Green Baggins

CRPR stands for “Committee on the Review of Presbytery Records.” Some people have been asking what exactly happened with the Northern California Presbytery. I gave a minority report on the floor of General Assembly on this particular Presbytery. The situation is this: a certain teaching elder was transferring from another Presbytery into the Northern California Presbytery. In his stated exceptions he took exception to the WLC 156, which states that not all are to be permitted to read the Scriptures in worship. In his exception he stated that women are permitted to do anything in worship that a non-ordained man may do. Now, there are quite a few PCA pastors who hold to this position, although it is not clear to me how thoroughly they have researched their views, nor is it clear to me that they have thought through the implications of their views. The Presbytery ruled that this was an exception, but that it was an exception that did not strike at the vitals of religion. The first and second readers of the minutes of this Presbytery listed this ruling as an exception of substance to the BCO (this kind of exception is not the same thing as the exception that the Teaching Elder took: an exception to the BCO may be an error of form in the minutes, or an error of substance, whereas the kind of exception the TE took was a doctrinal difference with the Standards). The majority of the CRPR committee voted to strike this exception (in other words, they agreed with the ruling of the Presbytery). A minority (the vote was about 18-15) decided to write a minority report dissenting from the decision of the majority, and desiring to list this as an exception of substance in CRPR’s reply to the minutes of the Northern California Presbytery. Now, I was the one who wrote the report. It was my first time doing so, and therefore the arguments were not crisp and clear enough to present the case adequately. Furthermore, the actual motion was not clear (and the minority report was not handed out to everyone, by some fluke of the floor clerks). The motion would have failed, had not TE David Coffin saved it by moving to refer this matter to next year’s CRPR. So, the issue is not over. The minority report did not fail or succeed. It was deferred. That is where matters now stand. What this has impressed upon me is the extreme importance of the CRPR. In fact, I will venture to state that the CRPR and the Standing Judicial Commission are the only two places left in the PCA where church discipline happens on the national level. Most of CRPR’s work is blessedly boring. However, there are matters such as this which can have enormous repercussions.

Okay, that’s a hokey name for a post, but it fits. I’ve been gone to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America all last week. Met many new people, and renewed many old friendships. It was a great time, although I missed the family terribly (and vice versa, they tell me). Anyway, I thought I’d give a few indications of what is coming up in the coming weeks. I have the next installment of Gary Johnson’s review of Muether’s biography of Van Til, a summary of an article that Lane Tipton and Jeff Jue wrote just recently in reply to several critiques of what Westminster Seminary has done with Enns (actually, it is a direct critique of part of Enns’s book), the start of some exegetical studies on paedo-communion, continuation of the debate with Doug Wilson, and a few more sermons, not to mention book reviews, when I get squeeze them in. That ought to keep me busy for quite awhile!

I don’t recognize myself very much in this post. Something got garbled. It could have been me, or it could have been on Doug’s side. I make no immediate judgment. But at the moment, there is a clear mud of communication. At any rate, the arguments I was putting forward (or thought I was putting forward) bear very little resemblance to the arguments that Doug was cheerfully demolishing. I am very careful of making this claim, because I do not wish to sound like FV’ers in this regard. Furthermore, I cheerfully acknowledge the possibility (nay, even probability) that I am not always communicating clearly.

Lane took me as objecting to grammatical and dogmatic parsing generally, when I was only objecting to it as a means of solving non-existent problems.

This is not what I was doing. This sentence (”These texts cannot be properly understood with that sort of analysis”) qualifies this sentence: “What is puzzling about it is that grammatical and dogmatic parsing, as Doug puts it, is not allowed, in Doug’s thinking.” Emphasis added. So, I was not accusing Doug of rejecting exegesis altogether (which would be a rather stupid accusation). What I was saying was that Doug seemed to be objecting to my using exegesis as a way of solving this particular problem with these particular verses. the point is that if the verses do not mention or talk about justification, then what right have we to use such passages to speak about the inception of faith, when it much more likely refers to the process of the Christian life? Unless Doug wants to say that justification and sanctification are not actually distinct, which is surely something he does not want to do. That is, if he still wants his king left on the board. How else are we supposed to solve what looks like a problem with our theology, if not with exegesis and detailed parsing? If the exegesis leaves no choice but to change our theology, that’s fine. But we all have presuppositions, and we all have doctrinal undergirdings of our exegesis.

