The Upper Register Blog

Archive for August, 2007

Kline on Zionism

Friday, August 31st, 2007

The language isn’t diplomatic, but it’s hard to disagree:

What Zionist ideology projects is a grotesque parody of the kingdom of God – a land without the temple, an earthly fullness without a heavenly focus. From the beginning it was not so. And if it be that a temple building is included in the plans of these modern architects of the kingdom, while they yet spurn the claims of Jesus, the promised seed of Abraham, the Christ of God, what is this but another Babel-tower, another titanic attempt to erect the cosmic focus by autonomous human effort, another repudiation of the grace of God and his redemptive provision of the true holy temple-city from heaven? Such a pseudo-temple the man of sin might occupy but the Son of Man, himself the true temple, would ultimately destroy it. Any response from the Christian community, dispensational or other, that does not challenge the Zionists’ appeal to God’s covenant with Abraham to justify the present Israeli occupation of Palestine represents a tragic failure to confront them with fallen man’s absolute lack, in himself, of claim on God’s covenanted kingdom and with the sinner’s desperate need to find restoration to God’s favor through Jesus Christ. To show sympathy to the Zionist in his defiant claim is to hide from him the gospel of God’s love and to encourage him on his unbelieving way to perdition apart from Christ, the sinner’s only hope.

Meredith Kline, Kingdom Prologue (Wipf and Stock, 2006), p. 347.

I would want to balance the above by pointing to the common grace side of the equation: the current state of Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself against its enemies. Kline’s concern is with the Zionist ideology that many Israelis and dispensationalist evangelicals hold which defends Israel’s right to the land on theological rather than secular grounds (the United Nations ca. 1948).

Posted in Zionism | 3 Comments »

Palestinian Christians

Wednesday, August 29th, 2007

In my first post I made an off-hand remark about the PC(USA) being more interested in the Palestinian cause than in the cause of Christ. In response, I received an email from an Arab-American Christian expressing her concerns about the way I worded my remarks. I’m not sure about the details but it sounds like her parents lost their house to Israel in 1967. She was a little upset that my language could be perceived as implying that the Palestinian cause is opposed to the cause of Christ, or that all who honor the cause of Christ should support Israel.

She also expressed concern that I might not understand the plight of Palestinian Christians. She wrote:

The Christians of Palestine are between two fires. Their population has dwindled due to the oppressive military regime (I tried going there last month when visiting Israel/Palestine and was not permitted to enter by the Israeli gov’t. I went to see my dying grandmother for the last time [and numerous relatives], I came from the other side of the world, was 30 minutes away from her home and yet was turned away even though I applied 10 days before hand for permission, was assured permission, etc. and only to be denied at the gates) and the occasional instance of persecution by Muslims (my own family has had two homes burnt “because they are Christians”).

I post this as a reminder of the plight of the Palestinian Christians whose voice is rarely heard in these discussions. It’s important to remember that these believers are indeed suffering for the cause of Christ as they confess their faith in a hostile environment, often at great personal cost - far more than Christians in the affluent west.

As for my original post, I was concerned more with what seem to me to be the misplaced priorities of the PC(USA). At their General Assemblies for the past few years they have spent a good deal of time on the issue of divestment and making a political statement against the state of Israel. Not that I necessarily oppose divestment itself as a form of political protest on the part of individuals, or that I think Israel must never be criticized. My point is more narrow. Because of my view of the spirituality of the church, I don’t think the church as the church ought to be making such political statements.

For what it’s worth, I think I agree with the substance of the recent letter by prominent evangelicals to President Bush on this question.

See also Richard Mouw’s observations on the letter, which he joined in signing. Note his interesting comments near the end about the Palestinian Christians.

Posted in Palestine, Israel | 2 Comments »

Ph.D. comps

Monday, August 27th, 2007

This morning I started my comprehensive exams. It’s the mid-way point of my Ph.D. studies before moving on to the dissertation phase. There are four exams and each exam is three hours long.

Mon - NT Theology
Tue - NT Methods
Wed - NT Introduction
Thu - History of NT Scholarship

For this morning’s exam I wrote on Jesus and Paul, the theology of Matthew, Paul’s doctrine of justification, and the Christology and soteriology of Hebrews. I think I did okay, since I was prepared for each of these subjects, but you never know. The hard part is having only three hours to write four essays. Of course, I was only able to type 3-4 pages each (double-spaced).

