Tag Archives: Covenant Theology

January 17, 2012

Baptism Last Call

By Pooka

Cover for Item ReviewedContinuing from Sunday’s Baptism Retread, I want to demonstrate this from my own past and that of my kids. My oldest, was “baptized” into a pagan family. She was born to witches and dedicated in accordance with her family’s beliefs. No choice there.

Now we were more honest than Christians at the time as well. We, as parents, determined to raise our daughter with freedom to choose her beliefs by not explicitly indoctrinating her into witchcraft’s creeds or practices. Credo-baptist Christians do not do this with their own – they create a half-way dilemma for their kids in which the dedication and upbringing are Christian, but do not provide for inclusion in the covenant family of God. Essentially, this creates pagans being accepted into the family and church. Does the term Christian-in-name-only come to mind?

The world has the concept of baptism down perfectly. Children born outside the church, to non-Christian families are “baptized” into the religion of their fathers by full acceptance as just what they are; no “of age” requirements or professions of faith required at any point in order to become part of the family or culture or nation.

Once again, it seems most natural to me to think that the position of “believer’s baptism” as the only acceptable view of baptism is backward and unfaithful to the Scripture and God’s revealed system.

For additional reference:

I find that the arguments against paedobaptism are similar to the arguments against paedocommunion. I think that the analyses of PC are fitting where they do not similarly suit PB. Analyses of PB included in these references point toward validating the baptism of infants and young children. So far, it appears that PC isn’t for minor children because of the complexity, obligation and depth of the Lord’s Supper as opposed to baptism.

OPC paedocommunion – a great layout of the scriptural and historical grounds concerning paedocommunion.

PCA paedocommunion – a collection of position papers and statements on the issue.

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January 15, 2012

Baptism Retread

By Pooka

http://www.newlifelamesa.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/hero-baptism.jpg

I have a few more thoughts on infant baptism. Stuff I didn’t mention here in three big arguments for covenant baptism.

Primarily, I’d like to discuss this in a way that demonstrates how God’s system permeates even our “godless” society and traditions. Children are remarkably claimed by everything into which they are born, except for One Big Thing which mystifies me to no end. A year ago I was unsettled and unwilling to commit to the idea of infant, or covenant, baptism. It was foreign to me, and didn’t make much sense. I was more than willing to at least explore the idea, being more than aware that my Christian education was lacking in most areas, especially in the Reformed ideas of covenants and sacraments. So I read. And read and read. And then I wrote. And wrote.

Denial of infant baptism actually breaks a pattern that has been running for millenia. I’ll keep it really brief. Children have had no choice in things like birth-parents, family name, Christian name, nationality, race, religion or what’s-for-dinner for as long as children have been around. Why in the world do we come up with the idea that they are not members of the church? The church is not a business that only “hires” people of legal working age. The church has never been a club that “cards” prospective patrons to see if they’re old enough to enter. The church has ever been considered an outpost, a consulate or embassy of God’s kingdom in the world. Therefore, I think it should make sense to baptize infants with the understanding that essentially is corroborated by practices of historical and modern custom and legal matters. Here are some references.

Birth abroad … Citizenship … Family Law Basics

Now, to quell the suspicion that I’m using the World to interpret the Bible in a Christian issue that needs to be resolved, I must refer back to my previous posts and the Word in general to make the claim that there’s no argument here. The Scriptures assume, just as they assume covenants in general, that children born to believing parents (or covenant families) are considered participants in the covenants. Isaac did not have to wait to be the covenant child until Genesis 24. Jacob and Esau did not have to wait until they were “of age” to begin the battle of who would be the continuation of the Promise. The firstborn children of Israel had no say in their survival on the day of the passover when the Lord’s angel came into Egypt and started the holocaust.

In every case of children I can think of, none had to prove themselves or hit a certain age before they were anointed or circumcised or sprinkled. Children were partakers of the covenants of God as soon as they entered into the world. The fact that there was this mysterious baptism thing in the New Testament really doesn’t come to bear on the children:

  1. They didn’t need to be included in the revision of being called out: They inherited whatever was going to happen, regardless, because they were children.
  2. Baptism was simply a modal shift from circumcision, not an entirely new practice that completely wiped out all past meaning and practices from the times of the Patriarchs. In fact, Baptism wasn’t even an entirely new idea in the first place. What people apparently are all worked up over was nothing more than the most obvious and poignant means of “setting apart” or “cutting off” seen in circumcision. Baptism, sprinkling, anointing and other means of marking the one who belonged to the covenant all made it into the omnibus version of applying God’s promises in word and touch – baptism.
  3. They weren’t the main actors! Those in the New Testament were primarily conversant adults because they were required to interact with Jesus and His apostles on the level at which the Scriptures speak. And those adults were automatically responsible for those children.
  4. Jesus gave it to them, without mention of their age or eligibility: Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14)

Finally, we who are believers in the doctrine of election, of God’s sovereignty, all should be convinced that it is God’s work and choice that we have become His children and that we were not really given the option to turn to Him for our salvation. He dragged us, kicking and screaming, from our place at the brink of hell into His courts where we may enjoy Him forever. What more could help us to understand that His children are as much in our place as we are? More so, for we were afar off, but our children, born into our Christian families and churches are not so far off, are they?

