The Reason For Compassion

The magisterial Reformer John Calvin, explains the reason for God’s compassion towards His chosen people, while preaching through the book of Malachi as follows:

As we have said, there is no real difference among men, except in their hidden election. Some theologians would make foreknowledge the mother of election, and that very foolishly and childishly. They say that some men are chosen and others rejected by God, because God, from whom nothing is hidden, foresees of what sort each man will be. But I ask, Whence comes virtue to one and vice to the other? If they say, “From free will,” surely creation was before free will. This is one point. Besides, we know that all men were created alike in the person of Adam. . . . And what does this mean except that the condition of all who come from the one root is the same?

I am not discussing “special gifts.” I admit that if our nature had not been corrupted and we all had the same assurance of blessedness, we would be endowed with a variety of gifts. . . . But since in Adam all are sinners, deserving of eternal death, it is obvious that nothing but sin will be found in men. Therefore, God’s foreknowledge cannot be the reason of our election, because when God [looks into the future and] surveys all mankind, he will find them all, from the first to the last, under the same curse. So we see how foolishly triflers prattle when they ascribe to mere naked foreknowledge what must be founded on God’s good pleasure. . . .

When Moses prays to God not to break his covenant with Abraham, God answers, “I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” What does he mean? He means that the reason for God’s keeping some for himself and rejecting others is to be sought nowhere but in God himself. When he says, “I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion,” the repetition may seem empty and dull; but it is in reality emphatic. . . . The reason for compassion is compassion itself. [1]

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[1] John Calvin,  Calvin: Commentaries, The Library Of Christian Classics, Volume XXIII, (translated and edited by Joseph Haroutunian, with Louise Pettibone Smith), The Westminster Press, p 294-295

Monday Musings : Being Christocentric

Theoblogy is starting a new series in its weekly postings : Monday Musings. Every Monday, we will post a small reflection written by Jay.M Nair on various topics like theology, doctrine, church matters, culture etc.

Attending a Charismatic Sunday service recently, I was introduced to, probably one of the worst songs written on God. The song listed the different names of Yahweh like Yahweh-Jireh, Yahweh-Shalom etc and had a brief explanation of what these names mean to us. What made this song detestable in my eyes was first of all, the way the song was sung, was so below anything that could be called proper reverence to God. For the tune was at best a nursery rhyme. Secondly and more seriously, the words especially the interpretation of these names by the writer was pitiful. The interesting thing is that this song is not an odd one out. There are many songs sung today which follow the same method of interpretation when it comes to understanding these names of God. I stood there baffled over the song being sung with much enthusiasm by believers around me. I started prayerfully thinking over what is wrong here. The thing that struck me was that every single name of God is interpreted in the song within the context of our felt needs. Therefore Yahweh-Jireh is always about God being the provider for our earthly needs and Yahweh-Shalom is always about God bringing peace in the midst of the storms of this earthly life. However if anyone cares to know how these words are used in the Canon of Scripture, then it would be clear that this is not the emphasis of Scriptures.  What illumined my mind that day was the fact that if these names are understood in the broader canvas of the Canon, then we would see how all of these names are pointing to Jesus Christ. In other words, if these names are to be properly understood, then they are not to be interpreted with in the context of our felt needs, but rather in their redemptive historical context.

Thus for example, take Yahweh-Jireh, meaning  "The Lord Will Provide". In Genesis 22:14, Abraham memorialized the place  with this name, where God provided a ram to be sacrificed in the place of Isaac. In its immediate context, God did indeed provide a ram to spare Isaac. However if we understand this in the broader canvas of the Canon, then its not difficult at all to see that the lamb, God ultimately provided for sparing us is Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. Thus we who are New Testament believers, when we sing about our God being Yahweh-Jireh, it should essentially be all about God’s provision of the Lamb of God who was slain for our sins. This however is never stressed in any song that I have ever heard on the name of God as being Yahweh-Jireh.

It could be shown how all such names of God point to the person and work of Jesus Christ, if they are properly interpreted in their redemptive historical context. Here is a sampling :

Yahweh-Elohim, meaning "LORD God”. Found in Genesis 2:4 and Psalms 59:5, it refers to God being the Lord of Lords. In the New Testament, Jesus is affirmed as the Lord of Lords (Rev 17:14, Rev 19:16).

