnation motifs in any sanctification context.
14The Old and New covenants should not be viewed in a dispensational sense at all, but rather merely two parts of the same covenant. This is a progression of one covenant, not economies.
15Note in 1Tim 1:8-11 and Rom 2:12-16 that the law of Moses is also the gospel. This is because the OT law is a PART of the covenant of promise NOT a dispensation or different plan.
16Phil 2:13, Rom 7:24,25, Lk 21:28. Phil 2:13 is not about justification; it’s about choosing life over death in sanctification with God’s help which is available and leaves us without excuse.
The Power of Christian Living is Found in Family Relationship NOT a “Personal” Relationship
One of the prevailing pithy truisms of churchianity is that “Christianity” is a “personal relationship” with none other than Jesus Christ. Of course, per the usual, because it sounds spiritual, no one thinks beyond the surface of the truism and questions what that means exactly. Be sure of this: the statement promotes a specific soteriology, worldview, and philosophy of life. If a string of memes replace the meat of Scripture, the latter is effectively replaced, and that is exactly what has happened in our day with the personal relationship with Jesus meme leading the way.
What’s really behind it and why has it sucked the life out of Christianity? First, it denies a biblical definition of the new birth. It replaces a literal family of God reality with ONE pseudo-relationship that is at best ambiguous. Proponents of the truism, when they care to add some sort of substantive mini-treatise to the meme, separate the reasoning of propositional truth expressed in words, even words from Jesus Himself, from this highfalutin “Christianity is a relationship [singular], not a religion.” The supposed antithesis in this case, “religion,” according to the logical conclusion, is propositional truth of some sort expressed in a common understanding of Bible sentences. This is the way it is sometimes expressed: “Jesus is a person, not a precept.” Supposedly, if one attempts to follow Jesus according to a reasonable interpretation of what He said as recorded in Scripture, we miss the point by appealing to reason. Instead, we need to seek a relationship with Jesus that is “more like falling in love” as expressed in two bestselling contemporary works by Jason Gray (a #1 song) and Francis Chan (the book, “Crazy Love.”).
Hence, if salvation is strictly experiential, like being “madly in love” with someone, it’s not works on our part and enables us to live out our “Christian” lives by faith alone, and apart from reason to boot. After all…“we [Christians] live [our Christian lives] by faith [alone] NOT by sight [ie., reason]” as the twisting of 2Corintians 5:7 is often applied. This mystical lovey-dovey Jesus is my boyfriend theology effectively separates professing Christians from a literal true-to-life family of God application via the new birth. It replaces a salvific family relationship with a singular relationship. The differences are ever-so subtle, but catastrophic. Rather than our identity being that of a literal child of God in a family setting, we are “Christ’s bride” whom He has married regardless of our shortcomings. Yes, we are supposedly lowly lovers married to a “friend of sinners” who “bring nothing to the marriage.”1 Yes indeed, the lowly lovers identity versus family children enables the redefinition of the new birth as some sort of ongoing exhilarating experience with our “lover.”2
But what is the new birth from a true biblical perspective? It is “the free gift”3 and “the promise.”4 Salvation is the receiving of the promised Spirit that was even a promise made to Christ Himself.5 Christ made the coming promise of the Spirit possible by dying for our sins and ending the law of sin and death. Prior to the coming of the promised Spirit, Jews and Gentiles were not baptized into one body, but at any rate, this baptism of the Holy Spirit makes a person a literal family member of God. This is a onetime personal event that is irreversible—you cannot unborn someone.
The aversion to biblical new birth finds its roots in Gnosticism which rejects the uniting together of holiness and the material. Even though Christians remain in mortal bodies, they are yet God’s righteous children. 1John ch.3 makes it clear that we are God’s literal offspring and His seed is within us. In contrast, the idea that our relationship is with one person who substitutes everything for us as opposed to a family relationship is the major consideration. Rather than Christ making the onetime baptism of the Spirit possible through His onetime death, He is made to be a salvific avatar that substitutes everything efficacious to salvation through faith in Him alone. This is a denial of the new birth and our true identity as God’s righteous children. Salvation is not a onetime spiritual birth, it is a process through the worship of one person who substitutes a life that we don’t actually possess. Worship is not family life, it is something that we do to keep our salvation by faith alone. Hence, the idea of faith alone actually becomes a work on our part as it evokes the substitutional work of Christ for Christian living. Obviously, therefore, the “Christian’s” true ability to love is circumvented.