I hope that helps.

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December 6, 2011

My Liturgy Is My Litany Is My Liberty

By Pooka

This is another long one. If it’s too much, here’s one possible executive summary: We can’t think covenantally (read correctly) because of sin: We’ve made our covenant with ourselves and the rest of life in Christ is the removal of that lasting, bonded, covenant to self.

One of our great afflictions in this generation is the near extinction of a mindset that is vital to relationships and our correct view of just about everything. We’re missing the concept of commitment. The shadow of this problem has been growing for a long time, in many parts of our western culture for certain.

I’ve read and listened to thousands of words about how world wars have caused such devastation, being the ultimate manifestations of evil in the 20th century. The result that seems to be a common thread in WWI, II, and all the big, destructive conflicts surrounding them is that people have lost their sense of anything being worth it. Sometimes I’ve heard “where is God?” in response to the cataclysms but I think that more, there’s been a doubt that arises from this question that is more deadly. “Why should I commit to the God who isn’t there?”

Also, the increase in ease of life, communication, mobility have all sugar-coated this almost instant liberty from commitment by making us freer to choose (ironically). We can easily vacillate between what we want to do, what we can do and what we should do. We have no need to put down roots and abide somewhere, in something or on something, since picking up and trucking off are as simple as gassing up the infernal combustion machine and throwing a box of clothes in the trunk. We can now delete what we’ve said, obliterate the meaning of what we decide not to delete with an update, or even put meaningful, ambiguous half-speech before the masses that can be read any of a dozen ways none of which commit us to anything.

I’ll list some of the things I see as contributors: Cars, the Web and social media, phones, freeways and airways, free or near-free publishing. All of these are just pieces in the big Lego set of “freedom” that gives us choice. It can go back to the Framers in our American history, who laid the groundwork for protection of our liberties, but strangely enough opened the floodgates just enough that we could begin to define our liberties by greater leaps and bounds every day. Now we see public protests for any reason under the sun, laymen making commentary on anything and everything of which they know less than nothing (yers truly included) and completely unqualified candidates for positions that once required not just qualifications but the wherewithal to commit to the demands of the positions. I speak in generalities because it’s all over – I’m not criticizing just One or promoting an agenda.

Of course, it’s sin. Full rounded freedom to do just what we want is just what we all want. And so, with no commitments, no reason to commit, we define our own fiction, a story that casts us in the center of everything. The very circles in which we run are self-licking ice cream cones that uplift the individual so that each of us in a group can say that the group is us and we uphold the group. We’ve committed to just one thing, ourselves, which is precisely what Adam did in the garden, wanting his own edification and significance. All other bets are off. We’re free to clean out our Facebook friend list at any time, delete our Tweets, rebuild the Lego set as many times as we’d like or drop off the grid just by unplugging the idiot box, starting the car and driving off to a new place. Maybe a season at The Burning Man will do me good.

So we have this intense difficulty looking at the Bible with a frame of mind that truly understands it. We can’t seem to understand the concept of commitment because we’ve been raised free from the mandate of commitment. Billboards claim “your way” or “define yourself” or “rethinking you” while banks, stores, services and forums all call for us to contribute our thoughts and preferences in detail that reaches all the way to the packaging on a jug of milk. And so with the Bible, green, military, woman’s, child’s, MacArthur’s, Reformation, survivor’s, Purpose Driven, College, (enough yet?). Since we are free to choose anything, we cannot come to the Word of God and understand that we cannot choose anything. Funny that by driving ourselves to the point that we can choose all, we’ve bound ourselves in our lives to a litany of choice. Our liturgy is to pause in reflection before any event or action and consider not whether it is profitable or required, but whether it is good for me or worth my while.

So is it truly a wonder that we cannot see the continuity of the Scriptures and God’s work of redemption? Is it surprising that the New Testament is all about me and the Old is all about them? Is it surprising that we’ve created circles of dedication to the Jewish Nation, Theonomic Society, Two Kingdoms, Altar Calls and Bob Jones U. or other cultural identification that we can “identify with” and will have meaningful productivity for ourselves? Distinctives should bring about suspicion in many cases. Are they distinctives that set the Word of God above party preferences, or do they facilitate personal identity and alignment to a movement or other personality? I’m not knocking loving neighbor here, I’m condemning loving self, for that is what these all-about perceptions are all about. Our “destiny” is about telling God what’s what, and joining with our neighbors in a Babel Project that brings us to the heavens or at least frees us from commitment to what we were made for.

Continuity, you say? What does that have to do with commitment? I ran off the track right?

I don’t think so. I see this every day. I have the freedom to choose whatever I want. I can choose to leave or stay, paint or draw or write or read or vegetate. I can do my work or not. I don’t have a sense of duty or higher calling. And I’ve taught my kids the same thing. I watch passively as the schools do the same thing. I think that, other than this work here on Lord and Hearth, the occasional gatherings of our folk from church in various venues and (ultimately) Sunday worship, the concept of commitment is virtually nonexistent in an epistemological way (meaning concretely, it’s more than just a cursory glance or “living” covenantally). My view of things, though growing toward an understanding of covenants, is anti-covenantal. I don’t think in terms of my marriage vows or enlistment contract. Nor do I keep in mind that my kids are my ministry-handed-down-by-God-Himself. I don’t think about how much my beloved brothers and sisters in Church are a truly covenant people. I forget, for days on end, the vows to Church and Congregation, and in suit forget to review these with my family.

