This post is the third in a series of 4.

Calvin and Kline

At its best, I don’t believe the Reformed tradition applies this tripartite division uncritically.  It’s worth taking a look at two Reformed theologians, John Calvin and Meredith G. Kline.

Calvin

The work of John Calvin is significant, because he is the quintessential Reformed thinker.  Often criticism of Reformed theology is made simply with reference to his work.  There are two challenges to his thinking today which have influence on Evangelical circles.  The New Perspective on Paul, and Modified Lutheranism (also called New Covenant Theology).

At the conservative end of Evangelicalism, the latter has had considerable influence through the work of Don Carson and Douglas Moo (who are both great men in the kingdom, it’s just  that I disagree with them on the shape of Biblical Theology).  Modified Lutheranism often sees the Reformers as using the tripartite division to explain how the Law was only partially abrogated, and therefore parts of it are still in force.  In contrast Modified Lutherans look particularly to Galatians to make clear that the law has been abrogated in its entirety.  The salvation-historical era of the law is now over, and the era of Christ has begun (Gal 3:24-26).  In fact the law belongs to the realm of this world – within the same sphere as the idolatry the Gentile Galatians had originally repented from (Gal 4:1-3, 8-10).

The New Perspective, or at least N. T. Wright’s brand of New Perspective, claims that the Reformers failed to understand that what Paul is arguing against in books like Galatians and Romans is not law as a route to personal justification through works righteousness, but law as the boundary marker identifying who God’s people (the one’s who experience the blessing promised to Abraham) really are.  The Reformers were blinded by their obsession with personal righteousness, and therefore didn’t read Paul carefully enough, nor understand the world of the 1st century.

In contrast to both those positions, I want to demonstrate something about the way Calvin actually read Galatians.  Calvin did not use the tripartite division to explain away the text – instead he asserted over against the papists that the law must be treated as a whole entity when exegeting Galatians.  Furthermore, the very position he was refuting was remarkably similar to the New Perspective position.  The papists claimed that the law in Galatians refers only to the ceremonial law.  They claimed this for slightly different reasons to the NP, in order to draw different conclusions, but there is significant overlap.  Calvin not only considered the possibility that Paul was writing against the idea of righteousness through Jewish observance, but he spent much of his Galatians commentary refuting it.

Here’s some example of where Calvin does this.  Emphases are all mine.

From his commentary on Galatians 2:21:

The Papists explain this in reference to the ceremonial law; but who does not see that it applies to the whole law?

From his commentary on Galatians 3:6:

The notion of the sophists, that it is contrasted with ceremonies alone, will presently be disproved, with little difficulty, from the context.

From his commentary on Galatians 3:14:

The spirit is here contrasted with all outward things, not with ceremonies merely, but with lineal descent, so as to leave no room for diversity of rank. From the nature of the promise, he proves that Jews differ nothing from Gentiles; because, if it is spiritual, it is received by faith alone.

From his commentary on Galatians 3:18:

Who will dare to explain this as applying to ceremonies alone, while Paul comprehends under it whatever interferes with a free promise?

Calvin is often unfairly criticised for utilising an invalid method of hermeneutic which in actual fact he was attempting to refute.

Kline

The work of Meredith G. Kline is, in my view, outstanding.  Just about everything he wrote seemed to come from a totally fresh angle, and yet the results of his work were not novel, but classic and confessionally Reformed.  In his case, he was confessionally bound to the Westminster Confession, which affirms the tripartite division of the law in chapter 19.

Kline understands the entire Old Testament canon to be a “canon” precisely because they are the “covenant documents” of the Mosaic covenant.  The New Testament is made up of the “covenant documents” of the New Covenant.  Each covenant contained laws that had to be adapted within that covenant era.  Kline describes these adaptations as “intracanonical polity phases”.  For example, he writes in The Structure of Biblical Authority (2nd ed), pp103-4:

The laws of the Mosaic covenants were programmed from the outset for this succession of modifications in Israel’s polity.  So, for example, Moses not only prescribed arrangements for the administration of justice during his own leadership of Israel, but appointed a modified judicial system to meet the new conditions that would presently obtain upon the entry into Canaan (Deut. 16:18ff.); and for the more distant future, he incorporated into the Deuteronomic treaty the law of the king (Deut. 17:14ff.).  Precepts dealing with the future, near or remote, were potentially effective, becoming normative when Yahweh had brought to pass the situation which those precepts legislatively anticipated.  When a later phase with its modified norms arrived, the prescriptions peculiarly designed for an earlier phase naturally ceased to be normative.

