June 30, 2007
The (Im)possibility of Platonic Friendships
Blake Roeber pens an accessible, humorous and helpful article on the subject of platonic, mixed-gender friendships. A highlight:
Platonic friendship, then, is any friendship that isn't mediated by physical bodies. It's friendship between Souls. It's friendship that's supposedly so deep that those involved aren't even aware of (or, at least, aren't at all concerned with) the trivial features of their respective bodies. In particular, it's friendship where those involved aren't at all concerned with their respective sex organs. It's as if the friends involved are asexual.
The upshot:
All this isn't to say that non-gay, non-celibate members of the opposite sex can't be "just friends." They surely can. It's to say that being "just friends" takes a lot of caution. It takes care and a realistic appraisal of one's ability to avoid temptation. It also takes the humility to admit it when one's gotten oneself in over one's head.To say that Platonic friendship isn't possible is also to recognize that, even where a guy and a girl do exercise enough caution to be "just friends," the friendship they form will still be one between a guy and a girl, not one between two neuters.
(HT: Boundless)
Another Mark Dever Interview
This time, from Martin Downes. My favorite question:
Martin Downes: What would you consider to be the main theological dangers confronting us today and how can we deal with them?
Mark Dever:
The main theological dangers I see confronting us today are a practical rejection of the authority of God’s word even by those who theoretically submit to it; a rejection of the sovereignty of God in favor of the putative sovereignty of man; a caricature, misunderstanding, or rejection of the penal substitution of Christ for sinners; a shallow understanding of conversion as a mere shift of opinions; a worldliness in our evangelism which deceives people about the very nature of the gospel we are hoping to win them to; an individualism that de-centers the congregation from the life of a Christian; and a carelessness of churches in addressing members in unrepentant sin, which causes untold confusion about what it means to be a Christian. I think that we deal with these dangers by understanding and teaching what God has called the local church to be and, by his Spirit’s power, working to be that.
(HT: Challies)
June 28, 2007
DG Book Sale Extended!
Abraham writes: Our sale on books will continue until tomorrow at noon—12:00 PM CT, June 29.
My wife and I bought 15 books a few hours ago.
Schreiner on Moo: Romans Commentaries
Dr. Tom Schreiner (author of a great commentary on the book of Romans) reviewed Dr. Doug Moo's commentary on the book of Romans in 1998. Both came out at about the same time (Moo in 1996 and Schreiner in 1998).
(HT: The Tinker)
Moore on the Wilson-Hitchens Debate
Russell Moore nicely summarizes the Wilson-Hitchens Debate: "Throughout the debate Wilson challenged Hitchens as to the foundational basis of his ongoing moral judgments. Hitchens seemed to misunderstand Wilson's point as being that an atheist couldn't be moral while Wilson, echoing Romans 2, repeatedly reasserted that, no, the issue is that an atheist cannot account rationally for his morality."
Wilson is warm, cogent, and persuasive. If you want to better defend the reasonableness of the Christian faith to atheists and agnostics, I highly recommend this debate.
Shopping for Time - Mahaney & Family
Just Released: This looks like a needed book, if what I hear from my wife and her friends has any truth. The style is engaging and easy to follow. From the publisher's description: "These authors offer five tips to help ladies do it all without becoming overwhelmed: rise early, sit down, sit longer (occasionally), choose friends wisely, and take fifteen minutes. By weaving biblical principles of God’s Word into these keys, these authors give women practical advice on how to fulfill—and excel in—their daily responsibilities."
If you, or someone you love, is overwhelmed, miserable, and/or exhausted, the principles of this book will be a helpful corrective and an encouragement to set first things first and live in a God-centered, joyful and effective manner.
The blurbs:
“Like most women today, I struggle with feelings of ‘too much to do and too little time to do it’! My friend Carolyn Mahaney, along with her daughters, offers practical, biblical advice to help us plan, evaluate, strategize, and make wise choices concerning our time and priorities. As a godly mentor, Carolyn takes us by the hand, points us to God’s Word, shares out of her own life experience, and shows us how to apply God’s timeless truths to the contemporary challenges we face as women.”
Nancy Leigh DeMoss, author; Revive Our Hearts radio host
“‘We can actually do all that God has called us to do… and we can do it in a peaceful, joyful manner and get sufficient rest beside.’ When I read that, a light flashed on in my soul. Of course! I knew that! Once again Carolyn, Nicole, Kristin, and Janelle have created a book that’s fun to read and filled with truth that resonates because it’s biblical and practical and manageable.”
Noël Piper, wife, mother, grandmother, and author of Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God
“Shopping for Time offers a glimpse into the delightful Mahaney household. This book offers no simplistic solutions to the perils of superwoman syndrome. Instead, it deliberately leads women to the bedrock of biblical priorities and then suggests real-life methods by which to apply them."
Mary K. Mohler, wife of R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Read the Table of Contents.
Read the first chapter.
The authors' blog.
The Gospel Coalition Website is Up and Running
The Gospel Coalition is:
A fellowship of evangelical churches deeply committed to renewing our faith in the gospel of Christ and to reforming our ministry practices to conform fully to the Scriptures. We have become deeply concerned about some movements within traditional evangelicalism that seem to be diminishing the church’s life and leading us away from our historic beliefs and practices. On the one hand, we are troubled by the idolatry of personal consumerism and the politicization of faith; on the other hand, we are distressed by the unchallenged acceptance of theological and moral relativism. These movements have led to the easy abandonment of both biblical truth and the transformed living mandated by our historic faith. We not only hear of these influences, we see their effects. We have committed ourselves to invigorating churches with new hope and compelling joy based on the promises received by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Read the whole preamble. There are 40 stakeholders, which include John Piper, Mark Dever, D.A. Carson, Tim Keller, and Mark Driscoll. Their first conference occurred a few months ago, and their new website is an outstanding collection of free audio and video resources (all the talks from their conference), as well as a collection of older and newer articles on themes close to the heart of the gospel (atonement, justification, etc.). Looks like the plenary talks are up, but the interviews and panel discussions are still forthcoming.