Posted in Ph.D., New Testament | 3 Comments »

Why faith alone justifies

Sunday, August 26th, 2007

What is it about faith that makes it the sole instrument by which sinners are reckoned as righteous in God’s sight? Paul exhorts us to many other virtues – love, humility, kindness, etc. — but he never ascribes soteriological efficacy to any of them. It is only “by faith” (ek pisteos) that we are justified. John Murray explains why:

The differentiating quality of faith is that the nature and function of faith is to rest completely upon another. It is this resting, confiding, entrusting quality of faith that makes it appropriate to and indeed exhibitive of the nature of justification. It is consonant with its source as the free grace of God, with its nature as a forensic act, and with its ground as the righteousness of Christ. Faith terminates upon Christ and his righteousness and it makes mention of his righteousness and of his only. This is the Saviour’s specific identity in the matter of justification—he is the Lord our righteousness. And in resting upon him alone for salvation it is faith that perfectly dovetails justification in him and his righteousness. Other graces or fruits of the Spirit have their own specific functions in the application of redemption, but only faith has as its specific quality the receiving and resting of self-abandonment and totality of self-commitment. This is both the stumbling-block and the irresistible appeal of the gospel. It is the stumbling-block to self-righteousness and self-righteousness is the arch-demon of antithesis to grace. It is the glory of the gospel for the contrite and brokenhearted—if we put any other exercise of the human spirit in the place of faith, then we cut the throat of the only confidence a sinner conscious of his lost and helpless condition can entertain. Justification by faith is the jubilee trumpet of the gospel because it proclaims the gospel to the poor and destitute whose only door of hope is to roll themselves in total helplessness upon the grace and power and righteousness of the Redeemer of the lost. In the words of one, “cast out your anchor into the ocean of the Redeemer’s merits.” Faith is always joined with repentance, love, and hope. A faith severed from these is not the faith of the contrite and therefore it is not the faith that justifies. But it is faith alone that justifies because its specific quality is to find our all in Christ and his righteousness.

John Murray, Collected Writings, vol. 2, pp. 216-17.

Posted in Sola Fide, Justification | 6 Comments »

The Fallacy of Extended Genius

Friday, August 24th, 2007

Has this ever happened to you? You fall in love with a particular song you heard on the radio, so you buy the whole album. Naturally the album whets your appetite for more, so you buy all the other albums by the same band.

Some people don’t stop there and believe that the band’s genius extends to other areas as well. If the lead singer is in favor of canceling third world debt, they adopt the same political views. If she’s into Kabbalah, before you know it, her fans are sporting red strings on their wrists.

This phenomenon doesn’t only apply to the MTV generation. It applies equally in the theological arena. We like Machen, so we invest his views on mountain climbing with theological significance. We like Vos’s biblical theology, so we start collecting his poetry.

These examples are relatively harmless, but what if we move closer to home? We think TULIP is right, so we’re eager to believe that the architects of TULIP had an inside track on everything else as well. Many Calvinists of yore practiced exclusive Psalm singing, used the King James Version, observed the Sabbath, and believed that the civil magistrate had a duty to enforce Christianity in society. But there’s no logical connection between the doctrine of predestination and the Textus Receptus, or between limited atonement and theocracy.

I call this “the fallacy of extended genius.” We recognize genius in one area and assume it extends to all other areas. We want to believe that our theological heroes had uncanny powers of perception and analysis that gave them superior wisdom regarding every other topic on which they happened to express an opinion. The truth is, it is rarely so. In the days before i-tunes, how often were you forced to buy an entire CD for one great song? The single was brilliant, but some of the other songs on the album … not so much.

If we really believe in sola Scriptura, we will use the Reformed tradition critically (1 Thess 5:21). We honor our Reformed forebears, not by being antiquarian collectors of their outdated vinyl records, but by selecting the tracks that harmonize best with Scripture. After all, that is what they would have wanted.

Posted in Reformed, Tradition, Sola Scriptura | 3 Comments »

Mork on the Decalogue

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

One of the key insights of Meredith Kline is that the Decalogue is part of the Mosaic Covenant. This is something that should have been obvious, but it was somehow missed by the Westminster divines (WCF 19). The Decalogue was given in the literary form of a treaty or covenant, complete with preamble, historical prologue, stipulations, sanctions, witnesses, and documentary clause. The fact that there are two copies of the covenant, and that both are deposited in the Ark of the Covenant, proves that it is part of the Mosaic Covenant.

The language is telling: ”In accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you” (Exod 34:27), “and [Moses] wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten words” (Exod 34:28). Later, Moses recounts: ”He declared to you his covenant … that is, the ten words” (Deut 4:13; cp. 9:9). Far from being eternal moral law binding on all men in all ages, the Decalogue lies at the heart of the specific covenant that God made with his chosen people Israel at Mt. Sinai.

In his taped 1996 lectures at Westminster (Philadelphia), T. David Gordon provided a humorous perspective on this point:

If it weren’t for the Western tradition of Christendom, if we stepped out of that, if we were Mork and had just arrived on earth without any knowledge of religious traditions on this little sphere, and we looked at the actual record of Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, just read them, I don’t think we’d miss what they are. I think we’d say, “Look! God’s making a covenant.” And then someone would nudge Mork and say, “Yeah, but there’s a whole group of people that call themselves covenant theologians, and they’ve been missing this for years! How’s that for an irony! Go figure!”