But our Lord does not forget. He does not make commitments, covenants, optional – for Himself or for us. So at some point, there will be a reckoning. Fortunately for us, we who are in His church, the bride of His Son, that reckoning is weekly and we are brought to His promises and fed His promises and we hear them, touch and see them. Discipleship and discipline are tutors in covenants. The whole point is to learn that our God is a covenantal being who deals in things like guarantees, places, commitments, promises, tangibles, relationships – all those things that are concrete and inflexible. He does not quibble over current fads and movements. He uses even these to implement reiterations of His promises. And we do well to ponder these things. The ultimate Promise is that He did, in creation, set up our redemption from the very beginning and that every aspect of our redemption is founded on promises, covenants, which He alone maintains. Jesus Christ the actor, the Holy Spirit the Official Seal, God the Judge; survey the titles that are everywhere in Scripture, all promise us His faithfulness.

R. C. Sproul has spent years teaching about many things like the Holiness of God. One thing we should think about, regarding this subject is that God is the guarantee of Sproul’s work. Sproul has explained all about God’s holiness, but God is the one we must believe is going to be holy – it’s based on His Word, His clear declaration that Holy is what He is. So we have a guarantee of this. Where I can flip between personality traits, He will not. He has promised.

Reading the Word for the promises of God, for His faithfulness to make and provide for us a Savior, a satisfaction for our sin, a solution for our hopelessness, is bound to resolve many of the conflicts among us today. It is bound to “liberate” us with the freedom to seriously be committed to a beautiful goal that is depends on God’s promises rather than human frailty and fickleness.

I read an Old Life article today, which dovetails in right here (Even though the author isn’t going where I’m going). It speaks to me of more than just pastoral commitment while at the same time makes me more than a little thankful that my pastor, our pastor, has a commitment to God’s Word and the ministry thereof which takes precedent for our benefit.

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November 23, 2011

Where we go, will you go?

By Pooka

Where you go, I will go...

Here is what Ruth said to Naomi:

“Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the LORD do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.”

Here is R.C. Sproul’s note on Ruth:

The Hebrew for clung in Ruth 1:14 is the same word used to describe the marriage relationship. In other words, Ruth clung to her mother-in-law in covenant fidelity, knowing that she was bound by her promise before the face of God to remain with and aid her mother-in-law, no matter how difficult it would be. This is the same devotion we are to have to the Lord’s people today. No matter our flaws, we Christians must love and serve one another.

And Matthew Henry’s Commentary:

Nothing could be said more fine, more brave, than this. She seems to have had another spirit, and another speech, now that her sister had gone, and it is an instance of the grace of God inclining the soul to the resolute choice of the better part. Draw me thus, and we will run after thee. Her mother’s dissuasions made her the more resolute; as when Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve the Lord,” they said it with the more vehemence, “Nay, but we will.”

We might say today that no one can commit to such a thing as Ruth did without some move of the Spirit. This is an amazing speech from someone like Ruth, amazing and weighted with intensity. She’s entering into the covenant here. And we can’t think she doesn’t know what she’s saying, either. There is plenty of evidence that God’s covenantal structure was present in ancient non-Jewish traditions as well. This fine lady is dropping everything to align herself with Israel.

These are the membership vows we took upon joining our church. I’ve edited so they are personal and line up. The reference is the PCA Book of Church Order, Chapter 57.

I acknowledge myself to be a sinner in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save in His sovereign mercy. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and Savior of sinners, and I receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered in the Gospel? I now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that I will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ. I promise to support the Church in its worship and work to the best of my ability. I submit myself to the government and discipline of the Church, and promise to study its purity and peace.

I wonder that Ruth 1:16 isn’t commonly considered in the basic introduction for new believers. I certainly never encountered it. I don’t think it was covered much in the years I was in the church as a kid, either. I think this is something to plumb out in discussion with those who frequently reach out in evangelism. When we follow-up with folks, should we not use such clear examples of covenant-making? I must admit, a die-hard Arminian can see the value in Ruth’s declaration here.

Someone could say that Ruth didn’t know what she was getting into here, and was just being expedient about the whole cleaving to Naomi. Ruth just needed something to hang on to, right? I doubt it was that easy, though certainly some pragmatism should be understood. Ruth wouldn’t have a naive approach to what she committed to, considering it was a Jewish family into which she’d married and a Jewish woman with whom she was returning to Israel. Though Alimelech had taken his family out from Israel, I highly doubt he could have conceived of taking Israel out of his family. The traditions and practices would’ve remained, and from first meeting to final words in that relationship, Ruth and Orpah would have been exposed to the richness of the Israelites’ relationship to God. No doubts she had the best introduction to what she was getting into well before she committed herself to Ruth and the One True God on the roadside.

I wonder that our churches do not query us in the way that Ruth volunteered herself. I wonder if there’s anyone today who has been asked,

“Where we go, will you go? Where we lodge, will you lodge? Will our people be your people, and our God, your God? Where we die, will you die, and there be buried? Shall thus the LORD do to us, and worse, if anything but death parts you and us?”

It sounds a bit harsh for these modern days, doesn’t it?

