Selected Reading, April 4, 2020

Here are a few pieces I found interesting this week. I tried to find several links not directly related to the Covid-19 crisis (although one is, kind of) because I think we are in this for the long haul, and thinking about other things is good for the soul.

Theology

Only the Impassible God Can Help Us Now
I am so tired of reading things about how God suffers with us, as if that is supposed to help us get through hard times. It won’t. For one, it won’t help because it’s not true. God in himself cannot suffer.

And for two, a God (god?) who suffers is exactly what we don’t need. We need a God who cannot be overcome with emotion to be in charge of our universe. We need a God who is steady and unchanging to be our rock in a weary land. 

Yes, God the Son took on human flesh, so Jesus, the incarnate Son, suffered. He suffered when he was tempted. He wept when Lazarus died. He was anguished in Gethsemene. He was in pain on the cross. He experienced death. So he sympathizes with our human weakness, and this is important. It means he is willing and able to help us. It makes him a perfect person to advocate for us. 

But God in himself does not suffer, and this is a good thing. We need a God we can trust. We need an anchor to hold us fast.

Anyway, enough from me. Read the article by Wyatt Graham. It explains more.

Philosophy

Predestination and Human Actions
Why Calvinism isn’t fatalism, and why it matters (James Anderson). 

Bible

Hermeneutics
What does it mean to “rightly handle the word of truth”? (Simply Put podcast)

Other Religions

Is It Possible Some Mormons Are Saved?
I appreciate Amy Hall’s clear thinking in this piece.

Christian History

John Donne - Poet of Grace and Comfort
Another biographical sketch by Simonetta Carr: “[John] Donne has often been described as a poet of death. To some people, especially in a culture where thoughts of death are often shunned, he seemed obsessed with it. In reality, death and pain were a constant reality in his life, but he didn’t stop there.”

Theological Term of the Week: Threefold Division of the Law

You’ll find different views about whether there is a clear threefold division in the law in the quotes and links included. 

threefold division of the law
The division of the Mosaic law into three categories: the moral law, the ceremonial law, and the civil (or judicial) law. Also called the tripartite division of the law.

• From the Second Helvetic Confession, Chapter XII, The Law of God:

  For the sake of clarity we distinguish the moral law which is contained in the Decalogue or two Tables and expounded in the books of Moses, the ceremonial law which determines the ceremonies and worship of God, and the judicial law which is concerned with political and domestic matters.

• From the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 19, Of the Law of God:

II. This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables: the first four commandments containing our duty towards God; and the other six, our duty to man.  III. Besides this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly, holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the New Testament.  IV. To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging under any now, further than the general equity thereof may require.

• From 40 Questions about Christians and Biblical Law by Tom Schreiner: 

The distinction between the moral, ceremonial, and civil law is appealing and attractive. Even though it has some elements of truth, it does not sufficiently capture Paul’s stance toward the law. …Paul argues that the entirety of the law has been set aside now that Christ has come. To say that the “moral” elements of the law continue to be authoritative blunts the truth that the entire Mosaic covenant is no longer in force for believers. Indeed, it is quite difficult to distinguish between what is “moral” and “ceremonial” in the law. For instance, the law forbidding the taking of interest is clearly a moral mandate (Exod. 22:25), but this law was addressed to Israel as an agricultural society in the ancient Near East. As with the rest of the laws in the Mosaic covenant, it is abolished now that Christ has come. This is not to say that this law has nothing to say to the church of Jesus Christ today. …[I]t still has “a revelatory and pedagogical function.”

…Still, the distinction has some usefulness, for some of the commands of the law are carried directly over to the New Testament by Paul and applied to the lives of believers. It seems appropriate to designate such commands as moral norms. For instance, the injunction to honor fathers and mothers still spplies to believers (Eph. 6:2). Paul teaches that love fulfills the law (Rom. 13:8-10), but he clarifies that those who love will not commit adultery, murder, steal, or covet (cf. Rom. 2:21-22; 7:7-8). Those who live according to the Spirit fulfill the requirement of the law (Rom. 8:4). The prohibition against idolatry still stands, though Paul does not cite the Old Testament law in support (1 Cor. 5:10-11; 6:9; 10:7, 14; 2 Cor 6:16; Gal 5:20; Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5). Other commands and prohibitions that reflect the Ten Commandments are found in Paul.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What is the difference between the ceremonial law, the moral law, and the judicial law in the Old Testament?
2. Jonathan F. Bayes: The threefold division of the law (pdf)
3. Richard Barcellos: The Biblical and Theological Basis for the Threefold Division of the Law
4. Richard Alderson: Law - Civil, Ceremonial, Moral
5. Justin Taylor quoting D. A. Carson: On the Tripartite Division of the Law
6. Mike Riccardi: Schreiner, the Threefold Division, and the Law of God

Related terms: 

• antinomianism
• covenant
• legalism
• Pentateuch

Filed under God’s Nature and His Work

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16 Truths You Should Know: God Has Spoken

This the first in a series of posts on foundational Christian truths. This series was originally posted at Out of the Ordinary. I plan to revise the series and post it here over the next few months.