Related: Gospel Coalition Foundational Documents
(HT: JT)
June 27, 2007
Special Message from DG on the Book Sale
The good folks at Desiring God pass along the following:
The sale has generated so much traffic to the checkout process in our store that the DG server is at its limit. In fact, the traffic is so high that even two servers couldn't handle it. There are some solutions we can implement (namely, optimizing the code in the checkout process), but none that could be implemented by tomorrow.
Read the whole thing.
Basically, they are asking that people wait until tomorrow before trying to order books, given the unexpectedly high popularity of their unlimited, online-only $5/book sale.
The Ascendancy of Calvinism Among Young Adults
Mark Dever, in his first post in a series of ten, credits the writings of C.H. Spurgeon as one of the ten big reasons for the rise of Calvinism among Christians born in the 1970s and 1980s. Dever recalls:
"At Together for the Gospel, April 2006, at one point I asked people to stand by ages. Out of 3,000 we had a few senior citizens. Some guys in their 50's. A lot in their 40's. A TON in their 30's. And even MORE in their 20's. Now, there could be a lot of reasons for that, but let me simply say that when Collin Hansen came out with his interesting article about "Young, Restless and Reformed" in the fall of 2006, I had already observed the phenomenon and agreed with the premise of his article--that there does seem to be something of a reformed revival among those born in the 1970s & 1980s."
Read the whole thing.
June 26, 2007
Spencer on Dever on Healthy Churches
Michael Spencer reviews and recommends Mark Dever's latest resource, What Is a Healthy Church?
Related: My earlier post on this book.
Helpful Resources for Law-Gospel Issues in Romans
Having finished my six-part series on law-gospel issues on Romans 9:30-10:13, I thought I'd list some of the resources that I found most helpful. I already mentioned the Westerholm text. The Romans commentaries which I found most helpful (and most convincing!) were written by Dr. Douglas Moo
Law and Gospel - Part VI
Continuing the series on Law and Gospel:
5. Does Paul draw a contrast or comparison between Romans 10:5 and 10:6-8? What is the significance of this contrast or comparison?
According to the comparison view, 10:5 depicts the obedience of faith. This phrase is meant to describe obedience that originates in faith, meaning that the individual is empowered by the grace of God, which is imparted to him by the instrumentality of faith. The δὲ in between 10:5 and 10:6 is seen as continuative (“and”) such that the righteousness from the law (v. 5) and that of faith (v. 6) are understood not to refer to two different kinds of righteousness. Rather, those who have faith will keep the commands of the law, for the law itself teaches faith.
There are two strong arguments that support this position. First, if verse 5 refers to a different kind of righteousness than verses 6-8, then Paul seems to set the Old Testament against itself by citing Deut. 30:12-14 (“righteousness based on faith”) to counter the meaning of Lev. 18:5 (“righteousness based on law”). This would not be consistent with Paul’s respect for the Old Testament expressed elsewhere in Romans (1:1-3; 3:1-2; 3:31; 7:1; 9:1-5), not to mention the fact that Paul is desirous of seeing Jews (who would presumably know the law) converted (10:1). Second, in their original context, both Lev. 18:5 and Deut. 30:12-14 call for obedience to the law within the covenant. So the obedience God called for in Lev. 18:5 was not perceived as a way of earning salvation but as a response to God’s covenantal grace in redeeming Israel from bondage. “I am Yahweh your God” (Lev. 18:4) precedes Lev. 18:5, just as “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Exod. 20:2) precedes the giving of the Ten Commandments. And moreover Deut. 30:12-14, the passage Paul says is the righteousness based on faith “speaking,” also refers to keeping the law. The “word” that is not up in heaven or beyond the sea is the law, and the proximity of the law is emphasized to assure readers that they can “do it.” To summarize, these Old Testament commandments calling for obedience were given in the context of a covenant that an observant Jew would have rightly seen as fundamentally gracious. Keeping the law would have been the proper response to God’s covenant grace, and God intended such obedience to originate from faith.
Though this logic is attractive for its coherency in explaining the Old Testament texts in their context, it misses key aspects of Paul’s argument. First, there is a sustained antithesis between “doing” and “believing” in Rom. 9:30-10:13. Consider: (a) Israel did not attain righteousness through the law because they pursued it “as from works” (9:32); (b) Through (culpably) ignorant zeal, they tried to establish their own righteousness (10:2-3). These parallel texts correspond to the (mistaken, damning) concept of gaining righteousness by doing the commandments. Paul’s message is that that righteousness is ultimately obtained not by doing but by believing. Second, it was previously noted that Phil. 3:9 is the only other instance where Paul contrasts “God’s righteousness” and “one’s own.” In that verse, it is equally clear that the former is obtained by “faith” and the latter is said to be “based on the law.” It is hard to believe that this “righteousness from law,” which is given a negative connotation in Phil. 3:9, is given a positive connotation in Rom. 10:5. In fact, Paul nowhere speaks positively about the “righteousness that is based on (or comes from) the law.” Thirdly, it seems Paul is speaking negatively about works righteousness in Rom. 10:5 because of the way he cites Lev. 18:5 in Gal. 3:12. It is unlikely that Paul would use the same Old Testament text, in the context of a similar discussion, to make an opposing claim about the law. We are forced to conclude that “the righteousness based on the law” (10:5) is a negative concept, presented in direct contrast to “the righteousness based on faith” (10:6). The former is that (supposed) “right standing with God” based on one’s keeping of the law that Israel had pursued but not attained (Rom. 9:31-32) as an effort to “establish their own righteousness” (Rom. 10:3).
