Covenant Revisionism Heads East

Westminster’s R.S. Clark has noted on his Heidelblog that the Federal Vision movement has “gone international. If it’s in Poland it’s probably spread elsewhere.” He concludes that “We allowed this thing to grow and now it’s spreading. It’s time to move beyond reports. It’s time to act.” His impression seems to be that the Internet is responsible.

In fact, James Jordan, one of the developers of the Federal Vision theology, visited Poland in 2005 and lectured there. Several posts in the, now defunct, 40 Bicycles blog covered this. Further the Federal Vision has been promoted through the Reformed Seminary of Saint Petersburg, Russia, under the sponsorship at the time of the supposedly anti-Federal Vision Mississippi Valley Presbytery of the PCA. For more detail on who is involved see the newsletter of the Slavic Reformation Society showing the board members at the lower right of page 2. The result, not surprisingly, has been to split the nascent Reformed church in Russia between Federal Vision and non-Federal Vision congregations.

Where the Federal Vision has not gotten in, the New Covenant Theology has. Its representatives have traveled to various central European countries to establish their theology in the newly formed Reformed congregations.

The Vitality of Calvinism

Calvinism is rooted in a form of religion which was peculiarly its own, and from this specific religious consciousness there was developed first a peculiar theology, then a special church-order, and then a given form for political and social life, for the interpretation of the moral world-order, for the relation between nature and grace, between Christianity and the world, between church and state, and finally for art and science; and amid all these life-utterances it remained always the self-same Calvinism, in so far as simultaneously and spontaneously all these developments sprang from its deepest life-principle. Hence to this extent it stands in line with those other great complexes of human life, known as Paganism, Islamism and Romanism, by which we distinguish four entirely different worlds in the one collective world of human life. And if, speaking precisely, you should co-ordinate Christianity and not Calvinism with Paganism and Islamism, it is nevertheless better to place Calvinism in line with them, because Calvinism claims to embody the Christian idea more purely and accurately than could Romanism and Lutheranism.

In the Greek world of Russia and the Balkan States, the national element is still dominant, and therefore the Christian faith in these countries has not yet been able to produce a form of life of its own from the root of its mystical orthodoxy. In Lutheran countries, the interference of the magistrate has prevented the free working of the spiritual principle. Hence of Romanism only can it be said that it has embodied its life-thought in a world of conceptions and utterances entirely its own. But by the side of Romanism, and in opposition to it, Calvinism made its appearance, not merely to create a different Church-form, but an entirely different form for human life, to furnish human society with a different method of existence, and to populate the world of the human heart with different ideals and conceptions.

Abraham Kuyper

A Petition

O God,
Make me as holy
As a pardoned sinner
Can be made.

Robert Murray M’Cheyne

Classic Puritan Prose

He’s the first sentence from Puritan theologian M. Dudley Fenner’s 1584 textbook on Ramist Logic:

Although the treatises following were begun and ended at the request and for the benefit of some few who were desirous of them, for whose cause they are also now come under print, though peradventure not done (as they say in print) yet because it is not unlikely, but by these means they will come into the hands of many, who will inquire upon what grounds I have adventured this thing, which to some will seem strange and new, yea unprofitable and inexpedient, that they are made common to all which are wont to fit in the doctor’s chair: to other also, which will neither greatly mistake the turning of them into our tongue, nor yet the following of the better sort in that art, they will carry notwithstanding the same taste, because they will seem newer than the newest,  I thought it necessary to write these few lines following, if not to falsify them, yet at the least to incline thee to a more moderate judgment concerning my labors, then otherwise, the former conjectures will suffer them to come unto.

 Wow, is there a verb in that thing?

Theses on substitution

(1) God… “condones nothing”, but judges all sin as it deserves: which Scripture affirms, and my conscience confirms, to be right.

(2) My sins merit ultimate penal suffering and rejection from God’s presence (conscience also confirms this), and nothing I do can blot them out.

(3) The penalty due to me for my sins, whatever it was, was paid for me by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in his death on the cross.

(4) Because this is so, I through faith in him am made ‘the righteousness of God in him’, i.e. I am justified; pardon, acceptance and sonship become mine.

(5) Christ’s death for me is my sole ground of hope before God. “If he fulfilled not justice, I must; if he underwent not wrath, I must to eternity.” [Owen]

(6) My faith in Christ is God’s own gift to me, given in virtue of Christ’s death for me: i.e. the cross procured it.