Kline is rightly sketching a way in which the Mosaic law was not monolithic, but contained within itself variation.  In this case necessary variation for the different phases of Israel’s political existence.  But this variation is not arbitrary, but contains within itself an inherent unity.  Kline goes on to say in pp105-6:

However, though not all the polity prescriptions for Israel were currently normative at all times even within the Old Testament era, they do all possess an inner coherence as belonging to a single general type, a peculiar institutional integration of culture and cult.  the successive Old Testament stages of the kingdom were designed to arrive at a fully matured form of this general type, all the institutional modifications remaining within the limits of this type.  Hence, even though canonicity is a matter of community life-norms, or polities, the contents of the Old Testament are not to be subdivided into several canons according to their relation to the several stages in Israel’s polity.

In other words, the biblical theological thing people do of tracing “kingship” through the Bible to include Adam, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, the Judges, etc. as sort of “semi-kings” is, well, biblical.  No-one would argue with that practice, in fact it’s quite a chic thing to do in current evangelical circles.

But then we must affirm with Kline, that the Mosaic law is here self-consciously legislating in a manner that is adaptable, according to a higher principle.  These abrogated laws still played a role, therefore, in informing the life of Israel, such as Jehoshaphat’s incorporation of Levites and priests into the judicial system when reforming Israel.  His actions (2 Chron 19v8ff) seem to be clearly informed by the then abrogated laws of Deut 17v8-13.

Bad biblical theology can sometimes do what Kline warns against – and treat the New Covenant church as having the same typological shape and nature as that of Israel.  Kline rightly, and consistent with Reformed hermeneutic, excludes that.  However, an essential distinction has been drawn within the law, a distinction that the Westminster Confession labels as “judicial” laws, and the 39 Articles label as “civil”.  This distinction, as Kline has demonstrated, can be observed to be derivable from the Mosaic law itself.  He goes on to carefully define its implications for moving from old-new covenant obligations, p109:

Only in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments does the church possess infallible norms of faith and conduct.  But though all the faith-norms of Scripture are, of course, permanent, not all the norms of conduct, or life-norms, found in Scripture are currently normative.  When it comes to distinguishing among the life-norms those which have been abrogated from those which are still normative, the core of the problem centers in the relation of the life-norms of the Old Testament to the life of the church.

Analysis of the data may be clarified by approaching the matter with an historically and legally more precise concept of canon.  If the covenantal concept of canon is utilized, in which the nuclear or definitive aspect of canonicity is discovered in the area of community polity, the basic relevant distinction that emerges is the distinction between individual life-norms and covenant community life-norms.  It is the community life-norms, or polities, that are subject to abrogation as the covenant order undergoes major change.

In my final post in this series I will try to synthesize some of this stuff, and offer a conceptual illustration of how Kline’s work can help explain the relationship between the testaments.

The Tripartite Division of the Law is Not Arbitrary

It is claimed that the tripartite division is an arbitrary set of distinctions imposed upon scripture, and so shouldn’t be used to determine the exegesis of a passage.  If Paul was not aware of the distinction between moral, civil and ceremonial, then how could he employ that distinction in his letters?

The problem is so many people presuppose this point: that the division is a set of extra biblical categories and not derived from scripture itself.  The classical Reformed view on the law is then simply dismissed.  I’m not going to attempt to construct an air tight case for the tripartite division which destroys all possible disagreement – but I do want to demonstrate that it cannot be simply dismissed on the basis that there is no biblical case to disagree with in the first place.

1. In scripture, unity does not rule out diversity.  It is often argued that because the law is a united whole, and is spoken of as such, it cannot be considered to be made up of three parts.  I reply, there are not three parts, there is one united law, but within that unity there is diversity.

Deuteronomy testifies to the unity and diversity of the law by referring to both at the same time, take Deuteronomy 6:1 for example (ESV):

Now this is the commandment [singular], the statutes and the rules [plural]…

The diversity is not only expressed in the plural, but also in the use of different terms to describe the content of the law.  More on that in a moment, but the point here is simply that diversity exists and is not logically ruled out by unity.