When one desires to receive the promise—the free gift, the Holy Spirit falls on them and baptizes them into Christ’s death and resurrection.6 This is the literal new birth. This makes us righteous children of God in the literal sense per Romans ch.6. Why we are literally righteous is explained in Romans ch.7, and our fulfillment of the law to our Father’s pleasure is explained in Romans ch.8.
In other words, the substitution of Christ happened once to make the new birth possible, but the so-called “personal relationship” calls for a continued substitution that negates a literal family relationship which is given mere lip service. Along with the avatar approach, not to mention sub-avatars, is the institutional angle. Institutions go hand in hand with the idea of religious authority and hierarchy. This is where the Christianity brand is found impotent in both reproduction and functionality.
The early church met exclusively in private homes, why? Because they understood that they were a literal family. They also had “all things in common”7 What family builds a separate building and pays to maintain it for the purpose of Thanksgiving dinner and other family get-togethers? How much sense does that make? And how many families organize systems of commerce within the household? If a sibling in a household learns something new about living, does he write a book and sell it to his brothers and sisters? No, he shares it at the dinner table or other like family experiences.
A hierarchical corporate mentality and structure naturally subjugates a literal family system. The two function differently in almost every respect. This is the key to revival—a return to the apostolic assembly of Christ and its literal family construct and function. It is a multifaceted relationship with many, not ONE.
paul
1Paul David Tripp: How People Change, Punch Press 2006
2Francis Chan: Crazy Love
3Romans 5:15,16, 17 “the free gift” stated 5 times.
4Acts 2:39, Ephesians 2:12, Galatians 3; “promises” “the promise,” “by promise” 8 times.
5Galatians 3:16
6Acts 11:15
7Acts 2:44
The Truth About Reformed Metaphysics and Baptist Complicity
Tonight at 7pm (10/16/2015). Live program Link: The Heidelberg Disputation: Part 14; Theses 26-28, “The Truth About Reformed Metaphysics and Baptist Complicity”
The completion of the theological theses. Call in and talk with the host live. (347) 855-8317
Welcome truth lovers to Blog Talk radio .com/False Reformation, this is your host Paul Dohse. Tonight, part 14 of “The Magnum Opus of the Reformation: Martin Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation” – Theses 26-28.
Greetings from the Potters House and TANC ministries where we are always eager to serve all of your heterodox needs. Our teaching catalog can be found at tancpublishing.com.
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I decided to juice things up a little tonight. Yes, I think it’s high time that Baptists stopped getting a pass on their part in promoting the false gospel of progressive justification. “Hey, you know, Luther was a Lutheran, and that ain’t us, we are Baptists.” So here is what we need to understand: the Protestant Reformation did open up the floodgates of freedom to a point. It is amazing to consider how lost the word of God was in Western culture. The Catholic Church, after all, did everything in their power to keep the Bible out of the hands of the average parishioner.
Why? In their mind, to prevent chaos. First, they saw the masses as those who mistakenly think that they can know reality through experiencing and studying the material world. The Catholic Church saw wholesale availability of the consummate religious document of the ages as apocalyptic. And really, they still do. In my recent conversations with some Catholics, I find their claim that Catholics are scriptorian absolutely absurd.
However, no doubt, chaos did in fact ensue regarding various and sundry ideas about what the Bible teaches, we call that, “denominations,” BUT, the foundational soteriology of the Protestant Reformation remained intact. Again, this series examines the first and foundational doctrinal statement of the Reformation, the HD, and its major tenets can be seen in every Protestant denomination and Baptists in-particular, and we will see that tonight in theses 26-28, especially in the way Baptists function. Specifically, the Baptists parted from the Reformers on the issue of infant baptism, but kept the exact soteriology; progressive justification.
And as we have previously noted, misunderstanding in regard to how the Reformers interpreted reality also comes into play. People naturally tend towards interpreting reality from a historical, literal, experiential, and grammatical perspective. This is not how the Reformers interpreted reality at all. As some of you know, I am gravitating more and more towards this idea that one of the primary characteristics of sin is a need to control others. Hence, as we know, people tend to create gods of their own making—gods that are like them. Is this behind the whole viral idea of God’s sovereignty (?), or more specifically, God being defined as 100% sovereign, and if He isn’t, He’s NOT God! Therefore, God created evil or evil wouldn’t exist.