So there’s another version:

1. Do you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save in His sovereign mercy?

2. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and Savior of sinners, and do you receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered in the Gospel?

3. Do you now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that you will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ?

4. Do you promise to support the Church in its worship and work to the best of your ability?

5. Do you submit yourselves to the government and discipline of the Church, and promise to study its purity and peace?

Updated for modern parlance and conversant with the realized covenant of Grace, of course, but isn’t it quite similar? The God of Israel instituted the church; and it is Christ’s body, sustained by Him, founded on Him, with all members finding their place in Him. We can all agree on that, it being well-developed throughout the New Testament.

So I find that this pair of vows, in Ruth and in the church are important enough to make me wonder what in the world could possibly be right about a church that refuses to require this of her members? Shouldn’t that be cause for deep concern? That one who hasn’t committed to the people of God, to Israel, to Christ is seen as an accepted, acceptable part of the Body? Good Lord! What standard is there for communion if not this? It would be like the President just walking in after elections and taking over the Oval Office without first standing in front of the nation and taking the Oath of Office! Only worse! God’s people are in office for far more than 4 years in a country far larger than one nation. We’re eternally bound to God and His country! And in our commitment, do we not absolutely have to have a door into that commitment? Dare I say a public one?

I didn’t have a problem taking the vows of membership at New Life. Now, after a year here, having learned much more about what Reformed, Confessional, Creedal and Covenantal really mean, I would retake those vows in a heartbeat, and say them again with far more gravity than the first time. I realize that we have a situation very analogous to Ruth’s covenant promise when we come to Christ’s church. I don’t see how a church could survive otherwise, for without these covenant oaths, there isn’t even a door-keeper. Ruth understood that, and said the password – and I don’t for a minute assume she didn’t intend to make this in front of God as much as Naomi and then expect to have to maintain the same before the Israel she was about to encounter.

Sheesh. The severity of these oaths, the commitment God has delivered to us, in light of the salvation He has made for us, all should take our breath away. If the continuity of God’s covenants and the Biblical consistency of our own promises which we make in return isn’t obvious by now, where can we go? I guess the test really is, at some point, to look carefully and see if we can honestly say, along with Ruth,

“where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the LORD do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.”

If that can happen, then we’ve at least the satisfaction of the keepers of the keys to Heaven.

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November 22, 2011

Rolled Back As A Scroll

By Pooka

The Clouds Rolled Back

 

There are moments when things click for us. Moments, short as a breath atop the mountain, that seem to clear the view can hit once in a long while. We learn to look forward to them; hope for them. But they’re not only brief but few. I think that’s good, since too much of a good thing ruins the impact. I wait impatiently for those glorious times when I’m absolutely in love with my wife. Those are the times when everything seems just right, the world is good and there’s nothing raging for our attention to fix, mediate or put down. They aren’t often predictable, and there’s not much I can do to increase the odds. It’s like God knows just when to make the peace happen.

Another is that split second when I grasp the depth of my sin. There are not enough moments like this wherein I really get as small as I know I am. Head knowledge is not the same as heart knowledge. Sometimes, maybe in church though not always, there’s this sudden snap-freeze in my soul that shows me how thoroughly I need my Savior. That’s a painful thing, but it’s like pressing my hand against something sharp when I need to focus or maintain control of myself – almost ecstatic to realize the Real Truth about me, if just for a heartbeat. It’s always fleeting, probably because if, like Isaiah, I’d be undone to actually pursue the depths of what I’ve only barely tasted.

The glorious value of my Savior is one that hits from time to time. I’d like to cultivate this appreciation, maybe of all these, most. It probably goes hand-in-hand with grasping my sinfulness, but if that’s the case, so be it. Sometimes we’re in church, we pray, confessing our sin and in the moments between confession and absolution the lights come on. Or at the Table, the bread comes down in the minister’s hands and I connect that with our Savior coming down, being broken for us, His church. It’s not really a “spiritual” sort of feeling, it’s like a concentrated realization of truth that’s in the head just breaking through to the heart.

I’ve recently hit the same “high” in studying on these ideas of God’s relationship, covenant and promises with His people. It’s rather overwhelming, if you think about it, to start to realize how far-reaching His faithfulness really is. I wish I could grasp the fullness of the plan of redemption made in eternity past. It’s connections to all that we’ve been told in the Scriptures is just plain awesome (I sure wish the skater crowd of yesteryear hadn’t ruined the meaning of awesome, it would sound more awesome right now).

Christ died for us because He was promised to us. Long before we came around and before He came around, He was on the way to us, the Rescuer of rescuers. When we hear the sirens coming that mean we’re to be saved from the fire, we just know it’s all going to be all right. Christ is a thousand times more than that. We have nothing to fight the blaze that is consuming our souls and spreading the destruction to every soul we touch. We’re all on fire and the Water of Life came to quench our destruction. This is what tastes best at the banquet of this religion. The realization that salvation has come, is coming, was always coming and is still to come. Our God is from everlasting to everlasting and so are His mercy and grace.

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November 21, 2011

People Are Designed Covenantally

By Pooka

The following quotes are definitions of covenant and come from a .PDF created by Grace Community Churc in PA.