2. The Old and New Testaments recognise hierarchy within the Mosaic Law.  There are clearly distinctions made between different types of commandments.  The most often cited example would be Hosea 6:6:

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

The term “sacrifice” here is associated by Jesus with a wider category of legal demands.  So, love for sinners is desired rather than ritual purity from contamination by them (Matt 9:13); later kindness is desired, not Sabbath observance (Matt 12:7).  Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for failing to recognise this hierarchical distinction within the law, and he does not seem to think Hosea 6:6 only refers literally to sacrifices, but a more general principle.

David clearly recognises a distinction between the act of sacrifice, and the heart attitude of repentance (Psalm 51:16-17).

3. Scripture itself uses different words to describe different commandments, recognising that different commandments have different qualities.  Jonathan F. Bayes has written a great essay on the threefold division of the law and makes the point about scripture’s language very clearly (while you’re there, you may want to check out more stuff from the Christian Institute – great Anglican public theology).

He uses the example of Deuteronomy 5:31, which has the three most common words that are used to distinguish between the different aspects of the law:

I will tell you the whole commandment and the statutes and the rules

One must be very careful when doing word studies, but they can render very fruitful results if done responsibly.  In his excellent exposition of Psalm 119, Bible Delight, Christopher Ash similarly demonstrates how the eight words used to refer to God’s Law in that Psalm each carry different nuances, and are used together to convey a variety of ideas (pp 32-42).

Now at different points of scripture the different terms for God’s law may be used (a) as synonyms of each other, (b) to emphasise different aspects of the law, or (c) to refer to different qualities within the law.  Even as early as Moses’ description of Abraham we have these different terms being deployed to describe his obedience (Gen 26:5).

4. Paul clearly assumes divisions between moral and cultural laws. In Romans 2, Paul demonstrates how all people are condemned: those under the law are condemned by the law; those outside the law will perish because they do not have the law (which is the route to life).

Spiritual life does not consist in becoming a Jew and getting under the law.  Neither does it consist in becoming a Gentile and getting out from under the law.  Paul shall argue that salvation comes through Christ, whom will fulfil the law to provide salvation.

“Law” is always the route to salvation, but only if it’s obeyed.  Gentiles can’t obey it because they don’t have it.  Jews can’t obey it because they’re sinful.  Christians have obeyed it, because Jesus has obeyed it for them.

As part of his argument in Romans 2, Paul distinguishes between two aspects of the law, verses 14-16:

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.  They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

Notice: (a) There is a distinction between the law the Gentiles do not have, and yet what is written on their hearts; (b) Yet this is simultaneously the same law; (c) This law is the basis for the final judgement.

Paul assumes a distinction in the law between the moral (the normative role of the law as the basis upon which all will be judged) and the cultural (the law’s role in distinguishing Jews and Gentiles).  Yet it is the same law being talked about.

5. Whatever the hermeneutic of the New Testament, the end result is a tripartite application of the Law.  It is true that the tripartite division has been wrongly used by people within the Reformed tradition.  Sometimes it has been too liberally employed as “the” mysterious key to bridging the biblical theological jump from Old to New Testament without enough exegetical control.

I don’t think Calvin does treat the tripartite division as biblical theology’s hermeneutical key (as I’ll try to show later), but I want to argue here that whatever the hermeneutic used by the New Testament: the end result is the tripartite division.  Let’s see some examples.

Some laws have become adiaphora, such as circumcision (Gal 6:15), food laws (Rom 14:6, 13-14), holy days (Rom 14:5-6).  We might also include purity rites and the Nazirite vow, as it seems Paul was free to continue to obey these (Acts 21:23-24).  These things are only treated as gospel issues when they are turned into something more than adiaphora.

Of course some laws have already – before the advent of the New Testament – begun to be abrogated.  Such as laws regulating Israel’s government, and monarchy.  Paul feels free to make a tactical decision to appeal to the Roman courts over-above the Jewish courts (Acts 25:1-12).

Hebrews argues that the entire cult was abrogated by Christ (Heb 10:9).  How can it be that the cult is abrogated, and Christians are taught to dissociate themselves with the cult and the earthly Jerusalem (Heb 13:9-16; Gal 4:21-26), and yet as we saw Paul can continue to obey various purity rites (Acts 21:23-24)?  Some sort of distinction is made between these laws as the New Testament applies them to believers lives.

Finally, Paul clearly applies the law to believers lives expecting it to be obeyed.  Not just the commandments which were affirmed by Jesus (Eph 6:1-3), but also seemingly obscure commandments, such as in 1 Cor 9:8-10:

then explainsDo I say these things on human authority?  Does not the Law say the same?  For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned?  Does he not speak entirely for our sake?  It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing the crop.