Does it follow that Paul is wielding Deut. 30:12-14 against Lev. 18:5? Unfortunately, some scholars have answered in the affirmative by distinguishing between the “letter” and the “spirit” of the Old Testament. They argue that since the Lev. 18:5 reference is introduced with γράφει it corresponds to the “letter” of the law whereas Deut. 30:12-14, being introduced with λέγει, bears reference to the “spirit” of the law. But this type of thinking is entirely unhelpful. It is more honest to try to discern the meaning of these verses in their original context. According to Rom. 4, Paul does not think that obtaining righteousness by faith is a new concept. The Old Testament saints obtained righteousness by faith. Hence Lev. 18:5 cannot be talking about eternal life. Rather, as the Leviticus context shows, the verse is a summons to obedience as a means of prolonging the enjoyment of God’s blessings. However, Paul has elsewhere in Romans maintained the principle that the law embodies, in its very nature, the principle that perfect obedience would confer eternal life (Rom 2:13; 7:10). So Paul may be alluding to this principle by the use of Lev. 18:5.
But Moo convincingly shows that Paul’s point is more nuanced. Leviticus 18:5 succinctly summarizes the law’s essence: blessing is contingent on obedience. The one who does the works required by the law finds life through them. The Jew who refuses to submit to the righteousness of God in Christ is ignoring the fact that the law has come to its culmination in Christ. The only other avenue for establishing a relationship with God is through the law, and that requires “doing.” But human doing is invariably inadequate to bring a person into a right relationship with God – as Paul labored to make clear in Rom. 1:18-3:20. In Rom. 4 Paul showed that being made right with God was always a matter of faith, apart from (and prior to) covenant obedience (the example of Abraham being counted righteous prior to circumcision, Rom. 4:10). So the Old Testament Jew who sought to base his relationship with God on the law rather than God’s gracious election through the Abrahamic promise was making the same fatal error that the New Testament Jew was making in refusing to come to Christ for righteousness.
What about the Deuteronomy passage? The introductory injunction, “Do not say in your heart,” is taken from Deut. 9:4. And Deut. 9:4-6 contain a warning to Israel that when they had taken possession of the land, they were not to think that they have earned it because of “their own righteousness.” After this portion from Deut. 9:4, Paul jumps right into Deut. 9:12, adding to the original question “Who will ascend to heaven?” the phrase “to bring Christ down.” Now the strange thing is that Deut. 9:11-14 is about the law! One could say that Paul’s Old Testament exegesis is arbitrary: he is simply transforming the original meaning of the text in light of the Christ event. But that fails to give Paul (and the Jews he’s hoping to persuade) enough credit. One way to explain the hermeneutical rationale is to say that the Deut. 30 context assumes God’s restoration of Israel and hence the people having circumcised hearts which could obey the law. By this scheme, Lev. 18:5 is descriptive of the Old Covenant and Deut. 30:12-14 of the New. But the “today” in Deut. 30:15 renders such thinking invalid. Only verses 1-10 of Deuteronomy 30 are forward-looking to the post-Jeremiah 31:31-34 era in which God writes His law on His people’s hearts.
The best explanation for Paul’s use of Deut. 30:12-14 is to recognize that this text is an expression of God’s grace in establishing a relationship with His people. Just as God graciously made a covenant with Israel, bringing His word “near” them so that “they might be His people and He might be their God,” so He now brings His word – the word of faith which Paul proclaims –“near” to both Jews and Gentiles in order that both might know Him through his Son and respond in faith and obedience. If the Mosaic covenant was predicated on God’s grace (Exod. 20:2), far greater is the grace that permeates the New Covenant (John 1:17; Heb. 8:6-12). The Mosaic law was given in the context of a gracious covenant; the law was meant to promote righteousness by faith by exposing sin and thus pointing to an alien righteousness. Paul’s contrast of Lev. 18:5 and Deut. 30:12-14 is a reminder to Jews that Old Testament obedience was commanded in the context of a gracious covenant. And Christ has established a new gracious covenant. As seeking the righteousness of God on the basis of works was unwarranted in the Old Covenant, how much more so in the New! By replacing the “word” (Deut. 30:12-14) with “Christ” (Rom. 10:6-8), Paul is showing the transformation in how God’s covenant is being mediated.
A remnant Jew living under the Old Covenant would have found the law to expose sin (Rom 7:7-12) and cause him to cry out to God for salvation (Rom. 7:24). In this sense righteousness was the goal of the law, but it could only be attained apart from the law (Westerholm, p. 329, emphasis added). Righteousness was never attained by human performance.
June 25, 2007
John Piper on Divorce and Remarriage
John Piper gave a superb sermon on divorce and remarriage, which is to be continued this coming weekend.
Southern Baptists and Elders
Denny Burk offers some helpful observations about Southern Baptists, The Baptist Faith and Message, and Elders.
CBMW Appoints David Kotter as Executive Director
CBMW announces: "The board of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) recently appointed church leader and former businessman David Kotter as the organization’s new executive director."
I am personally encouraged by this move, as I recently heard some great things about Mr. Kotter. And may I add -- A bachelor's degree in engineering is a great background for tackling theological conundrums!