(Tape # 3 of “Paul’s Understanding of the Law,” Westminster Media, 1996).

Na-nu Na-nu!

Posted in Decalogue, Covenant Theology | 6 Comments »

Infinite Grace!

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

It has been in the news lately that Comrade Duch’s trial is about to begin. This is an incredible story.

This man was responsible for the brutal deaths of 12,000 Cambodians during the reign of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. In 1995, he was transformed by the gospel and gave his life to Jesus Christ. Imagine the feelings of the Cambodian Christians who now embrace him as a brother. Perhaps this might give us some idea of what Gal 1:23-24 means. I’m reminded of the hymn:

Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,
Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!
Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured,
There where the blood of the Lamb was spilled.

Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, infinite grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin.

I don’t know if “infinite grace” in the refrain is original. All the online versions that I could find repeat the first line, “Grace, grace, God’s grace.” But in the version I sang growing up, we said “infinite grace” the second time. It’s certainly in keeping with the last stanza: “Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, freely bestowed on all who believe.”

No man is too wicked to be saved. No sin is too much for Christ’s blood.

Image courtesy http://www.yale.edu/cgp/duch_v3.html

Posted in Grace, Khmer Rouge, Cambodia | 2 Comments »

Unicorn Museum

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

You’ve probably heard of the Creation Museum. Click on that link first. Now, check out this great parody site: Unicorn Museum. Prepare to believe!

HT: Andrew Sullivan and Chrisendom

Posted in Creation, Science | 3 Comments »

Welcome to my blog

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

Okay, here goes with the whole blogging thing. I just realized that my web hosting company offers WordPress as part of its package. It only took me literally one minute to start this blog. Plus I was able to make it part of my existing UR website by just adding ”/blog” at the end: www.upper-register.com/blog.

Unlike many blogs, I don’t have a specific topic or agenda in mind. I plan to blog on whatever I’m interested in, i.e., NT scholarship, biblical theology, Law-Gospel issues, justification, and theology in general. I’ll also use this space to mention any new papers that I may add to my main site from time to time.

I’m not planning to limit myself to theology, though. I may make forays into culture, politics, the ecclesiastical scene, YouTube, and what not. As you can see by my blog roll, my tastes are somewhat eclectic. I’m a curious person by nature, and I don’t like being locked into pre-fabricated boxes. I love exploring things that - to some of my readers - might be viewed as pushing the envelope a tad. But don’t worry, I’ll never let go of the gospel!

Let me explain. I have no interest whatsoever in Protestant liberal theology of the type that is exemplified by the Louisville leadership of the PC(USA). The bland, tolerant-of-everything-except-intolerance sort of liberalism that displaces the authority of Scripture with human experience, creates a feminized, gender-neutral God who has no cojones. In my view, the PC(USA) seems to be more a lefty political organization more interested in the Palestinian cause than in the cause of Christ. Of course, there are many good evangelicals still in the PC(USA), but ultimately this sort of theology is destructive of the gospel that I love so dearly.

But — and you knew this was coming! — I like to explore outside of the traditional boundaries of my conservative Reformed circle into areas that may have the appearance of being liberal, or at least not the traditional, staid, conservative Reformed, inerrantist position. As many of my readers know, I’m a Ph.D. student at Fuller Theological Seminary, so that right there puts me in a place where I’m constantly exposed to the world outside of NAPARC. It has been great to study with scholars like Donald Hagner, who is ordained in the PC(USA), but who is not a liberal as described above. He studied under George Eldon Ladd and did his Ph.D. under F. F. Bruce in the late 60s. He has rather conservative views about the authenticity of the sayings of Jesus, following in the tradition of Birger Gerhardsson.

Or to take another example, I like to read Scot McKnight’s blog. Yes, I know he’s part of the whole emerging thing (which I’m not too keen on), and he has some problematic ideas regarding the atonement. But it is good to keep up with what’s going on in the emerging movement. And you won’t find a better, more gracious, thoughtful spokesperson for that movement (or “conversation” as they like to say). I don’t read his blog to help me figure out my theology. I’ve already got a pretty good handle on what I believe. I read Scot to get a different perspective, to be provoked into thinking about things from a new angle, to be forced to think outside of my box. He’s also a pretty important evangelical NT scholar.

So, anyway, I hope that gives you an idea of where I’m heading with this blog. If you plan to be one of my readers, send me a quick email and say Hi.

Oh, one more thing. I’ve decided not to permit comments on this blog. Sorry, zrim.

Posted in Welcome | 3 Comments »