(7) Christ’s death for me guarantees my preservation to glory.

( Christ’s death for me is the measure and pledge of the love of the Father and the Son to me.

(9) Christ’s death for me calls and constrains me to trust, to worship, to love and to serve.

J. I. Packer, The Tyndale Biblical Theology Lecture, 1973

Charity and forgiveness have limits

Paul teaches that God forgive his enemies for Christ’s sake. This is to say that God’s forgiveness of his enemies is grounded in Christ’s satisfaction for their guilt. It also implies that those enemies of God who reject Christ’s satisfaction are not forgiven by God.

The forgiveness required of us is to be after the pattern of God’s forgiveness. Now, how does God forgive his enemies? He forgives only upon condition of repentance and faith; not otherwise. And Christ, in teaching Peter, shows that our forgiveness is not required to go beyond God’s.

If thy brother “trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.” (Luke 17:4.) So what if the offender says, “I do not repent?” Christ answers (in another place), don’t seek revenge, but let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican.

So what relation do we stand to our trespassers in this forgiveness of injuries? We are simply fallible creatures, sinners toward God. By comparison, what relation does God stand to his trespassers? He is sovereign owner, infallible chief-justice and magistrate. That makes all the difference. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.”

The visiting of due retribution upon guilt is the exclusive prerogative of God. That’s because his sovereignty, his power, his purity, his infallible wisdom and justice qualify him for that task. Therefore, we who are disqualified are not to meddle with it. Moreover, it is fatuous to infer that because God says we are unfit — and therefore must not meddle with his prerogative — therefore he must not exercise it himself.

Even the poorest human magistrate sees this difference perfectly. Let’s suppose that a thief duly convicted should reason with him to set aside a just verdict in this way: “Your honor, you are a charitable Christian. Last year, when I and my family were in distress, your charity gave me relief. This verdict puts us in distress again. So the same charity should again release us.”

We presume the dullest judge would know to say: “Back then I was acting toward thee as a private person and neighbor. I took what was mine own to help your distress;. Now I sit in the judgment seat; I represent the delegated rights of the law, of eternal justice and of God. These things are not mine to give away as charity. I am sacredly sworn to uphold them. Would it be charity in me to commit theft and perjury to extend relief to you in this present distress, where you deserve none?”

–Modernized from chapter 5 of Dabney’s classic, Christ our Penal Substitute

Dead South Church

Boston’s Old South Church, once led by the great Puritan Samuel Willard, is now led by somebody named Nancy S. Taylor. They’re an “an open and affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ,” including “every race, ethnicity, creed, class, age, gender, marital status, physical or mental ability, and sexual identity.” It is a sad fact of of history that so many Calvinist landmarks are controlled by people who hate Calvinism.

Willard himself was a great guy. He defended covenant theology and helped stop the Salem witch-hunting craze. The Fire and Ice site has some of his sermons.

My Favorite Psalter

If my dream church came to pass, we’d all be chanting the Psalms out of the King James or the Geneva Bible. Sometimes I do it myself — alone, when nobody else can hear. I’d never heard of anyone actually pulling this off, so the metrical psalter is the next best thing. The standards seem to be the 1650 Psalms of David in Metre, the 1927 Dutch Reformed Psalter and the Book of Psalms for Singing. There’s also Isaac Watts’ controversial adaptation.

While I must clearly dissent from their “liberated” theology, the Canadian Reformed have a nice English-language version of the classic Genevan Psalter. It can be downloaded in PDF here. It remains my favorite, aesthetically. Also, a CRC Dooyeweerdian “Byzantine-Rite Calvinist” (Yikes!) named David T. Koyzis has his own versifications. I love the Psalter; I want my brothers to love it too.

Free Systematics Text: Biblical Dogmatics

In digging through Google Books, I found a classic Lutheran systematics text:Biblical Dogmatics by Andrew George Voigt. I’ve found a lot of good Reformed stuff as well, especially 19th. Century Puritan reprints, histories and Free Church of Scotland texts. I’ll be pointing some of them out as time goes by.

Tribute

The Solemn League and Covenant
Cost Scotland blood-cost Scotland tears;
But it seal’d Freedom’s sacred cause-
If thou’rt slave, indulge thy sneers.

Robert Burns