(HT: JT)
June 24, 2007
Law and Gospel - Part V
Returning to the Law-Gospel series:
4. What does it mean that Christ is the τέλος of the law (Rom. 10:4)?
One must first consider what Paul meant by “law” in this verse. Historically, four different concepts have been set forth: (1) law in some general sense; (2) Old Testament revelation; (3) legalism; and (4) Mosaic law. Though a detailed treatment cannot be made here, the fourth option is preferable given the context and how Paul refers to the law earlier in Romans (namely, as a body of commandments given uniquely to Israel which functioned to give them a particular, national identity as a “people set apart”).
The next issue is to determine how to handle the prepositional phrase “εἰς δικαιοσύνην.” Some scholars would connect the phrase directly to “νόμου,” arguing that Christ is the τέλος of the law with regard to its relationship to righteousness, or as a means of righteousness. They attach “for everyone who believes” to the verse in its totality. Most who go this route translate τέλος as “end”—The end of the (false) understanding of the law as a means of securing righteousness with God. Many of these scholars (e.g. Murray) do not mean to imply that the law ever could make sinners righteous. They have in view the hypothetical possibility that life (i.e. righteousness) would come from the law if individuals were able to perfectly fulfill its demands (Gal. 3:21). This is the idea of the law “promising life” (Rom. 7:10) to the ones who perfectly obey. However, others who also translate τέλος as “end” do so with an entirely different nuance: The end of Israel’s misunderstanding of the law “as a means of establishing and fixing firmly righteousness as Israel’s special prerogative.”
However, it is more compelling, given the syntax, to take εἰς as introducing purpose or result. Christ is being viewed as the τέλος of the law with the result that there is (or with the purpose that there might be) righteousness for everyone who believes.
The remaining exegetical challenge is the meaning of τέλος. The main possibilities are “end,” “goal,” or “result.” The former denotes a temporal sense of termination. The coming of Christ would indicate that the law’s authority or significance is, in some sense, over. Either “goal” or “result” implies that the law pointed forward to Christ in some fashion. I agree with Moo that a sense of temporal completion in addition to the attaining of a goal is present. It does not need to be one or the other. The race imagery in the context can be helpful here: the finish line of a race represents both the “termination” of the race (the race is over when it is reached) and the “goal” of the race (the race is run for the sake of reaching the finish line). Christ brings the era of law to a close by once and for all providing the perfect obedience for which the law promised life. Christ’s arrival also represents that which the law anticipated and pointed toward. After all, the law was given in the context of a gracious covenant: God had condescended to make Israel His people, though she was totally undeserving. What greater fulfillment could there be than God coming to them in human flesh to provide the righteousness they lacked and to perfectly fulfill the Anti-type of the sacrificial system? I prefer the term “consummation” for τέλος in Rom 10:4, because I think it best captures the ideas both of termination (“end”) and of long-term “goal.”
The sin-atoning provisions of the Pentateuch make sense only within the framework of God’s ultimate requirement for perfect obedience. An Israelite was supposed to have been brought to repentance by the law, recognizing his inability to keep it. So the short-term goal of the law was to kill (II Cor. 3:6), or to shut mankind up under sin (Gal. 3:21-22). The long-term goal (τέλος) of the law was Christ for righteousness to everyone who believes. God’s design seems to have been that the outpouring of the Spirit (Gal. 4:6) and the act of justification by faith be clearly attached to the work of Christ (Rom. 3:25-26).
June 22, 2007
Stephen Westerholm
Stephen Westerholm's Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The "Lutheran" Paul and His Critics
Free & Easy Access to Articles by Dr. Tom Schreiner
Dr. Schreiner's biographical home page allows free, electronic access to some 50+ articles, presentations, and book reviews. Sure beats having to track these down at the library!
Mark Dever on Healthy Churches
Mark Dever, Executive Director of Nine Marks ministries and senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, has just published another book that is sure to be a great blessing to all who care about healthy church life. In this most recent work, Dever addresses the difference between "comfort" and "health" in local church life. Building on his earlier Nine Marks of a Healthy Church
Jim Hamilton recently interviewed Mark Dever about his new book.
Related: Dever receives 2007 Christianity Today Award
Law and Gospel - Part IV
Continuing the series on Law and Gospel:
3. How should the two occurrences of “righteousness of God” in Romans 10:3 be defined (and translated)?
My paraphrase of Rom. 10:3 is: For because of their inexcusable ignoring of the righteousness which comes from God, and because they are seeking to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves to God’s righteousness.
The way in which “their own” is understood is important. For Dunn, the phrase is to be understood corporately and nationally – something belonging peculiarly “to them” (as a race) rather than “to others” (Gentiles). The contrast is not between an individual’s righteousness on the basis of deeds and “God’s righteousness.” Therefore, both occurrences of “righteousness of God”, in this view, refer to the saving power of God extended graciously to man. The Jews, in nationalistic pride, sought to possess God’s righteousness to the exclusion of others.