Paul clearly thinks the law speaks to Gentile Christians authoritatively.   This commandment abides for them.  It’s no good arguing that this is an apostolic reinterpretation of the commandment as Paul is referring to the law as a higher authority above himself – here he does not merely speak on human authority because scripture pronounces on the matter.  Paul is confident of his authority as an apostle, but that is not his argument here.

Neither can we say that we cannot ever figure out how the Corinthians understood the verse – because Paul explains it for us and it’s pretty straightforward.  Paul treats the law like an ANE law code (which it is) – it demonstrates a principle, ANE legal culture did not spell everything out in minutiae as we do in the West today (no paper you see).

The real concern of the law is with people, not oxen.  Even though the principle is illustrated using oxen, it is rightly and properly applied to men and women.  Paul even spells out the principle: he who does the work should get the reward.

In the NT, some OT laws are treated as ceremonial depictions of Jesus.  Some of them are treated as distinctly Jewish, either cultural or legal.  Some of them are treated as abiding and authoritative, even for Gentile Christians.

6. The commands of the New Testament themselves contain elements which are moral, civil and ceremonial.  It’s argued that even if we can see evidence of tripartite distinction in the law when we look at it with the hindsight of the NT, the Jews would never have been able to make such distinctions before Jesus.  For them the whole law was given from God.  It is then argued that this opaqueness remains for us also – therefore we can only “categorise” laws that are explicitly mentioned in the NT.

But this does not ring true of New Testament law.  Any evangelical will recognise that there are distinctions of importance, nature and quality in the commands of the New Testament, even though scripture never explicitly outlines the categories for us.

What about the “command” to repent and believe in Jesus.  Is faith a “command” – a “law” – just like any other?  No.  That has been suggested in evangelical circles recently by the New Perspective and the Federal Vision, and many of us in response have drawn clear distinctions between the command to believe and the commands to live ethical lives.  Right distinctions, but not distinctions that the NT explicitly draws for us.  We’re just being adults, and recognising that the gospel makes such distinctions necessary and possible.

Or what about the Great Commission?

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

The Salvation Army evangelise and teach, but they do not baptise.  Many Anglo-Catholics and liberals baptise, but they do not evangelise and teach.  Tell me, Evangelical, are they both in equal error?  No!

I think the Salvation Army are wrong to teach but not to baptise, but that is nowhere near as serious as baptising but not teaching.  But does the Great Commission explicitly say this?  No.  But just like for the Israelite regarding the Mosaic law, the shape of salvation teaches me to recognise the difference between different commands in the NT law.

In the NT we have:

Moral commands: e.g. sexual ethics (1 Cor 5); instructions for marriage and relationships (1 Cor 7); and for family life (Eph 5:22-6:9); personal moral conduct (Rom 12; Eph 5; Col 3); instructions for engaging with society (Rom 13:1-7).

Judicial commands: e.g. instructions for dealing with disagreements in relationship to the church leadership (Matt 18:15-20); specific requirements for the conduct of meetings (1 Cor 14); including instructions which depend on gender (1 Cor 11; 1 Tim 2).

Ceremonial commands: baptism and the Lord’s Supper

These distinctions clearly exist, and they determine how we treat the particular issue, its importance, its relevance, what sphere it needs to be dealt with in, etc.  Disagreements over gender roles in church meetings, for example, are very different from disagreements over sexual ethics.

I’m sure we could find more examples.  There are clear distinctions in New Testament law, which are not explicitly outlined in the New Testament.  Yet we know what those distinctions are and consider them crucial.  The Israelites did not need three big tick lists to distinguish between moral, civil and ceremonial.  Neither do we.

7. Wisdom is the hermeneutical tool needed to distinguish to what extent different laws are moral, civil, or ceremonial.  This involves deriving hermeneutical principles from scripture shaped by the nature of God and his salvation (e.g. the outstanding work of Christopher Wright).  Just about no area of exegesis or Christian discernment can be done with a clear grid which applies flatly in rigorously black and white terms everywhere.  Similarly, you can’t specifically fit different laws directly and neatly into the different categories.  That doesn’t mean the categories aren’t useful or biblical.

Even if you disagree with what I’ve said here, at least we must acknowledge that there is a biblical case to be made for the tripartite division.  I hope I have at least demonstrated that the tripartite division can’t be simply dismissed as arbitrary.  There is at least a scriptural case that needs to be refuted.