The best way to truly know someone is to get them to tell you about themselves. As you learn what they think, what they love, what they hate, what they are doing, and what they plan to do, you understand them better. Their honest self-disclosure reveals who they are. 

This principle applies to God, too, only more so. The only way to know God is through what he discloses about himself. It’s possible for us to pry into another person’s life and find secrets they would rather keep hidden, but we can’t do this with God. “What can be known about God,” Romans 1:19 tells us, is known “because [he] has shown it.” And anything beyond what he chooses to reveal remains his secret forever (Deut. 29:29). We are entirely dependent, then, on his self-revelation to know anything about him. We can only know God because he speaks to us, and we can only know as much as he tells us. 

General Revelation — Impossible to Miss

God speaks, first, through the universe he created. Creation announces that God exists, and it also tells something of what he is like. God created the world; he cares for it; he directs its history—and these acts teach us about him. The sky, Psalm 19 says, declares God’s glory and power, and all the earth hears it. And when God sends rain and sunshine to grow crops, he is revealing his existence and goodness by providing the food we all eat (Acts 14:17). These acts of God are called general revelation because everyone can see them. They send a message around the world, proclaiming everywhere that there is one God and everyone should worship him.

General revelation also includes what God reveals about himself through each person’s inborn sense of right and wrong. “The law written on [our] hearts” (Rom. 2:14–15) is a reflection of God’s own character. Our consciences, then, gives us knowledge of God’s holy nature, and also knowledge of our obligations to him.

But God’s general revelation isn’t enough for us because as fallen people, we rebel against it. We do our best to stifle this message. What creation tells us about God may be impossible to miss, but that doesn’t keep us from trying to convince ourselves we can’t see it.

What’s more, in our moments of clarity, when we can’t continue to ignore the message of general revelation, we see that we have duty to obey God—and we know we haven’t. General revelation can show us our problem, but it can’t tell us the solution to it. It can (and does) condemn us, but it can’t tell us how to excape our condemnation. It can’t unlock the secret of God’s forgiveness.

Special Revelation — Sufficient to Save

To know God’s forgiveness, we need his own words. We need his special revelation, which is found in the Bible. The authors of the Bible were moved by God’s Spirit to write what they did (2 Pet. 1:21). The process is mysterious, but the bottom line is that when they wrote, they spoke from God. They explained again the truth we should already know from general revelation, and they added more. They revealed God’s entire message to us.

The centerpiece of special revelation—the focus of all of scripture—is the unfolding story of God’s work to deliver people from condemnation. Scripture is the story of Jesus Christ, who came from God as the Old Testament promised, and gave himself to free us from condemnation as the New Testament explains. The Bible teaches us that because Christ died for sins, God can offer forgiveness to disobedient people. Knowing God’s story as explained in scripture will “make [us] wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15). 

Son Revelation — The Story of Scripture

It is Jesus Christ himself who is God’s final revelation. “In these last days,” says Hebrews 1:2, “God has spoken to us by his Son.” Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son, shows us God in a form we can see—or at least in a form those who were with him during his life on earth could see, and in a form those who live afterwards, like we do, can see described in the New Testament.

God’s special revelation in scripture and his ultimate revelation in the Son are entwined. They can’t be separated. The Old Testament sets the stage for the revelation of the Son, and the New Testament is a record and explanation of him. The Son through whom God fully and finally speaks can only be known as God reveals him to us in scripture.

God’s Revelation—Source of Truth

Since we could know nothing about God, his works, or ourselves in relation to him unless he disclosed it to us, God’s own revelation must be the source of all theology. That God has spoken is the first truth in this series of truths you should know because it is foundational to all the rest. 

Do you want to know God? Look to his revelation of himself in creation, in scripture, and in Jesus Christ. The God who speaks has spoken to us, telling us what we need to know about him, and what we need to know about ourselves, too.