If this phrase is to be understood in a corporate sense, as “Israel’s own”, then Paul would be referring to Israel’s misunderstanding of righteousness as something that applied to Israel alone (so Dunn). However, the phrase can also be understood in a distributive sense – “each of their own” – referring to the attempt of individual Jews to establish a relationship with God through their own efforts. In the case of the former, Paul is critiquing national righteousness – the attempt to confine membership in God’s covenant people to ethnic Israel, to the exclusion (and detriment) of all other nations. In the case of the latter, Paul is critiquing self-righteousness – the attempt to establish a relationship with God based on one’s own works. In support of the national righteousness view, Paul does elaborate in the larger context on the universal dimensions of God’s righteousness in Christ (Rom. 10:4b and 10:9-13). But the more immediate context shows a sharp contrast between “their own righteousness” and “God’s righteousness.” This suggests a sense of “source” for both contrasting terms. This favors an individualistic rather than a corporate interpretation: “their own righteousness” refers to a “righteousness” that is procured by an individual from that individual’s own efforts. Secondly, seeing 10:3 as a reference to self-righteousness best suits the parallel reference to the pursuit of righteousness in Rom. 9:31. Lastly, the only other time that Paul contrasts “God’s righteousness” and a righteousness of “one’s own” (Phil. 3:9), he clearly connects the former as “based on faith” and the latter as “based on the law.” Moreover, the former is viewed positively and the later negatively.
Another understanding of these phrases is to see them as both referring to “God’s own righteousness as his unswerving commitment to glorify himself by remaining faithful to his own Word (or promises). The Jews were ignorant of the fact that God was manifesting his righteousness by sending Christ to die in fulfillment of his promises and thus sought to establish their own righteous standing by sticking with the old covenant even though the new had arrived, and hence did not submit to God’s righteousness as now being displayed in Christ.” But this notion is at least suggestive that Paul’s critique of the Jews is simply that they failed to recognize the shift in salvation history. And what about their distortion of the law in the Old Testament era? Given the context of Rom. 9:31, it is preferable to take both adverbial participles ἀγνοοῦντες and ζητοῦντες as being causal. The reason the Jews failed to submit to God’s righteousness was not only because they did not recognize God’s righteousness when it arrived in Christ, but also because (prior to Christ’s arrival) they were too narrowly focused on seeking a righteousness in connection with their obedience to the law. Moo helpfully explains that, on the one hand, Israel missed Christ because of a narrow focus on the law. On the other hand, Israel’s failure to embrace Christ as the goal of the law leads her to continue on the “law path” after it had served its purpose.
Getting back to the precise question at hand, I stated above that the first occurrence of “righteousness of God” has a nuance of source. It should be translated “the righteousness that comes from God.” It cannot be translated “the covenant faithfulness” of God because the Jews were surely aware (more than the Gentiles!) of this dimension of God’s character. Rather, the first occurrence of “righteousness of God” refers to a gift of “acquittal” that the sinner receives from God by faith on the basis of the righteousness of Christ being imputed to them. The phrase embraces God’s activity in imparting His righteousness to others. The second occurrence of “righteousness of God” should be translated “God’s own righteousness” – in the sense of an attribute which God possesses and which demands humble subordination (ὑποτάσσω cognate) on the part of man.
In conclusion, I think this is what Rom 10:3 means: (a) ignoring the righteousness that comes from God (the alien righteousness Christ offers) , and (b) seeking to establish their own righteousness (which goal they should have recognized to be futile, because of their sin), they did not submit to God’s righteousness (they stumbled over the stumbling stone).
Note the similarity in thought:
Rom 9:31-32
1. They did not pursue what the law pointed to by faith.
2. They pursued the righteousness promised by the law as if sinners could attain it by works, not giving proper acknowledgement to their depravity revealed by the law.
3. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.
Rom 10:3
1. Ignoring the righteousness that comes from God.
2. Seeking to establish their own righteousness.
3. They did not submit to God’s righteousness.
Albert Mohler and Bradford Wilcox on Fathers
On the heels of Father's Day, Dr. Albert Mohler offers some good insight on the importance of fathers. Mohler cites four findings from an American Values report from Dr. Bradford Wilcox:
1. Children living with their fathers in an intact, married home are almost 50 percent less likely to be sexually abused than children living in a single-parent home.
2. Boys who grow up with their fathers in an intact, married home are 50 percent less likely to end up in prison as young adults than children living in a single-parent or step-family.
3. Girls who grow up apart from their fathers typically experience the onset of puberty at an earlier age and have sex at an earlier age than girls who grow up with their fathers in an intact, married home. They are also three times more likely to become young, unwed mothers.
4. Communities with large numbers of fatherless households are significantly more likely to experience high levels of murder and robbery.
Wilcox is the author of Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands
Prominent Southern Baptist Church Elects a Female Senior Pastor
Julie Pennington-Russell, a married mother of two, was voted on Sunday (June 17, 2007) to become senior pastor of 2,700-member First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga. She will begin her ministry with First Baptist on Aug. 19.
Pennington-Russell, 46, has been serving as the senior pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Waco, Texas since 1998. She claims that Calvary was the first Baptist church in Texas to call a woman as a senior pastor.
The Southern Baptist Convention's current Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M) – the denomination's confession of faith – adopted and revised in 2000, limits the office of pastor to men "as qualified by Scripture." Not surprisingly, Pennington-Russell expressed strong disagreement when Southern Baptists adopted the revised BF&M in 2000. Note that while top church officials oppose female pastors, the wording in the SBC confession does not prohibit women from leading individual churches if their local congregation so chooses.
Dr. Albert Mohler: "A look at Julie Pennington-Russell's education, experience, and related qualifications would appear to qualify her for a major pulpit ... except for the fact that she is a woman. On that point both sides in the controversy over women in ministry should agree.....Those opposed to the service of women in the pastorate are not arguing that women are less articulate, less bright, less winsome, less caring, or less educated. Gender is the issue."