Meredith Kline (1922‐2007)

…a berith (Hebrew word for covenant) is a legal kind of arrangement, a formal disposition of a binding nature. At the heart of a berith is an act of commitment and the customary oath‐form of this commitment reveals the religious nature of the transaction. The berith arrangement is no mere secular contract but rather belongs to the sacred sphere of divine witness and enforcement. The kind of legal disposition called berith consists then in a divinely sanctioned commitment. In the case of divine‐human covenants the divine sanctioning is entailed in God’s participation either as the one who himself makes the commitment or as the divine witness of the human commitment made in his name and presence.

J. Ligon Duncan

Now, berith in the Old Testament signifies a binding, mutual relationship with mutual obligations, a binding mutual relationship with attendant obligations.

Michael Horton

So what exactly is a covenant? Anticipating the definition in the next chapter, we can start by saying that from the most commonly used Hebrew word for this concept (bent), a covenant is a relationship of “oaths and bonds” and involves mutual, though not necessarily equal, commitments. As we will see shortly, some biblical covenants are unilaterally imposed commands and promises; others are entered into jointly. Some are conditional and others are unconditional. In other words, under the overarching concept of oaths and bonds we encounter a substantial variety of covenants in Scripture.

Something that I wonder at is how covenants are insanely far reaching. I think that this idea stems from God’s eternal perspective and, though we are “in time” where He is “outside time”, there is a reflection of our Lord’s span of attention. God steps in and does things that are temporal, of course, but we look at the first recorded covenant and see that it is one that comes before creation.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

This is the classic predestination verse, right? It’s covenantal language. There’s a word study on this that I think is fitting: Ephesians 1:4 and that leads to another verse, 1st Corinthians 15:22 which talks about another covenantal impact (Adam’s federal headship).

When God declares or sets a covenant, it’s not a short-deal. It lasts. The first one He made with Adam is still killing us today. The second one, about the snake and the heel? Took us right to Christ.  The promise for Noah – still on: no water apocalypse. Moses? Law still here, though in Christ we’re freed from it. Redemption – always been in God’s agenda and as soon as it was served to us in Christ, became permanent backwards and forwards.

I’m just thinking about how we, as God’s creation, were first introduced to relationships by lasting relationships, or covenant agreements. And when we tried to sidestep or violate the covenants, retribution was swift and disastrous. But the covenants were there and in force, irrevocable and lasting.

Just because men were dispersed after the garden, Babel and then reset at the flood doesn’t seem to have eradicated the existence of God’s covenants. They, we might say, are in the blood. People are designed covenantally. The effects of the fall is that we become covenant breakers.

There is no point in history where we are found free of God’s promises, threats, commitments or agreements. What is happening, though, is that we’re getting worse about the whole thing. Our sin nature is denying God’s framework more and more fanatically which brings us to today where we’ve tried to delete the concepts entirely.

I don’t know how useful this line of thought really is. It doesn’t give me much to work with. Now, it’s helped me greatly in getting what I think is an improved understanding of our weekly Covenant Renewal, which is Sunday worship. It’s helped me understand baptism and the Lord’s Table better. It’s definitely built a bit more sense of responsibility and dedication to my family. But so far as “doing something” I’m not sure there actually is something to do. Perhaps this increased understanding is a thinking-changer rather than an imperative generator.

Maybe comprehending God’s covenant system is likened to the Gospel? The Gospel is a proclamation, not a to-do list. Understanding covenants is not the same as making covenants. I’m sure that, should I encounter another relationship commencement in my lifetime, I’ll look upon it differently, but I don’t think I’m going to be taking action in my local church to affect some system of covenant-making gunk. Besides, whatever I do, as a natural covenant-breaker, isn’t going to pan out much anyhow.

It looks like, just as God created our relationships, He also sustains them and there ain’t much we can do about either. All we’re doing, as I see it, is hitching along for the ride. Elbow grease is always in response to something God has done, not to get God to do something. And He supplies the motive power for the response, too, right?

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November 18, 2011

How To Get That Old Time Religion

By Pooka

Based on yesterday’s LONG post, here’s a shorter one.

Remember this part?

A few weeks ago, I put up a little bit about how painful it must have been to be one of the convicted Pharisees at Peters Big Sermon at Pentecost (I should rename the post “Cut To The Heart Thrice“). Think about this:

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”

All the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”

Those Pharisees were almost certainly thinking of what they had done to their families! When Peter said this (emphasis mine):

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

We know what happened:

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Look again at Peter’s response:

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Imagine their response to Peter. Here, I’ll help.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved

But think about this. If I’m right and the Pharisees were deeply grieved in their awareness of the vast curse they’d brought upon their families, how much more the impact on their souls when Peter gave them the absolution they so needed to hear. They changed radically because the seeds were already planted. Their lineage (think Abraham and how important that theme means) was saved! That is, if you understand the covenantal undergirding of this exchange between Peter and the Jews.

Now,

Think about this: We can best understand how Christ saved us by this very same covenantal perspective. How can He save us if there is no such thing as the covenant that Adam broke, Abraham received, Moses continued, Prophets and Judges and Kings and Priests maintained and returned to year after year? It’s The One Thing that best explains all this. God imputed Christ’s righteousness to His Children! He has died for us and our children – all those God has chosen for His Son.