Yahweh-Rapha, meaning "The Lord Who Heals". In Exodus 15:26, God promised the Israelites on the basis of their obedience, protection from diseases He brought upon the Egyptians. God thus does heal our bodies from sicknesses, however in the broader context and as explicitly taught in the New Testament, the healing that God gives us ultimately is the healing from our sins which comes through Jesus Christ. (1Pet 2:24)

Yahweh-Nissi, meaning "The Lord Our Banner". In Exodus 17:15 after their victory over the Amalekites, Moses set up an altar and called it Yahweh-Nissi. The word banner speaks of a sign or a flag of our victory and also a rallying point. Today the covenant people of God has a banner which speaks of the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is the ultimate victory of God and His people, where by we are lead by His spirit in a triumphant procession (2Cor 2:14).

Yahweh-M’Kaddesh, meaning "The Lord Who Sanctifies”. Found in Leviticus 20:8 and Ezekiel 37:28, God emphatically declares how He alone makes us holy. This truth finds its ultimate basis in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose life, death and resurrection accomplishes our salvation. (Jn 17:19, 2Ti 1:9, Heb 10:14).

Yahweh-Shalom, meaning “The Lord Our Peace”. Gideon built an altar and called it this name when God assured him how he shall not die after seeing Him. Thus the peace referred here has nothing even in its immediate context to do with psychological relief in the midst of the storms of this earthly life. The peace here is explicitly peace with God for a sinner who deserves to be dead when he faces God. This peace thus speaks of a sparing of oneself from the due wrath of God and a grace that one does not deserve. It is in this light that this name refers ultimately to our Peace – our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. (Eph 2:13-14a, Rom 5:1)

Yahweh-Tsidkenu, meaning "The Lord Our Righteousness”. In Jeremiah 33:16, the prophet prophesies how the people of God shall be saved, not on the basis of their own merits but rather on the basis of the merits of their Lord. This prophetic passage is foretelling how God’s salvation is on the basis of imputed righteousness. This is explicitly gospel truth. We are saved on the basis of an active and perfect obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Law of God during His entire earthly life. (Rom5:19b)

Yahweh-Rohi, meaning “The Lord Our Shepherd”. In Psalm 23:1, David declares how the Lord takes care of him like a shepherd takes care of his sheep. The New Testament is full of affirmations both from the mouth of our Lord (Jn 10:11, Jn 10:14) and from His Apostles(Heb 13:20, 1Pet 2:25, Rev 7:17) that Jesus Christ is the great and good shepherd of the sheep of God.

Yahweh-Shammah, meaning “The Lord Is There”. Found only in Ezekiel, it speaks of the returning of the once departed glory of God to the temple and Jerusalem. Eschatologically, the presence of God especially through His Son Jesus Christ is the temple for the people of God.(Rev 21:22) The New Testament Canon begins with Matthew identifying Jesus as the Emmanuel spoken of by the Prophet. Thus the ever present, temple or meeting place whereby we can meet God is Jesus Himself and thus in the ultimate sense even this name is speaking of Jesus Christ.

Yahweh-Sabaoth, meaning “The Lord of Hosts”.  Found in Isaiah 1:24 and Psalm 46:7, it means God is the Lord of the whole host of heaven and earth. The name thus speaks of His majesty and authority over heaven and earth. After His resurrection, Jesus Christ tells His disciples how all authority over heaven and earth has been given to Him and thus how His mission on earth – to build His Church, shall not fail.  Thus this name which speaks of how God is able to accomplish every thing he has purposed to do, points ultimately to Jesus Christ.

The point I am making here is not in anyway that all the names of God refer to Jesus Christ alone, or that there is no distinction to be made between the Persons of the God head. There are other names of God which cannot be applied to this treatment.  These names however should be understood in their redemptive-historical context. The reason being the very nature of these names. These names does not tell us who God is (His attributes), which apply to all the Persons of the Trinity. But rather these names reveal the Person and Work of God as experienced in due course of redemptive history. It is no wonder that these names then point to the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, in whom is bound all of God’s redemptive purposes.

The presence of the afore mentioned song and the enthusiasm with which some Christians are singing it should cause all biblically informed Christians to lament.  It is a sad thing that most pastors, especially in India seems to have no Christocentric approach to hermeneutics, when it comes to interpreting redemptive history as unfolded in the Scriptures. Thus much of the Bible is reduced to a mere moral science text book or a bunch of cute little stories about how God meets our felt needs. Unless we recover this simple yet inevitable Christocentric hermeneutic, both our preaching and our worship will lead the church to dwindle down into a Christ-less Christianity .

May the Lord spare us from it, for Christ’s sake.

Sunday School : 1689 Confession – 1

Theoblogy is beginning a new series in our weekly postings: Sunday School. Every Lord’s day we will study at the Sunday School, pertinent topics for being a biblically informed and transformed believer. To do this, we will be studying through the 1689 London Baptist Confession. 