Second misunderstanding: Doug seems to think that my position entails a temporary distinction in time between justification and sanctification. At least, that is what the analogy of the bride and groom’s love starting only ten days after the wedding. I believe that justification and sanctification are simultaneously given in union with Christ. Therefore, they are inseperable, yet distinct. Josh Walker (Johnny_Redeemed on Doug’s website) made the all-important point that faith is not related to the category of obedience when it comes to justification. Doug objects that the Bible commands people to have faith. But this is the whole point under dispute. Doug simply states his conclusion as a way to answer the argument. If he wants actually to engage my exegesis, then we will get somewhere, I am confident.

Now, the passage from Mark 1:15 is to the point. What I believe we should avoid most assiduously is saying that obedience (even such a straight-jacketed obedience as Doug describes) has instrumentality in justification. In Mark 1:15, the point is that it is a turning from sin. This belongs to santification (which occurs, remember, at the same time as justification, at least, in its inception). So, the call to the obedience of faith has reference to sanctification, which is properly the realm of repentance and turning, since justification is completely passive.

Third miscommunication:

“No implication, therefore, is made of whether coming to faith itself is an act of obedience.” That means that believing in Jesus must be disobedient. And all God’s people said, “Jeepers.”

There is no indication here that Doug understands that I was talking about a specific passage here (2 Thessalonians 1). This is indicated by the “therefore” which concludes the exegesis of the whole paragraph. Furthermore, Josh’s comments are applicable. Because I do not say that faith is an act of obedience does not in the least imply that I am advocated that faith is an act of disobedience. So, as I said, there is miscommunication somewhere. At the moment, it feels more like the miscommunication is on Doug’s end. But I am open to persuasion on this point.

Doug has responded to my post on Thessalonians here. What is puzzling about it is that grammatical and dogmatic parsing, as Doug puts it, is not allowed, in Doug’s thinking. These texts cannot be properly understood with that sort of analysis. I beg to differ. Of course, it is not as if that is the only sort of work that must be done to understand properly such passages. However, it is necessary. Or would Doug say that the voice of “conformed” and “transformed” in Romans 12:2 is irrelevant to understanding that passage? Or what about the text critical problem in Romans 5:1 that pits the indicative against the subjunctive? Is that irrelevant to understanding the meaning of Romans 5:1? Similarly, grammatical and dogmatic parsing is a long-honored part of Reformation interpretation of Scripture. What is ironic about all this, of course, is that the Federal Vision is claiming to be more biblical than its critics, and yet when challenged on the exegetical level, hardly even deals with the original languages at all. So, let’s look at the passages in some detail here.

First up, another pass at 2 Thessalonians 1. First of all, the context is one of suffering from the persecution of those who are outside the faith. That much, at least, is quite evident. Secondly, Paul uses the phrase “This is evidence” (ἔνδειγμα) of the righteous judgment. Suffering, therefore, is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, since God and the world are at loggerheads. The contrast is not between a moment of time wherein the Christians come to faith but the unbelievers do not. The contrast is between the life lived under persecution as opposed to those who are doing the affliction. Paul’s point, then, is that there will be vengeance, and that we should patiently endure, because the vengeance is coming. This contextualizes the phrase “obey the Gospel” (ὑπακούουσιν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ) as something having to do with the entire life, not primarily the entrance into eternal life. The sanctification, therefore, of the believer is in the forefront, where obedience makes the most sense. “Obedience” is therefore synecdochic for the entire Christian life. No implication, therefore, is made of whether coming to faith itself is an act of obedience.

With regard to Romans 6:17, the context helps us to understand that if any act of inception is in view, it is the inception of holiness in sanctification. Verse 15 should prove that quite well: Τί οὖν; ἁμαρτήσωμεν ὅτι οὐκ ἐσμὲν ὑπὸ νόμον ἀλλὰ ὑπὸ χάριν; μὴ γένοιτο. The very next verses prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt, since Paul is talking about the principle of obedience as compared to slavery. Are we slaves of sin or of righteousness? What principle rules in us? Obviously, then, Paul is talking about sanctification, not about justification. Sanctification is part of the Gospel, too, and therefore Paul is talking about definitive and progressive sanctification in this passage. He is not talking about justification. He is not saying here that coming to faith is an act of obedience.