Here is Article VII of the Church of England’s 39 Articles of Religion in its entirety:

The Old Testament is not contrary to the New: for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to Mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and Man, being both God and Man.  Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look only for the transitory promises.  Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral.

The most common objection to the tripartite division is that the categories moral, civil, and ceremonial are arbitrary, and being arbitrary, Reformed theologians end up doing exegesis by picking and choosing which category to read particular texts through.

I’m going to try and show you that’s not the case.

First, we’ll look at some biblical foundations for the tripartite division. Then we’ll look two Reformed theologians.  From the 16th century we’ll take a quick look at how John Calvin treats the law in his commentary on Galatians.  From the 20th century we’ll take a look at the breathtaking work of Meredith G. Kline.  Finally, I’ll attempt to illustrate the prima facie reasonableness of the tripartite division.

This post became so incredibly long, that I’m going to publish it as a series.

Josiah can’t really follow an “argument” as such.  At this age, he can grasp concrete ideas, with only the simplest of logical steps involved (such as DVD=Star Wars=Darth Vader… so bug daddy for the DVD).  With someone that young, who thinks that simply, what does the “gospel” look like?

A classical evangelical might start with “Jesus died on the cross for your sins“.  In fact, until a few years ago, that’s precisely where I would have started.  However, 2 things have made me think twice about it.  First, the sentence is actually much more complicated than it appears on the surface.  Josiah doesn’t really know what death is, nor the cross, nor what sins are.  Each of these concepts would require quite a lot of unpacking before the sentence begins to have any sort of concrete reality for him.  Secondly, the sentence is not applied to the heart.  There’s been a real groundswell in the last few years among classical evangelicals, reacting to what they see as dry intellectualism within our tradition.  The statement that Jesus died for you sins is just an intellectual proposition – how does that intellectual idea actually impact Josiah’s heart?

A solution to this second problem that is often put forward is to appeal to people’s hearts.  Researching a paper at college recently on pornography, I read a lot of recently published evangelical books on intimacy and dealing with lust.  Almost all of them advocated the same thing – find your true heart’s desire in God, and learn to delight in him.  As a pastoral “way in” to the gospel, we might translate this for our toddlers by saying “God is lovely, love him.”

While I agree with the diagnosis – evangelicalism has suffered from an intellectual dryness in my circles – I take issue with the corrective that’s often offered.  Replacing outward conformity to the law, and a merely intellectual assent to truth, with love for God is not the gospel.  How many times I’ve felt beaten over the head with the statement “You should feel…” when often I honestly don’t feel – I’ve struggled with depression on and off since I was a child!  The law requires that I love God.  Outward conformity was only ever a false interpretation of the law (at no stage of salvation history did God require anything less than whole person commitment and perfection).  So telling my child to love God is not telling them the gospel – it’s telling them the law, which they need to know but in the context of the gospel.  But that still leaves the question – how do I tell my toddler the gospel?

Tom Wright’s brand of the New Perspective emphasises that the gospel isn’t all about me and my salvation, actually it’s all about Jesus being made Lord of the universe.  An NP version of the gospel for my toddler might be “Jesus is Lord.”  The problem with this is it’s not immediately obvious how this gospel is good news for me.  Of course it is good news, I’m just saying it’s not immediately obvious how.  My toddler requires a lot of explanation about the Jesus who is Lord, he needs to be taught what it means for this Jesus to be Lord – and for the NP, I will even probably need to explain to him what we mean by the word is!  So, again, how do I tell my toddler the gospel?

The Federal Vision is a movement of (primarily) North American Presbyterians who’s particular niche theological movement all arose from thinking about precisely this question.  My analysis of the Federal Vision is that they have essentially fused a baptist attitude to the sacraments with paedobaptistic practice, and then borrowed a lot of stuff from the New Perspective, Norman Shepherd, and Christian Reconstructionism to fill in the gaps.  It’s all packaged in Reformed labels, but much of the content is different (even if some of their critique of contemporary “Reformed” theology did have a point).  The FVer, emphasising the continuity between parent and child from what seems to be a sociological perspective, would likely say to their child “God is your God, keep trusting in him, and he’ll stay your God“.  The problem is, ultimately, just like the latest evangelical trend to tell people to “love God” more and to “feel passionate” about God, this falls into the same trap… it focuses on the child’s need to respond to God, this time by trusting him.  In some FV systems (there is more than one) this becomes practically Arminian, because God’s decree of election is hidden… not only his decision whether or not to elect other people, but even his decision to elect me or not.