There are two reasons why we have chosen this Particular Baptist document for our Sunday School. First, we are committed Calvinistic Baptists and would like to make known the doctrines we believe in a systematic way as is described in the 1689 Confession. This confession was held dearly by our Baptist forefathers like William Kiffin, Nehemiah Cox., Benjamin Keach, John Bunyan, Charles Spurgeon etc and we want to follow in their footsteps in affirming this confession as ours. Secondly, many a Christian lacks any systematic understanding of doctrines in the Bible and we hope that this study would help them to thoroughly learn what they believe. A great majority of the doctrines we would be studying from the confession are believed not only by Particular Baptists, but by all who claim to be Evangelical Christians, in the best sense of that term.  It is indeed a sad thing that today many believers carry around an atomistic understanding of the teachings of the Bible and thereby are susceptible to all kinds of deceptive teachings. Only when we gain a holistic understanding of the Bible can we sharpen our discernment and deepen our growth in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

To begin with, here is Dr. Michael Haykin, Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who will introduce the origins of the Confession in its historical context and then deal with the place of Scriptures in the confession.

A Spirituality of the Word : Scriptures in 1689 Confession  Listen | Download

Friday Features : Reformed Theology – 3

Lecture #3 : Scripture Alone

Christians ought to submit to the authority given them by Christ. But what happens when those in authority teach things contrary to the Word of God? Is there a higher court we can appeal to? The answer is yes. The appeal was made in the sixteenth century and the motion still carries. Reformers call this Sola Scriptura. That’s the Latin slogan for Scripture alone. Dr. Sproul teaches us about this in this message entitled “Scripture Alone.”

  

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Jesus On Justification By Faith Alone

It is contended by some that the Reformers and much of Evangelical Protestantism is based on an unbalanced understanding of Pauline teachings and that the balance would be found only if considerable attention is given to the message of Jesus also. This pitting of Paul’s teachings with Jesus and creating a false dichotomy between them is no longer the sole property of liberals or Catholics, but alarmingly even some well known Evangelicals have made such statements too. 

The Evangelical response to all such attacks is that, if rightly understood, all the teachings of Jesus and Paul are one and the same. The right understanding of the gospels is only possible if one is well versed in the doctrine of Christianity, which is laid mostly, though not exclusively in the Epistles.  The question that is often raised against Evangelicals is regarding their understanding of justification by faith alone. Did Jesus teach that? Did Jesus teach propitiation, imputation and faith alone?

One answer to such queries is this rich sermon by Dr. Albert Mohler Jr., the president of Southern Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.  Dr. Mohler takes the parable of Jesus in Luke 18:9-14 and teaches how Jesus did teach justification is by faith alone.  The key to understanding how this sermon defends the Reformers’ understanding of justification comes from understanding the meaning of a Greek term, used in the passage.  Outside Reformed circles, this parable is never taught properly. This parable is often misunderstood, or lightly understood.  Often it is just used to teach some moralistic sense of humility  the need for broken-hearted prayer. It is more than an exhortation to prayer and humility; it also deals with our justification.  The passage when exegeted faithfully brings out the gospel in bright colors. It is also noteworthy that it is in this context of justification by faith alone, that true humility is to be understood and practiced.  Dr. Mohler does a fine job, both as an exegete and as a preacher.  Preached on the Reformation Day last year at Capitol Hill Baptist church, this sermon is highly recommended for all Christians.

Reformation Sunday  Listen  |  Download

What is Covenant Theology?

Here is an excerpt of the excellent answer given by Ligon Duncan III PhD, Senior Minister of First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi, to the question of what covenant theology is,

Covenant theology is the Gospel set in the context of God’s eternal plan of communion with his people, and its historical outworking in the covenants of works and grace (as well as in the various progressive stages of the covenant of grace).  Covenant theology explains the meaning of the death of Christ in light of the fullness of the biblical teaching on the divine covenants, undergirds our understanding of the nature and use of the sacraments, and provides the fullest possible explanation of the grounds of our assurance.

To put it another way, Covenant theology is the Bible’s way of explaining and deepening our understanding of: (1) the atonement [the meaning of the death of Christ]; (2) assurance [the basis of our confidence of communion with God and enjoyment of his promises]; (3) the sacraments [signs and seals of God’s covenant promises — what they are and how they work]; and (4) the continuity of redemptive history [the unified plan of God’s salvation]. Covenant theology is also an hermeneutic, an approach to understanding the Scripture — an approach that attempts to biblically explain the unity of biblical revelation.