Stop right there. Most Baptists until recently would vehemently deny that God creates evil. This is where functionality departs from reason and logic. Even though most Baptists would refute the idea that God creates evil, what’s the first thing out of their mouths when something bad happens? Right, “It’s God’s will.” Or, “God is in control.” Or, “God means it for good.” On and on. Most Baptists, on its face, would vehemently deny the principles we are looking at tonight, especially Martin Luther’s previously discussed mortal and venial sin construct, but what are the first words out of their mouths when someone tries to give them credit for doing something that glorified God? Right, “I didn’t do it, the Holy Spirit did it!”
And that brings us to another place I am going more and more, that’s just good old fashioned Hinduism; this whole idea of realm birthing or realm manifestation. We experience what happens, but we are not really doing it. Baptists talk like this all the time!
But back to the whole idea that God creates evil. This belief is a Protestant tradition. Jonathan Edwards, in his Miscellanies: Being of God; tenet 85, states that God creates evil but it’s not really evil because He uses it to create good—only evil for the purpose of evil is evil. Another tenet of Eastern mysticism normally expressed in Hinduism et al is dualism, or the idea that something cannot exist unless it has an opposite or counterpart. In other words, nothing can be self existent. Edwards states in Miscellanies: Trinity 94 that God had to create an idea of Himself in order to exist, and Christ is an expression of His self-love which brings us to how the Reformers truly interpreted reality.
The Reformers interpreted reality redemptively. All of reality is interpreted through the gospel. That’s the HD disputation in a nutshell. This is what Baptists are a party to albeit unwittingly resulting in the same functionality. How does it work? It’s not complicated. Reality is a metaphysical story written by God. Do you like reading stories or novels? Well, when you do, you are a character in God’s story reading a story. What are you doing right now and what are you observing others doing? That’s all part of God’s prewritten metaphysical narrative. The way you experience this story that you live in is experienced like you have freewill which results in cause and effect, but that’s not really the case. In fact, according to the likes of many Reformers like Jonathan Edwards, God recreates the world moment by moment (get citation from Susan) according to His gospel metaphysical narrative. Look, the Reformers even have official names for these doctrines taken from the HD: the historical-redemptive hermeneutic and what they call “Biblical Theology.” And it’s interesting to note that the way God supposedly creates us is to experience life as if we have choice and those choices induce cause and effect.
So why did God decide to write this metaphysical narrative that we supposedly experience as reality? The Reformed are not the least bit shy about stating the reason: God created reality in this way as a redemptive story for His own glory and self-love. Before we get into the theses tonight, let me outline the hypotheses I find myself leaning towards more and more: ALL Protestant orthodoxy flows from and serves the purposes of the control sin. The desire of sin to own and control people drives the doctrine. They are supposedly God’s appointed authority on earth to manage His gospel program. Those who follow their teachings, that is, “God’s anointed” or “men of God” see reality the way it should be seen. In fact, the way you see/interpret reality is considered a definition of saving faith. Is this not the very theme of the HD? Remember, the cross story or the glory story, right? I have previously cited contemporary Reformers as saying that a literal interpretation of the Bible and reality itself is a denial of the person and saving works of Christ.
So, in a big way, saving faith boils down to interpreting reality according to the historical-redemptive hermeneutic. Faithfulness to the institutional Protestant church enables you to see reality as a gospel narrative leading to assurance that you have a shot at salvation. In a way, by your own efforts, you are confirming what God has already predetermined about your life according to the narrative. By being faithful to the institutional church and its hierarchy, you are “putting yourself in the pathway of blessings.” Lest you doubt this Reformed notion, I refer you to a Reformed article written by David Mathis on John Piper’s Desiring God.org blog titled, “Put Yourself in the Path of God’s Grace.”1 The main idea in the post is that we show ourselves saved by being faithful to “the means of grace,” viz, the means of grace found in the institutional church through the sacraments of baptism, sitting under the word, prayer, repentance for condemning sin, and the Lord’s table. And as stated many times before in this series, the word “grace” is used to nuance what is really intended: the means of continued salvation, or in this case, putting yourself in the path of God’s salvation. The switching of these words is deliberate deception.