So how do I tell my toddler the gospel?

I think that John is summarising the gospel in 1 John 4:10:

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

The law says “love God”, the gospel says “God loves you”.  The Anglican catechism (which I’m supposed to teach to my children before they get confirmed) begins with 3 questions that are all about what God has given me: my identity, my godparents, and my faith.  Question 4 then tells me that I am “bound to believe, and to do…” based on the start that they have given me.  And the first thing I then do myself, is pray that God will give me grace to continue.  In other words: God first loves me.  Both temporally, and logically.  Both at the beginning, and in the present, and at the end.

The catechism then goes on to explain the creed (God’s work to save me), the law (my response to him), and prayer and the sacraments (the means of God’s grace whereby I am strengthened to respond to him).  The catechism ends with a description of the requirements for coming to the Lord’s supper, part of which is:

have a lively faith in God’s mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of his death;

“Faith” is here understood in Calvinistic terms.  It is the response of someone who knows that God loves them.  Calvin puts it like this (Institutes 3.2.7):

Now we shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

Here, then, is how I tell my toddler the gospel: Daddy loves you, but the good news is Jesus loves you even more.  Josiah can now fill in the ending himself.  I say to him every day “Jos, daddy loves you… but what’s the good news?”  And Josiah says “Jesus loves me even more.”  And he is visually encouraged by it.

This is applied to the heart, it can be understood immediately without explanation, and it’s concrete (grounded in daddy’s love).  What’s more, all sorts of future applications are pregnant in it.  When Josiah starts to recognise daddy’s sin, we have a basis for explaining why Jesus is better.  When Josiah sins against other people, we have a basis for helping him understand the spiritual significance of sin (God loves those people you hurt).  Therefore we have a route in to explaining God’s wrath, that will equip Josiah apologetically in the future (daddy is angry when people hurt Jos because I love Jos; God is angry when we hurt anyone because he loves everyone).

Finally, this is the basis for all pastoral care for my son.  I struggle with depression on and off because for various reasons I find it really hard to know deep down that God loves me.  Right from the start, wouldn’t it be great to begin dealing with every problem that arises by agreeing with our children: “Well, we know that God loves us, so…”

It strikes me as very interesting that Matthew would show us that, at that moment, the person who looked most concerned for the poor was Judas.  He passes himself off as more concerned for the poor than Jesus himself.  Judas does that by disparaging a poor person for honouring Jesus as the one who brings spiritual salvation from sin.

Where else do people make themselves look compassionate, and concerned about the poor, by disparaging the focus others have on the spiritual work of Jesus?  Wherever we see that, we’re seeing someone who looks like Judas.

There Paul describes beautifully, that no man lives to the law, but he to whom the law is dead, that is, has lost all power and efficacy; for, as soon as the law begins to live in us, it inflicts a fatal wound by which we die, and at the same time breathes life into the man who is already dead to sin. Those who live to the law, therefore, have never felt the power of the law, or properly understood what the law means; for the law, when truly perceived, makes us die to itself, and it is from this source, and not from Christ, that sin proceeds.

There is a great article in the latest Churchman by Dan Wu (Winter, 2010, pp 343-56), a student at Moore Theological College, with a fresh (and persuasive) look at Romans 7.  What’s particularly impressive is the way he takes a complex and heavily debated book, yet manages to cut through the dense smog of scholarship, and present a simple presentation of Paul’s argument that is still sensitive to the development of Paul’s thought, rather than attempting to impose an artificial structure on the chapter.

Wu identifies the much debated “I” of Romans 7 as the person who lives in the flesh, in contrast to the person who lives by the Spirit in chapter 8.  This solution has a lot to commend it.  However, in conclusion Wu rules the law out of place in developing  a Christian ethic.  Instead the Spirit replaces the law.  He explicitly rejects “Wright’s suggestion that the new life consists of Spirit-enabled obedience to the Torah.” (p 353)  He calls for more thought and exegetical work on this as “the place of the Spirit in ethics has been an area of weakness in Evangelical thinking.” (p 354)