Dr. Mohler is right. Given the prominence of First Baptist Church in Decatur, GA within the Southern Baptist Convention's history, Pennington-Russell is sure to become a leader among moderate and liberal Baptists. It is crucial that pastors "on the fence" be well-versed in the biblical support of a male-only eldership and the consequences of compromise on this crucial issue.
Read the whole report from The Christian Post.
June 21, 2007
Desiring God Book Sale --- $5 a book!
Desiring God announces a two-day sale:
"Every book in our store will be $5 on June 27-28, Wednesday and Thursday next week."
What a deal!
Nine Marks Blog
Mark Dever and the Nine Marks guys have started a blog called Church Matters (which reminds me of Bob Kauflin's blog, Worship Matters). Mark announces:
"I'm going to try to kick this off over the next couple of weeks by doing a brief series of 10 influences that I think God has used to bring about the current resurgence of reformed theology among the young. Stay tuned!!"
It should be good.
Related: Christianity Today story (September 2006) on the same theme.
June 20, 2007
Law and Gospel - Part III
Sorry for the week-long absence of posts. I was out of town, and it was logistically difficult to get enough Internet time to add posts. But we return to our series on law-gospel issues, addressing the second question from my Romans 9:30-10:13 paper.
2. According to Romans 9:31-33 and 10:2-3, what was Israel’s problem?
The first option is that Israel’s problem is not vertical (i.e., a legalistic pursuit of law-keeping to earn right standing before God) but rather horizontal. Dunn suggests that the Jews “confused the law and the righteousness it speaks of with works like circumcision which serve to make righteousness a function of Jewish identity rather than of God’s gracious outreach to and through faith. This came to eschatological expression and climax in their refusal to recognize Christ as Messiah.” However, as Paul has made plain earlier in Romans, the fundamental problem of Israel is also the fundamental problem of the Gentiles: the wrath of God being justly upon them because of their sin (Rom. 1:18; 2:12; 2:17-24).
Other more conservative protestant approaches to this text also focus on the key phrase, “νόμον δικαιοσύνης.” One possibility is to take “δικαιοσύνης” as an epexegetic genitive: “the law (or principle) which is righteousness.” This translation puts the maximum weight on the word righteousness. There are other occurrences of νόμος in Romans where the best translation clearly is “principle” (Rom. 3:27; 7:23; 8:2). In those passages, Paul is contrasting two diametrically opposing principles (“works” and “faith” in 3:27; “mind” and “sin” in 7:23; “Spirit of life” and “sin and death” in 8:2). Here in Rom. 9:30, however, there is no clear diametrical contrast involving νόμον.
An alternative is to say that “νόμον” in Rom 9:30 has reference to the Old Testament scriptures. The phrase is then interpreted in light of Rom 3:21 where Paul notes that the righteousness of God is “witnessed to by the law and the prophets.” Paul is seen as criticizing Israel for pursuing a good goal (“the law that testifies to righteousness”), but by the wrong means: as if (ὡς) the law could be fulfilled by works and the righteousness to which the law pointed thereby secured. The implication of this view is this: had Israel recognized the call to faith, intrinsically found in the law itself, she too would have attained righteousness.
This view is also problematic. The primary difficulty is that it is anything but clear that Paul would view νόμον as a witness to righteousness by faith. Rom. 3:21 declares that God’s righteousness was manifest χωρὶς νόμου, apart from the law. True, the law and prophets bore witness to the righteousness of God. This simply means that while the Old Testament as a whole anticipated and predicted this new work of God, the justifying activity of God in Christ occurs outside the confines of the Old Covenant. The Mosaic covenant (in view in Rom. 3:21) is that temporary administration set up between God and Israel to regulate their lives and reveal sin until the establishment of the promise in Christ (Rom. 4:13-15; 5:20). The law itself is “not of faith” (Gal. 3:15-4:7). In addition, Paul’s usage of νόμος in association with δικαιοσύνης and its cognates usually bears a negative, not a positive, connotation (Rom. 3:21, 28; 4:13; 10:5; Gal 2:16, 21; 3:11, 21; 5:4).
Another possibility is to take into account the apparently parallel phrase in Rom 10:5 “τὴν δικαιοσύνην τὴν ἐκ [τοῦ] νόμου”, where the word order of “righteousness” and “law” are reversed, and say that “righteousness of the law” is the best sense of νόμον δικαιοσύνης in 9:31 as well. But this perspective fails to address why Paul used νόμον again later in 9:31, as that which was not attained. Paul surely would not have done this if he had meant for us to understand the phrase in 9:31 in the same manner as in 10:5.
So what does it mean that Israel failed to attain the law? How are “law” and “righteousness” connected? They are connected in that the law promises righteousness when its demands are met. Both Rom. 2:13 and Rom. 10:5 reinforce this understanding, as they speak of the righteousness that could be gained by “doing.” Rom. 7:10 speaks of the commandment that “promised life.” Gal. 3:21 seems to contradict, however: If a commandment had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. So is righteousness by the law or not? Yes and no. The law simultaneously taught two things :
1. Trust and obey God perfectly and you will be attain righteousness. (Rom 7:10)
2. Since you (as a sinner) cannot supply the perfect obedience of faith required by the law, look to God by faith (through blemish-free, sacrificed lambs) to the long-term goal of law: Christ (the perfect sacrifice) for righteousness to everyone who believes. (Rom 10:4)
Israel’s failure was not responding to the awareness of sin produced by the law in humble, penitent faith in God to supply for them a righteousness they could not possibly produce on their own. They did not come to the end of themselves – though God had given the law in order to make Israel aware of their sin (Rom 3:20), to increase transgression (Rom 5:20), and to consign all to sin (Gal 3:22). Israel stumbled over Christ by refusing to put faith in him (Rom 9:32). Not only was the manner of Israel’s pursuit of “νόμον δικαιοσύνης” misguided, but also the goal itself was wrong. Sinners were not to find righteousness in the law. Rather, the law was given to teach sinners how abundantly sinful they really were. The Jews were looking to the law as if it contained righteousness – that’s what I mean when I say “the goal itself was wrong.” Westerholm states it well: Righteousness was the goal of the law, but it could only be attained apart from the law (i.e., by faith). Israel sought to find righteousness in the law, (a) even though Christ had come, perfectly fulfilling the laws demands, and (b) even though no Israelite was able to meet the law’s demands and thus secure the righteousness it promises. That is what Paul means when he says that their zeal is not according to knowledge. The law was supposed to have driven them away from themselves and towards Christ in faith. Yet instead they perverted the purpose of the law by seeking to establish righteousness on the basis of their own performance – a “righteousness” which was at best only filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) in comparison to the perfect obedience which God required and which Christ had furnished.