Where does the Bible fit in? Well, it is the redemptive story that includes your story. When you read your Bible, the fact that you are reading your Bible is part of God’s story that includes your story along with whatever is going on around you. Sort of, let me explain. The Bible documents past history, and what is going to happen in the future, right? Past redemptive history in the Bible is an example, or prototype of how you should interpret your present redemptive life. You are presently living in a story prewritten by God that is about His redemption, and because you are living you are obviously part of the story. If you are reading your Bible grammatically/literally with a cause and effect view of reality, your character in God’s prewritten story is going to hell for His glory and self-love unless you have a change of mind which will only happen if God wrote the story that way. So, whatever happens is prewritten. Therefore, the Bible serves as a means to increase your faith in regard to the redemptive story that you live in. Do you care to really get your mind around how this works? No problem, buy a book by Paul David Tripp titled, “How People Change.” Of course, the title is a lie and Tripp knows it. It should be truthfully titled, “How God Displays His Realm Manifestations Depicting His Gospel Prewritten Metaphysical Story for His Own Glory and Self-Love.”
This simply coincides with the Reformed tradition for anyone who cares to study it for themselves. Jonathan Edwards wrote that all reality is made up of ideas (blatantly Platonist), and that God is the first cause of all ideas. He also saw reality as a massive web of ideas linked together to bring about cause and effect (citation needed from Susan). An act starts with an idea, and God is the first cause of all ideas. As we have learned here in the HD, Luther explained this via the active and passive realm. I wont revisit that, but hope you remember what we learned.
Anyway, the present gospel narrative, or the present part of the story, is not in writing, but is experienced by all of us, “it is also the story of our lives in the narrative.” Yea, we should, as Paul David Tripp puts it, accept God’s invitation to “enter into the plot!” That is, the redemptive plot. In essence, if we do not interpret reality in this way, we believe we have freewill and deny the… “gospel of sovereignty.” As far as Bible prophesy, that’s how the story is going to end. Do you think I have lost my mind? Well then, I invite you to listen to the video trailers for the website, biblemesh.com and listen carefully to what is being said.2 This isn’t merely in a manner of speaking, they mean this literally. This is the story of redemption that is also your story because it is the metaphysical prewritten story of life that is reality itself.
With that let’s get into the final lesson of the theological theses.
Thesis 26: The law says, »do this«, and it is never done. Grace says, »believe in this«, and everything is already done.
The first part is clear from what has been stated by the Apostle and his interpreter, St. Augustine, in many places. And it has been stated often enough above that the »law« »works wrath« and keeps all men under the curse. The second part is clear from the same sources, for faith justifies. And the law (says St. Augustine) commands what faith obtains. For through faith Christ is in us, indeed, one with us. Christ is just and has fulfilled all the commands of God, wherefore we also fulfill everything through him since he was made ours through faith.
This is about as concise as it gets. Actually, let’s just do bullet points on this one:
- St. Augustine is the Apostle Paul’s interpreter. Any questions?
- Christians remain under the law of sin and death.
- Therefore, justification is a continuing process by faith alone.
- Therefore, faith obtains what the law commands…or else it would be works…the Christian life must continue the same way it started, by faith alone. This is what the epistle of James pushes back against and why Luther dismissed it as a “straw epistle.”
- And how does faith obtain what the law commands? Christ obeyed the law for us and His obedience is imputed to our life through realm manifestation. This is the doctrine of “double imputation.” Christ’s obedience to the law is manifested in our life as we live by faith alone.
- Obviously, we don’t really do anything, we only experience what Christ has done. As long as we live by faith alone through gospel contemplationism, we are one with Christ and therefore in “the path of grace” where God may or may not manifest good fruit. This is the Reformed doctrine of the vital union which also finds its roots in Eastern mysticism by the way.
Thesis 27: Actually one should call the work of Christ an acting work (operans) and our work an accomplished work (operatum), and thus an accomplished work pleasing to God by the grace of the acting work.