It’s only this last step that raises a question for me, since I find Calvin’s view of the law has merit (so to speak).  There is, as in the quote above, a third use of the law as a rule of life for the Christian.  Insofar as this is what Wright means, he is in line with the Reformed tradition within Evangelicalism at this point.  Also, I may be mistaken, but I’m reticent to accept the assertion that the Spirit in ethics has been a weakness of Evangelical thinking.  What about John Owen?  Reformed Evangelicalism has a rather considered doctrine of the Spirit, to which John Owen has contributed not a little. The Spirit works through God’s Word written to reveal God’s Word incarnate.  Unsurprisingly, then, Paul’s ethic is derived from the scriptures, and founded upon Christ.  The Spirit conforms us to the likeness of Christ, and he does this through the Word of God, which testifies to the person and work of Christ.  Since the Law is Christian scripture (and for the early church their only scripture), the Spirit teaches me to see Christ in the Law, and hence conforms me further to his image through the Law.  Consistent with Calvin’s thought, if I live by the Law, then I am dead to Christ, but if by the Spirit and through the Law I die to the Law, then the Spirit reveals the Christ in the Law, leading me into life.

I don’t quite understand how the Spirit establishes a Christian ethic, if he doesn’t do this through the scriptures of the Old Covenant.

Got chatting to a wise friend at college, who said that during marriage prep, he’d received some great advice, which was when reading the Bible with his wife, they should probably just stick to Psalms and Proverbs.  Seeing that Kate and I have always struggled to read the Bible together, perhaps that would be a good idea.

So, perhaps it maybe is wise to recognise that the Lord has given us lots of different genres to match the different settings and stages of our lives.  On Sunday, I want my pastor to cover the whole sweep of Biblical material systematically from the pulpit.  But maybe Kate and I will read wisdom together, with the boys we’ll do stories, and on my own I’ll tackle some epistles, and some prophets.

If you have any good tips for devotional time individually, within marriage, or for the whole family, do pass them on!

In church today during a sermon on Exodus 16, I noticed that the Hebrews called manna by its Hebrew name מָן because when they saw it, they said מָן הוּא, which means “What’s this?” The normal word for “what?” is מָה, but I think the ן on the end (which has swallowed up the ה, a common morphological feature) is a paragogic nun. The paragogic nun in this case may make this unusual word for “what?” a slightly more emphatic one (“What?!?”). Either way, when a Hebrew reads Exodus 16, I think every time they read about the bread from heaven, they’re reminded of that question the Israelites asked when they first saw it: “Hmmmm… what is this?” It is more than just bread, it has a deeper significance.

Anyway, noticed something about John 6 as well. In v30, after Jesus has fed the 5,000, the people say to Jesus “Τί οὖν ποιεῖς σὺ σημεῖον, ἵνα ἴδωμεν καὶ πιστεύσωμέν σοι;” Commonly translated with the future tense, e.g. NIV “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you?” However, the word ποιεῖς is (and I subsequently discovered the ESV translates it as) a present tense verb. The ESV has the question “Then what sign do you do… ?” But I might also render it like this “Therefore, what sign are you doing… ?” The question could simply be a direct question about the feeding of the 5,000. The use of the present, rather than the past, may simply be to emphasise the nearness of the action they’re asking about (my current working model for understanding Greek tenses is Con Cambell’s). The striking thing about this, is how similar their question felt to me in church, having just read Exodus 16:15 “וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישֹ אֶל־אָחִיו מָן הוּא כִּי לֹא יָדְעוּ מַה־הוּא” meaning “And they said a man to his brother ‘What is this?!?’ For they did not know what it was.”

What is this? The Exodus generation ask. What is the sign you are doing? Jesus’ generation ask. The Exodus generation did not understand what the bread was, and neither did Jesus’ generation. They think their fathers ate bread (Jn 6:31), but the ensuing discussion is all about what that bread from heaven really is (vv. 32-58). The fathers ate the bread, but so long as it remained manna to them (What?), they did not eat of it truly. Only those who truly discerned the “what?” of the bread, truly ate of it. That is precisely how Moses explains the manna in Deuteronomy 8:3.

Biblical Theology

This suggests that it’s a mistake to take Jesus’ words in Jn 6:57-58 as being a disparagement of the types of the Old Testament as being simply physical, replaced by the spiritual of the New Testament. The manna itself was spiritual, sacramental, a type of something beyond it’s own physical existence… there was a “What?” behind it. But that “What?” was only apprehended by faith, which most of the fathers didn’t have. It is in this way that the one who has life in Jesus eats “not as the fathers ate and died” (v. 58). That is not a lesson to eat Hovis rather than Warburtons, it’s a lesson that the bread from heaven is only effective for those who receive it rightly, and therefore apprehend Jesus by faith.