 When Jesus wanted to explain the significance of His death to His disciples, He went to the doctrine of the covenants (see Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, 1 Corinthians 11). When God wanted to assure Abraham of the certainty of His word of promise, He went to the covenant (Genesis 12, 15, and 17).  When God wanted to set apart His people, ingrain His work in their minds, tangibly reveal Himself in love and mercy, and confirm their future inheritance, He gave the covenant signs (Genesis 17, Exodus 12, 17, and 31, Matthew 28, Acts 2, Luke 22).  When Luke wanted to show early Christians that Jesus’ life and ministry were the fulfillment of God’s ancient purposes for His chosen people, he went to the covenants and quoted Zacharias’ prophecy which shows that believers in the very earliest days of  ‘the Jesus movement’ understood Jesus and His messianic work as a fulfillment (not a ‘Plan B’) of God’s covenant with Abraham (Luke 1:72-73). When the Psalmist and the author of Hebrews want to show how God’s redemptive plan is ordered and on what basis it unfolds in history, they went to the covenants (see Psalm 78, 89, Hebrews 6-10).

“The doctrine of the covenant lies at the root of all true theology.  It has been said that he who well understands the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, is a master of divinity.  I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make concerning the doctrines of Scripture, are based upon fundamental errors with regard to the covenant of law and of grace.  May God grant us now the power to instruct, and you the grace to receive instruction on this vital subject.” Who said this?  C.H. Spurgeon — the great English Baptist preacher!  Certainly a man beyond our suspicion of secretly purveying a Presbyterian view of the sacraments to the unsuspecting evangelical masses.

Covenant theology flows from the trinitarian life and work of God.  God’s covenant communion with us is modeled on and a reflection of the intra-trinitarian relationships.  The shared life, the fellowship of the persons of the Holy Trinity, what theologians call perichoresis or circumincessio, is the archetype of the relationship the gracious covenant God shares with His elect and redeemed people.  God’s commitments in the eternal covenant of redemptive find space-time realization in the covenant of grace. [1]

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[1]  Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III, What is Covenant Theology, FPC Jackson Sermons.

Meditating on the Glory of Christ

In the 1680s when the greatest theologian of the English speaking world, John Owen was dying, he came up with his last book, a discourse on the glory of Christ. The book is packed with meditations on the glory of Christ – His person, office and grace. In the preface, Owen notes why meditating on the glory of Christ ought be the diligent business of every Christian.  Owen says,

The revelation made of Christ in the blessed gospel is far more excellent, more glorious, and more filled with rays of divine wisdom and goodness, than the whole creation and the just comprehension of it, if attainable, can contain or afford. Without the knowledge hereof, the mind of man, however priding itself in other inventions and discoveries, is wrapped up in darkness and confusion. This, therefore, deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations, and our utmost diligence in them. For if our future blessedness shill consist in being where he is, and beholding of his glory, what better preparation can there be for it than in a constant preview contemplation of that glory in the revelation that is made in the Gospel, unto this very end, that by a view of it we may be gradually transformed into the same glory? [1]

When William Payne, the editor of Owen’s book on the glory of Christ, visited him near the end, Owen said to him, “O, brother Payne, the long-wished for day is come at last, in which I shall see the glory in another manner than I have ever done or was capable of doing in this world.” [2] John Owen thus died meditating on the glory of Christ and with a deep and joyful conviction that death is not the termination but the consummation of his enjoyment of Christ.  Owen describes the kind of restful life one would live if meditating on the gospel glories of Jesus Christ is one’s chief delight,

Our beholding by faith things that see not seen, things spiritual and eternal, will alienate all our afflictions, — make their burden light, and preserve our souls from fainting under them. Of these things the glory of Christ, whereof we treat, is the principal, and in due sense comprehensive of them all. For we behold the glory of God himself "in the face of Jesus Christ." He that can at all times retreat unto the contemplation of this glory, will be carried above the perplexing prevailing sense of any of these evils, of a confluence of them all. "Crux nil sentit in nervo, dum animus est in coelo." (One does not feel the pain of the cross when his mind is on heavenly things.) [3]

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[1]  John Owen, Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ in His Person, Office, and Grace, in The Works of John Owen, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 275.

[2] Peter Toon, God’s Statesman: The Life and Work of John Owen (1971; reprint, Eugene, Ore.:Wipf & Stock, 2005), 171.

[3] John Owen, Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ in His Person, Office, and Grace, in The Works of John Owen, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 278.

Friday Features : Reformed Theology – 2

Lecture #2 : Catholic, Evangelical, and Reformed

In his second lecture Dr. R.C Sproul  moves on to show how Reformed theology is not just a theology but also a systematic theology. At the heart of this systematic understanding of God’s Word is the true knowledge of God.  How one defines sovereignty and how applies that to one’s theology determine all else about what one thinks of God and how He relates to His creatures. Considering this, and how it applies to biblical theology, Dr. Sproul continues this series by examining how Reformed Christianity is Catholic, Evangelical and Reformed in its faith.

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