June 12, 2007
Law and Gospel - Part II
Continuing this series from the last post, here is my response to the first question (I have footnotes in the paper that do not transfer into this post):
1. What does it mean that the Gentiles have attained righteousness (Rom. 9:30)?
Some think that “attained righteousness” means that the Gentiles gained entrance into the covenant community of God by faith in Jesus the Messiah and apart from the distinctively Jewish works such as circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath. The emphasis is not on how individual sinners are made right with a holy God but rather on how the locus of God’s covenant people is redefined around Messiah and faith. James D.G. Dunn notes, “Justification means acceptance into a relationship with God characterized by the grace of Israel’s covenant.” According to this view, initial entry into the covenant blessings is what the Gentiles gained. A once-and-for-all forensic verdict of right standing with God is not in view in Rom. 9:30. This view sees the “attained righteousness” in 9:30 as primarily horizontal (joining the people of God without having to perform the distinctively Jewish works) rather than vertical (securing right-standing with God).
This orientation seems to place undue emphasis on what Paul treats as a less than major theme. The social implications of Gentile incorporation are indeed of interest to Paul (Rom. 14; Acts 15), but the major concern of Romans is with the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all mankind because of sin. A crisis in man’s vertical relationship with God is of primary importance to Paul.
Another perspective is that the righteousness in view here is an individual’s right standing with God (unlike Dunn or Wright), but one that is equivalent to the right standing that comes from keeping the law. According to this view, “Rom. 9:30 is speaking about the Gentiles who are doers of the law and hence are justified as the righteous (cf. Rom. 2:13).” The Gentiles are hereby brought into the remnant of faithful Israelites, since they too now have the law written on their hearts. The obedience of faith results in right standing with God. This perspective is more vertically (and individually) oriented that the first view. It seeks to maintain unity between law and gospel. Specifically, it claims that the Gentiles, by faith, lay hold of God’s grace and hence keep the law, resulting in justification. They observe that the law, rightly understood, is a law of faith.
The problem with this understanding is that Paul has labored to show in Rom 4 that man is justified by faith apart from (and prior to) covenant obedience. Sinners do not attain righteousness by law keeping (Rom. 3:20; 4:4-5). Our right standing with God is not a function of our actively cooperating with God’s grace (though such cooperation is the inevitable result of right standing with God). The aforementioned perspective seems to confuse biblical categories of justification and sanctification.
The third and most persuasive sense of the phrase “attained righteousness” in Rom. 9:30 is found by first recognizing that διώκοντα (to pursue) and κατέλαβεν (to seize or obtain) are both derived from the analogy of a race course. They refer to the pursuit of a goal and the seizing of that goal. When Paul says that Gentiles did not pursue righteousness, he was not implying that every Gentile was morally reckless. Many Gentiles may have sought to maintain moral rectitude, but they were not striving for a right relationship with God. So how did they attain righteousness? Having been brought to repentance, they responded to Christ in faith (human response, Rom. 9:30), and, given Paul’s previous discussion, such faith was ultimately the result of the electing mercy of God (Rom. 9:14-23).
The Gentiles gained right standing with God by the instrumentality of faith (as the rejected views also acknowledge). But we can say more, because of Paul’s sustained argument in Rom. 1-8. Paul showed how the law brought about the knowledge of sin (3:20), such that Jew and Gentile alike stood condemned on the basis of their deeds (3:9). The righteousness of God, revealed in the gospel (1:16-17), has now been manifested apart from the law (3:21). Abraham was counted righteous by faith in the Old Testament (4:3), and this was written for our sakes also, because we are likewise counted righteous when we place faith in the death and resurrection of Christ (4:23-24). Though beyond the scope of this report, I take this λογίζομαι word group (repeatedly used in Rom 4) to refer to the forensic declaration of a right standing with God on the basis of a perfect righteousness that has been provided by another. The latter phrase, describing the basis of right standing, is important, because “right standing with God” is itself vague, as it does not specify whether this right standing is based on a forensic judgment or some sort of moral transformation.
Thus, the righteousness that Gentiles attain is due to individual Gentiles placing their empty-handed faith in Jesus Christ and thus having been united to Him, with the result that they have received His merit transferred to their account (or imputed) to them by virtue of this union. Consequently, they have been counted righteous in Christ. All of their righteousness is the alien righteousness of Christ, and the verdict of God in declaring them to be righteous is entirely forensic in nature. It is a future, final verdict being read back into their present experience, in an example of what Moo calls “inaugurated eschatology.”