Now how do we deny the same thing for our children? They’re God’s to do with as He pleases. According to the Bible and its covenants He pleases to have them brought to the sacraments of our church and to be a part of the covenant community.

How did Moses think about the prediction God gave him at the end of his days?

Then the Lord appeared at the Tent in a pillar of cloud, and the cloud stood over the entrance to the Tent. And the Lord said to Moses: “You are going to rest with your fathers, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them. On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many disasters and difficulties will come upon them, and on that day they will ask, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is not with us?’ And I will certainly hide my face on that day because of all their wickedness in turning to other gods.

Maybe he was a covenant type? I wonder what he thought about the demise of Israel?

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November 17, 2011

Let’s Presuppose A Few Things

By Pooka

Courthouse

Part 3. The first two in this line of thoughts on covenants, community and our relationships are here: Anti-Covenant and Individualism  and I Might Just Need To Be A We

At first, this may appear to be more of a formal apology for Covenant Theology, but bear with me. Also, I’m quite sure this has all been said before, so I can’t claim any originality here. That’s safer anyway since any time we deny the last 2,000 years of church history, we’re claiming that our current religion is the only one that is Christian throughout all history. Scary thought, eh? And what I’m about to discuss reaches back just a bit farther than Tertullian or Irenaeus or even Pentecost. Maybe a few thousand years past that. This is long, but I hope it has good returns. And I hope I’ve portrayed this accurately and understandably.

This doctrine of covenants is not pure theology. It’s not a tight, air-less doctrine that we can take or leave and not be deeply affected by the ramifications of the choice. It is hugely important. Once the barrier of modern presupposition is torn down, the other conflicts will start to resolve themselves fairly easily. That’s my own experience, at least.

Let me make the claim about this presupposition thing. There’s all sorts of discussion about presuppositional hermeneutics and theology. And it is absolutely correct to presuppose there are presuppositions required in the study of the Word. Which presupposition, or assumption if you will, is correct is vital, of course. And here’s the basic premise: The Bible is not speaking in the context of the 21st Century, modernity, the Reformation or even back in the days of Augustine. The Bible’s context is the Biblical eras. Get that and you’re on your way to 1st base.

Next, the Bible itself is filled with assumptions. Do you know the importance of Boaz heading out to the city gate when he’s checking on the status of Ruth’s availability? The Bible doesn’t add a footnote or aside comment to plumb the depths of this significant event. It assumes the reader knows what’s going on. The history and cultural importance of what’s going on at the city gate amongst the elders of the community is far more than what some consider just a civil affairs court setting.  Lot’s story was another one with that gate thing going on. But let’s put all that in the back of our minds. We’ve got to go deeper to make better sense of this.

The Bible assumes Covenant Theology. Really. No joke. It assumes the stuff I’ve been writing about in the last few days. We’ve heard all the debate over baptism, the Lord’s Table and Israel’s future so many times. There are conflicts that are so persistent they’ve lasted hundreds of years. I think they’re more heated today than ever. And it’s because, primarily, we have lost the sense of community and covenantal relationships that are assumed in the Bible.

Look at this language:

The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off–for all whom the Lord our God will call.

When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

And then look at this list: And Your Children and Household

Everybody wonders or fights over these sorts of passages. The Covenant guys extrapolate a connection to things like baptism of infants and the Baptist guys extrapolate the non-existence of infants. All sorts of ideas come up to try to explain this. Sometimes, I wonder if some of the Covenant guys are just as disrespectful of the text as the Baptists when trying to explain their position through use of household and your children. Does the Bible explain what is meant by these sorts of terms? No, not any more than with the gate-court thing in Ruth or Genesis.

Here’s why it’s confusing in the New Testament: When these terms are used, they’re repetition of Old Testament Language. And no, that’s not to “bring” the Old Testament way of thinking back to these Jews of the first century. It was to remind them of the significance of events past that correlate to current events. In all that was changing around in the New Covenant, there was going to be some conflict. Pharisaical law, gentile inclusion, realized forgiveness and justification, missionary trips, diaspora – all these things were new and scary and confusing. People needed to, get this, hear that everything hadn’t just stopped or fundamentally altered!

Peter and his fellow apostles were using this language because the Jews understood it. This means that we cannot presuppose our own 21st century opinion, which is grounded not in the Scriptures but in modern, pagan, non-covenantal thinking. We must look at this language as the Jews did. That’s why we don’t get an explanation in the Bible about what gate-courts, households and your children mean. And that’s why we don’t get a greater development of what the Table and Baptism mean right out of the text. It’s in there, absolutely, but in a, wait for it… presupposition.

I’ll say it again. This is all so hard because we aren’t looking in the right place. The Bible started out its narrative in the context of covenants – relational, promise-keeping, life-sharing, trust-bearing covenants. We are the ones who have changed over the millennia, not the Bible and not at the triumphant entry of Jesus Christ whose birthday celebration we are fast approaching. We have lost the perspective the Jews had.

I’m not calling for a return to Judaism or tossing our technology so we can wear robes to tear each time we’re cut to the heart. I’m not interested in raking dust for a few measly rows of fava beans and wheat sheaves. I like my Pollo Loco too much and I’d much rather have easy access to the last 2,000 years of theology right here on my infernal machines. I’m calling for us to look at Scripture in the historical, cultural frame in which it’s set. No helicopters in Revelation. No civil affairs court for the young moabitess. No ditching of infants until they’re old enough to say they believe.