How significant is this incident? Very! There are only two miracles that appear in all four Gospels: the resurrection, and the feeding of the 5,000. There are four perspectives of telling the gospel story in the Bible, and these two miracles are obviously necessary for all of them. Let’s put that in perspective, the feeding of the 5,000 is told 4 times, the feeding of the 4,000 is thrown in for good measure by some Gospel writers also. But the birth of Jesus is something Mark feels it’s ok to skip over to get to the really core bits of the gospel story he wants to tell, similarly John, even though his introduction, and his whole book, are all about the incarnation. Mark even makes the understanding of the loaves a fundamental marker of the disciples’ spiritual state (Mk 6:52; 8:14-21).

In fact, this incident is so important, because within it is a little summary of the biblical theology of the whole of Israel. We haven’t reached Sinai yet, we haven’t got to the (oh so widely disputed and misunderstood) Mosaic covenant, the manna is keeping Israel alive in the wilderness so that she can reach the promised land. That’s pretty safe Abrahamic covenant territory surely? God’s covenant fidelity depends on him bringing Israel alive into Canaan, even swearing a self-maledictory oath to that effect (Gen 15:12-21). Therefore, later, Moses appeals on the basis of this oath for God not to wipe Israel out (Ex 32:12-13). And yet, there’s stuff here about disobeying God’s commandments (Ex 16:28), even about the Sabbath (v. 29)! What the heck is going on?

Well, I think the little picture we have here is a great illustration why Calvin was right to say that “By solemn ritual did God sanction His covenant with Abraham and his posterity, that he would be their God for ever and ever. (Genesis 15:9.) Tables of this covenant were ratified by the hand of Moses, and intrusted, as a peculiar treasure, to the people of Israel…” The Abrahamic covenant is the Mosaic covenant, unsurprising since the Abrahamic covenant had commandments all along (Gen 12:1; 17:1; 22:16-18). Heck, James even explicitly points out the logic of that last passage, James 2:22-24, saying that Abraham’s faith was completed by his works, he was justified by his works, and the statement that he was justified by faith was fulfilled in his works. That’s not to say that Abraham wasn’t justified by faith alone in Genesis 15, but that the nature of that faith is demonstrated in Genesis 22. It is precisely because Abraham is already very safely justified by faith, thank you very much, that his works have any meaning or significance whatsoever. Abraham does things that genuinely do please God, only because he has already been made pleasing. But, as James says, if Abraham said that he believed God, yet didn’t ever act on God’s word, then his supposed “trust” in what God says would be highly questionable, would it not? Surprise, surprise, that’s even how the narrator and angel of the Lord explain the whole incident for us (Gen 22:1, 12).

On the part of Abraham, this is covenant fielty. Submission to God. Which is what’s missing for some in the manna incident. The people don’t believe God’s promise that the manna collected on Friday will be sufficient for the Sabbath (Gen 16:22-26), and so they break God’s command (Gen 16:27-30). Ironically, God’s command is: “REST!” The very thing they’d cried out for in Egypt (to which they wish now to return, v. 3). The commandments of the Mosaic law, like the commandment to gather the manna and rest on the Sabbath, are supposed to be the fulfilment of faith. Abraham was justified by believing (12:1), and this worked itself out in being holy (17:1). The 10 commandments basically flesh out Gen 17:1. They offer life to he who does them (Lev 18:5). Of course, there are two ways of keeping God’s commandments. Either I can keep them like Abraham did (believing God, and being counted just, I now faithfully obey and that’s counted to me as righteousness, because I am already righteous), or I can try and keep them differently to Abraham, by just being perfect in and of myself. A truly dumb thing to attempt, but some people did (Romans 9:30-32).

What… is the manna? Is it an external thing that I collect to keep myself alive, irrespective of God’s true provision of life (his Word, Deut 8:3)? Or is it an external expression of the promise of God that I have apprehended behind it? The “hidden” manna, Jesus (Rev 2:17). If it’s the former, then I will find myself impugned by the commandment, my obedience after all (considered on its own, apart from Jesus) is nothing but a mire of failure. If it’s the second, then I’ll find myself refreshed by the commandment, not just externally but inwardly fed, and my work will be reckoned righteous despite all it’s flaws and failures (Psalm 106:31).