June 10, 2007
Law and Gospel - Part I
Since I'm reading about law and gospel, I'm going to do a series of posts from my Romans 9:30-10:13 paper. This is a paper in which we were asked to answer five questions:
1. What does it mean that the Gentiles have attained righteousness (9:30)?
2. According to Romans 9:31-33 and 10:2-3, what was Israel’s problem?
3. How should the two occurrences of “righteousness of God” in Romans 10:3 be defined (and translated)?
4. What does it mean that Christ is the τέλος of the law (10:4)?
5. Does Paul draw a contrast or comparison between Romans 10:5 and 10:6-8? What is the significance of this contrast or comparison?
In this first post, I'll give my paraphrase for Romans 9:30-10:13. In subsequent posts, I'll post my answers to each of the five questions above.
My paraphrase of Romans 9:30-10:13:
In light of the fact that so few Jews are being saved, what shall we say? Gentiles, who didn’t pursue a right standing with God, are attaining such a right standing. And what kind of righteousness are they attaining? One by faith in Christ as a redeemer and sin-bearer.
On the other hand, Israel who pursued a law whose long-term goal was righteousness (through faith in Christ) did not succeed in reaching that long-term goal (of attaining righteousness). Why? They failed because they did not make this pursuit of the law’s goal by faith but as if it were on the basis of works. Therefore, they tripped over the stumbling stone when He came. As the Old Testament says: “Notice: I am putting in the path of God’s people a stone of stumbling and a rock that offends proud people who seek to establish their own righteousness on the basis of their deeds. But, by contrast, whoever puts faith in him for righteousness will not be put to shame. They will in fact be saved!” Sadly, their ignorance the goal of the law (Christ for righteousness) has now also resulting in them continuing to walk down the law path even though that path has effectively served its purpose.
Brothers, I really want and regularly pray to God that He might save them. As much as anyone, I can tell you that they have a strong desire for God, but it is a desire not based on knowledge. You see, they ignored the righteousness that God freely offered to sinners broken-hearted over their guilt before a holy God and sought to establish a so-called “righteousness” based on their imperfect performance. In so doing (and they continue to do this), they are not submitting to God’s perfect righteousness, because Christ is the goal of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Moses wrote about the right standing that comes by the law when he said, “the one who does the commandments shall live by them.” What Moses meant was: Obey the law perfectly by means of a perfect faith in God, and you’ll attain eternal life. And your attempts to perfectly keep the law should have brought you to see your desperate plight! Which should have led you to seek the righteousness based on faith, which says this: “Don’t say in your heart, ‘Who will go up to heaven?’” (that’s impossible, like accomplishing Christ’s incarnation); or “Don’t say in your heart, ‘Who will go down into the depths?’” (that’s impossible, like accomplishing Christ’s resurrection). God had to do these things for us.
But what does the righteousness based on faith say? The word of faith (that we proclaim) is near you, in your mouth and in your heart—namely, cease from striving to establish your own righteousness by what you do and believe in the One who perfectly accomplished obedience on your behalf. The bedrock of the Mosaic covenant was always the gracious condescension of God, and not our deeds. Moses’ law had the long-term goal of our repentance, and our crying out to God to supply an alien righteousness. Because if you would only confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be declared righteous. For it is with your heart that you exercise faith and obtain right standing with God, and it is with your mouth that you speak and show yourself to be saved. Because the Scripture says, “All the ones who believe in him will not be put to shame.” Because, after all, God makes no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, graciously imparting his spiritual riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Update: Here are links to the rest of this series:
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
June 09, 2007
Wilson vs. Hitchens
Though I only read parts of it, I thought that Pastor Doug Wilson did a masterful job debating atheist Christopher Hitchens (author of the recent book God is not Great, which argues that religion has been bad for the world). Wilson employs presuppositional apologetics with the rhetorical style of a C.S. Lewis. A great combo. Christianity Today hosted the debate, and my friend Joe Rigney sent me this PDF version.
D.A. Carson Sermon MP3s - topically arranged
Andy Naselli has gathered a plethora of D.A. Carson sermon MP3s, topically arranged. Thanks Andy! What a blessing!
(HT: JT)
June 08, 2007
Galatians and the New Perspective
We just finished our fantastic week-long course on Galatians with Dr. Tom Schreiner. What a blast! And thoroughly exhausting. Chapters 2 and 3 seem to be the toughest, and I've got sections of commentaries by Dunn, Witherington, Fung, Longenecker, F.F. Bruce, Burton, along with articles by Doug Moo, Schreiner, and Andrew Cowan to digest. I also plan to get N.T. Wright's Paul in Fresh Perspective from the library, and some of Frank Thielman's works. If I can get an ILL copy of Ciampa's Ph.D. work in time, I'll try to skim that too (Thanks for the heads up, Johnathan).
I'd appreciate any prayers on my behalf, as the next few weeks will be quite hectic. I'll leave you with this good word from John Piper on an Antidote to New Perspective.
June 02, 2007
Children Without Sex?
Carl Djerassi, inventor of the first oral contraceptive (which paved the way for sex without children), heralds a Huxleyesque vision of children without sex. Says Djerassi, a Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University:
"It is my own prediction that within the next 30 to 50 years in the Western world, many women, when young, will bank their eggs or ovarian tissue, have them frozen, and use them when they feel the time is right for them to have a child. It will become commonplace."
I've journaled a few thoughts on this, but will without judgement for the time being. One initial concern is the probability that such "family planning" would be used to justify prolonged double-income, no-kid materialism (and an increasing sense that children are a burden to society). Clearly, there are some ethical minefields here.
(HT: Jonathan Dodson)
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