Side comment: Refusing baptism of our kids is telling them that they are no different from the other kids across the block (the ones who have Wiccan parents right over there). We’re destroying their identity in a Christian family! No sacraments = no sense of being in the family of God.

A few weeks ago, I put up a little bit about how painful it must have been to be one of the convicted Pharisees at Peters Big Sermon at Pentecost (I should rename the post “Cut To The Heart Thrice“). Think about this:

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”

All the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”

Those Pharisees were almost certainly thinking of what they had done to their families! When Peter said this (emphasis mine):

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

We know what happened:

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Now look again at Peter’s response:

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

That’s reaching all the way back to things like:

They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them.

The OT said this in Deuteronomy 12:

Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the LORD your God.

Here’s what changed when Christ fulfilled the Law, died in our place and rose again: I’ll grossly paraphrase this:

Be careful to believe this good news I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the LORD your God.

Nowhere is the concept of covenants, community and our relationships altered in the New Testament. It’s ratified by simply not changing the language.

End of story? We have to look at the Bible and realize that our presuppositions that make us unwilling to include our children in sacraments, unwilling to include them in worship are modern insertions to the Scriptures. Also, equally important are the concepts of family solidarity, congregation solidarity, discipline, submission, faithfulness and loyalty to our heads, elders and rulers. These things are assumed to be normal in the Scripture even more than they are overtly commanded. Dropping the concept of covenantal theology kills more than just National Israel’s future and sprinkling babies. It can kill our faith, folks – by confusing the message and hiding the promises God has made to us (and our children).

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November 15, 2011

I Might Just Need To Be A We

By Pooka

Calvin not Hobbes

In the last post, Anti-Covenant and Individualism, I was trying to start my line of though by expressing my impression of the extreme difficulty we have in communicating the idea of covenant baptism in general. I believe it is difficult because there is so little framework in our modern culture with which to understand it. We’ve lost the concept of covenants and commitments. Everything has to be spelled out on paper and even then there’s always somebody ready to weasel a way out of (or into) something in the relationship.

In fact, I was listening to Albert Mohler’s Thinking In Public today: Believing Without Belonging? A Conversation With Sociologist Grace Davie. The discussion ranged around quite a bit but hit on what I’m pondering here. I think it’s well worth a listen.

Yesterday, I was ultimately lamenting how our one-istic, individualist culture seems to have separated us from what God set up as the standard pattern for human relationship. That being family, church, Him. We’re so unrelated to each other nowadays that it’s really hard to come together under a single creed. I do believe that the confessional Reformed folk have the best understanding and therefore the closest stance on being united in relationship. I mean, we believe it, strive to inculcate it and act it out. But the culture, 7 days a week, fights tooth and nail for us to return (right after church on Sunday) to our covenantal relationship to computers, food, drink, cars, idle silliness, community service and everything else. We don’t look back, as we’re doing our mundane things, at our relationships with family, church and God to connect and assess value.

I certainly understand and embrace the beautiful assertion (I believe Calvin and others have said it too) that God is our Father and Church is our mother. It’s just that I don’t, in my own experience, value that hugely important pair of facts enough – and if I’m in sorry shape here, I’m willing to bet there are plenty of others as well. Not because we don’t want to, but in many ways because we can’t – the code has been obfuscated or even deleted to the extent that we just don’t get it. The concept is opposed from the start. Even the Biblical family is under attack (and in many cases demolished) as a valid relationship.

I think I begin to see the challenge our loving pastors face – they are fighting to reintroduce the concept of covenant relationships and rework our thinking so that our responses are in the right place. They know our belief is made deeper because of what we see, hear, touch and taste in preaching, the Table and baptism. They also know that to appreciate and embrace these things, we need to chew hard on the idea that we’re not just I, me, personally or “this is just me, but…”

Parting thought,

“If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.” — Claude McKay

What if it’s more like: If a man is not faithful to his identity in Christ, he cannot be loyal to anything but himself?

We are saved by grace through faith and enter into a relationship with God as our Father, Christ as our Savior, brother, priest, king, prophet. But we are not alone. We are, individually, grafted into a group. A family. Into a whole that is our mother, the church. Thinking like a child would, our identity is there. I am a child of God and I belong in His church. I don’t do church or go to church. I am in it. With the others. Never alone. You’re never alone when you’re in Him.

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November 14, 2011

Anti-Covenant and Individualism

By Pooka
Cuz it's all about me!Note: There’s a Part 2 after this: I Might Just Need To Be A We.
 
The pastor’s comments on Acts 16 last night resound in my mind. In my study toward accepting the doctrine of paedobaptism, I pretty much discarded paedo as the paradigm in preference for oikos. It makes more sense. Paedo may be clearer-cut for others to comprehend where we’re differing from non-paedo, but it’s way better and images our covenantal relationship so much more. Family, congregation, catholic church, history all have this covenant upon which we hang. Paedo doesn’t get us there. Oikos does. If you don’t know, Oikos means household, so I’m talking about the household baptism concept which is all over the N.T. and O.T. in both circumcision and baptism.
 