In Romans 1:5, Paul is not talking about Christians in general, but about the apostles: ἐλάβομεν χάριν καὶ ἀποστολὴν. This phrase then leads to a purpose clause with the preposition εἰς. This leads inevitably to the conclusion that the grace and the apostleship is received first in order that the obedience of faith might follow. In other words, the obedience of faith here is not the act of closing with Christ, but rather obedience to the commands of God, which the apostles are to follow in faith, because it is God who works in them both to will and to do. Nothing here about faith being an act of obedience. Doug’s interpretation requires the genitive there to be a genitive of apposition: obedience, that is, faith. But even there, the construction does not require that faith be described as the inception of faith. The accent is most definitely on the continuing nature of faith as it springs from grace and apostleship received from the Lord.

The context of 1 Peter 4:17 is really the same kind of thing that we saw in Thessalonians. The contrast between those who suffer for doing right, and those inflicting the suffering makes the obedience of the Gospel to consist in the continual obedience to the Word of salvation. This is evident from the paraphrase of Proverbs 11:31 that immediately follows, wherein the righteous and the ungodly are contrasted.          

Pete Enns has started to release a sort of summary, or “series of distillations” of his 38 page response. This first installment’s main point seems to be that Pete Enns holds to the authority of Scripture, and that the authority of Scripture was not really the main point of his book (though he affirms the authority of Scripture in that post). He says that the humanity of Scripture was his main point, affirmed in the face of what he believes is a practical downplaying or denial of Scripture’s humanity. It seems to me that the main point of criticism about Pete Enns’s book is his Christology. Pete says this:

Where some have stumbled, I feel, is in thinking that an emphasis on Scripture’s humanity seems to represent an irrevocable “methodological” failure to give due weight to Scripture’s divinity, indeed to the supremacy of the divine element of Scripture. As some have asserted, the book is to be faulted for failing to recognize that Scripture, like Jesus himself, is “essentially” divine while only “contingently” human (see the “HTFC Response” on the WTS website).

Frankly, I am bit perplexed, even concerned (theologically), about this criticism. If we understand the word “essential” to mean “a property without which something ceases being what it is,” Christ ceases being who he is if either element is subordinated. It is essential that Jesus of Nazareth, our Savior, be both divine and human. So, too, Scripture is not simply “contingently human”(precisely what that means is not clear to me at any rate) but essentially so, i.e., there is no Scripture apart from the human—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—words that the Spirit inspired biblical writers to write. To put it another way, we are not required to consider how to place one over the other, but to accept that they co-exist (if I may speak this way for sake of discussion) by God’s wise and gracious decree.

An author certainly cannot say everything in a book. And to emphasize one aspect of truth without denying another aspect of truth can certainly be done. But that is not really what I would like to know. What I would like to know is this: would Pete affirm that the human nature which Christ assumed only exists in hypostatic union with the divine? This is what I think the field committee meant by saying “contingently human.” See Lane Tipton’s excellent discussion of Chalcedonian orthodoxy in the previous post. In other words, there was not some human out there that the Second Person of the Trinity joined to Himself. We say that Christ is fully divine. But the humanity of Christ does not exist in and of itself, nor can it be abstracted from Christ’s divinity. It only exists in hypostatic union with the divine. There is only one person. This is why the statement “Christ ceases being who He is if either element is subordinated” makes me uncomfortable. Why should subordination of the human to the divine be an attack on the full humanity of Christ? If a wife is subordinated to her husband, does that make her less human? Of course, that analogy can go only a very little ways toward solving the problem. But subordination of humanity does not imply denial of humanity. Which has more fundamental importance: the fact that Scripture is divine, or the fact that Scripture is human? Both are true. But lots of OTHER writings out there are human (this is disgustingly to understate the truth). What distinguishes Scripture from other writings? That it is divine.