Since Christ lives in us through faith so he arouses us to do good works through that living faith in his work, for the works which he does are the fulfilment of the commands of God given us through faith. If we look at them we are moved to imitate them. For this reason the Apostle says,»Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children« (Eph. 5:1). Thus deeds of mercy are aroused by the works through which he has saved us, as St. Gregory says: »Every act of Christ is instruction for us, indeed, a stimulant.« If his action is in us it lives through faith, for it is exceedingly attractive according to the verse, »Draw me after you, let us make haste«(Song of Sol. 1:4) toward the fragrance »of your anointing oils« (Song of Sol. 1:3), that is, »your works.«
Right here is the premise for gospel contemplationism as we know it today. Note: “If we look at them we are moved to imitate them.” He then distorts Ephesians 5:1 to make the point. Also note how St. Gregory promoted the same idea according to Luther: the beauty of Solomon’s lover and her perfume is not really referring to her beauty and perfume, but what? Right, the works of Christ; specifically, His “saving works”…PLURAL. Did you catch that? Even if you want to say, “No, no, you have this all wrong, all Luther is saying is that the Bible inspires us to obey by seeing the works of Christ in the Bible!” Problem is, apparently then, we are being inspired to do what? Right, “saving works.” Either way, we have a serious problem. Besides that, the Bible makes it absolutely clear that we were saved by what? We were saved by the ONE act of Christ’s death on the cross (Heb 9:26, 10:10,14). Also note:
Romans 5:18 – Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous (NIV).
Ok, besides the fact that this verse by itself blows away any notion of saving works in the plural by Christ which also by the way completely discredits Protestantism in totality, that is, this one verse, let’s have some additional fun with this verse. In regard to predeterminism, the Reformed can’t have it both ways. By one act of sin by one man everyone is condemned, right? So why isn’t everyone made righteous by the one act? What am I saying? How is “the world” or “all people,” or “the many” biblically defined here? Clearly, it’s EVERYONE. Let me make a quick point here and we will move on: “many are called” means that EVERYONE is called…the “few chosen” really properly, “few elect” are the one’s that choose God’s means of salvation. That’s why it is called, “the free gift” (Rom 5:15,16,).
Thesis 28: The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it.
The second part is clear and is accepted by all philosophers and theologians, for the object of love is its cause, assuming, according to Aristotle, that all power of the soul is passive and material and active only in receiving something. Thus it is also demonstrated that Aristotle’s philosophy is contrary to theology since in all things it seeks those things which are its own and receives rather than gives something good. The first part is clear because the love of God which lives in man loves sinners, evil persons, fools, and weaklings in order to make them righteous, good, wise, and strong. Rather than seeking its own good, the love of God flows forth and bestows good. Therefore sinners are »attractive« because they are loved; they are not loved because they are »attractive«: For this reason the love of man avoids sinners and evil persons. Thus Christ says: »For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners« (Matt. 9:13). This is the love of the cross, born of the cross, which turns in the direction where it does not find good which it may enjoy, but where it may confer good upon the bad and needy person.»It is more blessed to give than to receive« (Acts 20:35), says the Apostle. Hence Ps. 41:1 states, »Blessed is he who considers the poor,« for the intellect cannot by nature comprehend an object which does not exist, that is the poor and needy person, but only a thing which does exist, that is the true and good. Therefore it judges according to appearances, is a respecter of persons, and judges according to that which can be seen, etc.
If you read this thesis about a dozen times carefully, and consider that the Bible states that God is love, we have merely come full circle to what Reformed philosophers such as Jonathan Edwards have confirmed all along about the original Reformation tenets: God could not exist without an idea of Himself in reference to an opposite idea. Of course God created evil, or he would be irrelevant. If God is good, there must be evil or good could not exist. As Luther plainly stated in this thesis, “the object of love is its cause.” If something didn’t need love, there wouldn’t be any love. If God is love, this definition of Himself could only be true is there is a need for love, viz, SIN.
The accusation leveled at “theologians of glory” like Aristotle follows: they denied the existence of evil as a necessary component of reality. Now, I know this is rough treading on the mind, but the reality of the matter is that if you want to understand what’s going in the church, and the church is predicated on this stuff, and it is, you have to stop letting others think for you.
In closing, let me say that there might be a way to get me back into the institutional church. Find me a Baptist church that has added the bindi as a sacrament or “means of grace.” That’s the red dot that Hindus sport between their eyes. You can liken it to Jonathan Edwards’ sixth sense. Yep, that’s it; find me a Baptist church where ever one in Sunday morning service has a red dot painted on their head. Because like with all personal problems, you have to admit that there is a problem before you can solve it. You can dress up Protestantism in a business suit all day long, but in the final analysis, it’s just another ancient mythology dressed up in Western formality and pseudo dignity.
Let’s go to the phones.
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1http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/put-yourself-in-the-path-of-god-s-grace
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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