It also sure does say something about where modern culture has lost the concept of family hasn’t it? When would we ever baptize our household just because the daddy or the mommy or even the grandpa got dunked? There’s no way to understand what Genesis 17 says about Abraham and the circumcision party he held on his 99th year unless we look at this household thing.

So by “lost the concept of family” I mean we’re individuals even in our families. The dad is just the individual. He is not truly Dad-the-head-of-a-body-that-is-a-family. If a family today was entirely comprised of witches and the father converted to Christianity, the rest wouldn’t think twice about whether they should follow Dad’s lead. They wouldn’t. You can see it in just about any family. If Gospel truth comes from the leader’s mouth, the response is rarely positive affirmation or ponderance. If the mother decides something is best, the rest of the family won’t assume anything, but tend to ignore it unless it clearly serves self-interest. From the root, we are anti- or a-covenantal.

This is something I would dearly love to get conditioned right out of me ASAP. And following that, same for my family. I speak in extremes here: Attending church as a family? Unimportant. Missing out on Sunday or Sunday Communion? Forgiveable. Burning commitment of one family to another in the church? Not a chance.

What’s all this? Duh, individualism. We’ve isolated and isolated until “my responsibility is only to God” which really means “my responsibility is only to me” – a lie, of course. Now, I’m not down-playing individuality. The God we worship is a God of great diversity and colors. He created individuals and uniqueness, called it all good and then set all in motion. We individually contribute to a whole that is greater than the parts. We are hands and feet and eyes and mouths, some one and some many in their gifts and abilities. But we’ve overgrown the garden of plenty so much that the unity is gone for the sake of the individual branches and fruits.

One factor, a cause and a symptom is the idea of Individual Liberty. First off, I think that 200+ years ago the Liberty we had was not the same as it is today. Back then, there was a concept of unity that is missing now. So I don’t think (especially today’s) liberty is necessarily a good thing. There are so many out there who call our liberty a great blessing, but I’d rather lean toward it being just a thing, an event that is comprised of good and bad.

The bad is really bad – it allows me to interprete everything myself. Nobody can hold me to a covenant. That means my family is a group of 6 islands loosely connected by reefs of common ideas or dependency. We don’t cleave to each other and so cannot conceive of cleaving to the church. In modern day, our modern culture and nation, in my modern family, I can worship the way I want.

Doesn’t that just sound wrong? I’m free to choose New Life PCA and if the pastor says something from the pulpit that I don’t like. I’m leaving. No commitment. And though my family may follow me, they certainly don’t have to, and might not. The pastor preaches in and out on Sundays to a crowd of people who are saturated in “my way” Even if they’re born-n-bred old school uber-presby saints, it’s still lurking in there. The pulpit’s constant litany of covenants, corporate worship, community and family must continue – it’s fighting the insanity of Individual Liberty’s dark side.

Once upon a time, the wife, the son, the workers, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren belonged to the father. They served each other under his watchful care and their sins were his responsibility. He was accountable for his family. Today? I do not belong to my father, nor do my kids, or anything else. His responsibility is to love me in some distant way, and though as a God-fearing man I’m sure he cares for me, wishes the best for me and prays for my growth and godliness, I can’t look to him as the head of a covenant family. Who can? I know this is insanely silly for today, but I’m exaggerating the point on purpose. We’ve sacrificed our vital corporate identity for our excessive and decadent individual identity.

So excessive is the individual identity today that I begin to wonder how much of me is entirely false. How much have I been italicized and underlined and bolded and iconified and nicknamed and networked until what’s important about me is blown out of proportion. I’m purely the sum of me and no longer does belonging come easily. I don’t belong to my family, to my church, to Christ…! because I’m too much me. I wonder if that is part of the root of strife in the family. I wonder about a lot of my problems and if they’re because of the devilishly inflated selfishness of this age? Heck, I try to find me in the Bible – how does it apply to me is more important than God’s people most of the time.

Relevant Tangent: I find that when I’m at the Lord’s Table, awaiting the food and drink that we are taught is our sustenance, I must consciously break from me and think of the others. I watch the plates served to others, I pray for my girls or whoever in the congregation comes to my mind – that they would be sustained and gathered into the arms of the rest of us as Christ is gathering us at His Table. I perceive the Supper as a sharing, not an individual act. I’m not savoring the choicest gift of all time on my own, but participating in a toast, a communal sharing of life. I try to visualize this, or recite it, as breathing from the same air, just for the moments we are together. I’m not bragging on my piety or spirituality here, rather I’m lamenting the effort it requires! All of this is a force of will. It does not come to me naturally.

Don’t get me as if I’m going all mystical, though the word mystical is there in our words. I’m not talking about contemplative prayer and zoning out to the collective consciousness junk. I’m talking about how we are all united in Christ and that this means something more than just me and you and him and her across the room. Think about it – lift the bread so that the ones around you can see you lift it, and place it in your mouth with them. Ever see a real wedding where the husband and wife feed each other the cake? That’s it. That’s us. Same with the cup – it’s a toast, too! A toast to the love the father has for us that has given us His Son, the best gift ever given.

Now can we apply that to any other part of our lives? Can we see that He has fed us on Sunday as we are united and this does not change on Monday? We’re still one, just separated by different places. From space, from God’s perspective, we’re all right next to each other. And we’re all in the same time zone.

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