What I thought when I read I&I was that Pete was fighting the wrong battle. I know of no major theologians today who deny the full humanity of Scripture or Christ. I know of hardly any Christians out there who will say that Paul sounds just like Moses. I know of very few Christians who will deny the importance of studying history and literary genre (and even Second-Temple Judaism!) in order to understand some of the more obscure texts of Scripture (another question for Pete: would he acknowledge that there are parts of Scripture requiring absolutely NO study of any outside sources to understand? In other words, would he affirm that, for salvation, all that is needed is the Holy Spirit working in the Word?) I only know of the vast majority of people out there who believe that the Bible is not inspired, not inerrant, and not divine in origin. To many critics, I think what they are feeling is that Scripture is starting to come under attack again (even though, in another sense, it is always under attack), and instead of helping to blast liberalism and post-modernism’s denial of Scripture’s divinity, Pete has turned his guns on Christians who are gung-ho about defending the divinity of Scripture. I am seeking for light here, not heat. As I have said before, I respect Pete Enns, and consider myself a friend, and have learned a lot from him. I hope that he still considers me one.   

My good friend Lane Tipton (professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia) has written a very fine piece on Incarnational Christology. If you read footnote 4 carefully, you will find some counterpoint to Bruce McCormack’s attack on the Field Committee Report at WTS.

I would like to reiterate my proposal of before: let’s get our exegetical hands dirty in Paul. Where does Paul speak of obeying the Gospel? I have found one instance of this form of expression: 2 Thessalonians 1:5-8, which reads as follows:

English: This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

Greek: ἔνδειγμα τῆς δικαίας κρίσεως τοῦ θεοῦ, εἰς τὸ καταξιωθῆναι ὑμᾶς τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ, ὑπὲρ ἧς καὶ πάσχετε, εἴπερ δίκαιον παρὰ θεῷ ἀνταποδοῦναι τοῖς θλίβουσιν ὑμᾶς θλῖψιν καὶ ὑμῖν τοῖς θλιβομένοις ἄνεσιν μεθ’ ἡμῶν ἐν τῇ ἀποκαλύψει τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ ἀπ’ οὐρανοῦ μετ’ ἀγγέλων δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ ἐν πυρὶ φλογός, διδόντος ἐκδίκησιν τοῖς μὴ εἰδόσιν θεὸν καὶ τοῖς μὴ ὑπακούουσιν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ,

The key phrase is ὑπακούουσιν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ. Nowhere in the context is there least mention of justification, or how to become right with God. The passage is talking about those who persecute Christians, and how they do not obey the Gospel. So, there is no bifurcation of obedience and works possible in the theology of justification in Paul, since all works are excluded from justification, including Spirit-wrought works of obedience. Besides this, Paul’s reference is to the entire Christian life and walk, not to that specific point of justification that occurs at the outset of the Christian life. This is evident by the contrast between those who continue to persecute those who live the Christian life. It is the ongoing nature of each opposite pathway, which is in Paul’s mind here. Let me ask this question, are all works excluded from justification, or are only some works excluded?   

All of you Green Baggins fans out there may remember the series of posts Lane did critiquing Leithart’s Federal Vision article some months back. At the heart of Lane’s critique was the accusation that Leithart was committing a sort of illegitimate totality transfer fallacy (a fallacy that those who have read Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies will recognize). In short, Leithart was trying to widen the dogmatic category of justification to include non-forensic and transformative realities based on biblical texts that use justification language in a broader sense.

Refreshingly, I found this critique echoed remarkably closely by an article in the current (Spring 2008 ) issue of the Westminster Theological Journal. It was written by two Wheaton College professors that I have not heard of before, R. Michael Allen and Daniel Treier. In Dogmatic Theology and Biblical Perspectives On Justification: A Reply to Leithart, the authors demonstrate that Leithart’s “argument fails to move clearly beyond the strictly semantic to a fully analytical domain of dogmatic theology. Leithart’s dogmatic case flounders insofar as he fails to distinguish between scriptural language and theological terminology.”

The authors discuss what Lane has termed a form of “word-concept fallacy”, confusing biblical words and theological concepts, a distinction they strangely (to my ear) refer to as “concepts” and “judgments” respectively. They write:

…the doctrine of justification may draw on many biblical uses of terminology insofar as they do not contradict its material import. The flip side of this claim, contra Leithart, is that the presence of justification language within the biblical texts does not necessarily imply that each of these texts will bear directly upon the doctrine of justification. Equally important will be texts that bear on the doctrine without using any of the biblical terminology of justification (e.g., Eph 2:7; 1 Cor 15:44-45).

Just remember that you heard it here first, folks.

Posted by David Gadbois

Mark Horne has “responded” to my post here. The scare quotes are necessary, because Mark took a small sliver of the argument, reacted to that, and leaves it at that, plainly implying that no further argument is necessary. He has been doing this ever since I was on the Wrightsaid group. There is no acknowledgment that I have understood one word of his writing. There is also no acknowledgment of what I have been meaning by the word “heresy” for as many times as I have explained the word. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word this way: “Theological or religious opinion or doctrine maintained in opposition, or held to be contrary, to the ‘catholic’ or orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, to that of any church, creed, or religious system, considered as orthodox.” I have been using the term in this “extension” manner as an opinion that contradicts the Westminster Confession of Faith. I make no judgment on Mark’s heart, although his patent uncharitableness, biting sarcasm, and paranoia make one wonder sometimes. Therefore, I leave it to the reader to discern which is the greater sin: my taking the same line that 7 orthodox denominations have already taken (which is really what I mean by saying that the Federal Vision is heresy), or Mark’s calling the PCA’s SJC a “politburo,” thus equating the PCA’s SJC with communist Russia, with all the “big brother” implications that has. Furthermore, I also wonder at his calling my appointment to the prosecution of the LAP as “political.” I did not seek this appointment in any way whatsoever. The word “political” can be thrown about quite carelessly by those who would rather throw out words intended to hurt than deal with actual arguments. Let it be known that I am not only not hurt (and not angry), but I forgive Mark for his uncharitableness and refusal to read my words in the best possible light, the very thing that the FV accuses its critics of doing. I should note that the FV gains no credibility whatsoever for its claims that the critics aren’t reading their words in the best possible light, when they refuse to do so to their critics. This is not true of all FV’ers, of course.

Now, on to what Mark said about my argument: Mark’s claims are not conclusive in the least, because “temporal and eternal punishment” does not solve the question without further clarification. Are there not temporal and eternal punishments in the 1 Corinthians 3 sense? This would, of course, be a very loose sense of the term “punishments.” Still, Paul uses the term “through fire” to describe someone who is still saved. I do not, of course, advocate a Purgatorial reading of this passage. But if works are required to escape hell, then that is a works salvation. Period. The only way to escape hell is to go to heaven. Period. Mark’s quotation of the WSC 85 here is not to the point at all, since the activities that the Catechism describes are described elsewhere as evangelical graces, and not works. So, to recap what Mark has not addressed: he has not addressed this question: for what are works required? (See my fourth paragraph). And this also: the issue of context in my fifth paragraph. Furthermore, Mark’s lack of attention to the merit problem. Those three issues were ignored completely in Mark’s “treatment.”    

Terry Johnson, in the recent Festschrift for O. Palmer Robertson, advocates lectio continua Scripture reading in worship. This is defined as the systematic reading through of books of the Bible (omitting nothing), one chapter one week, the next chapter the next week, and so on. This is distinct from lectio continua preaching, which, however, has the same structure. What was so encouraging in this chapter was that it confirmed what I have been doing in my worship service. I wish publicly to encourage Terry Johnson that there are a few of us actually doing this. I preach according to the lectio continua method. But in addition to the sermon, I have a Bible reading plan for both the morning and the evening service. The portion read is normally a chapter, unless it is very long. Then I might divide it. I usually expound upon the meaning of the text before I read it, usually for about 3-4 minutes, enough to see its significance, as well as some trajectories for application, and showing how the passage shows Christ. It is a mini-sermon. Currently, I am in the middle of 1 Samuel in the morning, and in Isaiah at night (both Old Testament, to balance out the New Testament preaching, although I have since moved on to Daniel in preaching the morning service).

I do know that Tenth Presbyterian Church does this with the New Testament. However, it would be a wonderful thing if they were to add the Old Testament as well, so that the congregation can regularly hear the entire Bible. Tenth does do expository lectua continua preaching. However, it is impossible for the congregation to hear the whole counsel of God if the Old Testament is left out.  

I am as strong an advocate of the practice as Terry Johnson is, and I sincerely hope and pray that more churches in the Reformed world will give their churches the whole counsel of God. Think of it: on some Sundays, where the preaching takes a whole chapter, the congregation could be exposed to four entire chapters of Scripture! It would then take only 7 years to get all the way through the Bible at that rate. What could we not see in revival if these fat chunks of Scripture are assaulting our rebellion at every step? I highly recommend Terry Johnson’s article to the attention of the church.