The charge is made that the writers of the New Testament did not treat the Old Testament as verbally inspired since they do not always quote the Hebrew literally. Christ and the Apostles gave their quotations from the Old Testament in three different ways:

First, they quote the Hebrew in the Greek making quite a literal translation.

Second, they simply quote from the Septuagint, using the Greek as expressed by the alleged “70″ (LXX) (Septuagint: Scholars who in Egypt translated the Old Testament Scriptures into Greek for the use of the Jews and the Greek converts to Judaism who lived there after the captivity at the end of the Old Testament).

Third, they make a very “free” and quite interpretive translation of the Hebrew. Since, therefore, the New Testament writers did not regard an exact rendering of the Hebrew as of importance, it is argued that this proves that we are not to believe in verbal inspiration.

But this does not, in fact, prove any such point, as one can understand if he think clearly about the matter. When we desire to express ourselves in a last will and testament–and to express ourselves exactly–we do often express ourselves in more than one way. If, for instance, we desire to leave our estate to one specific person we may give, devise and bequeath all that property, whether real or personal, of which we may be possessed upon our death, to…such and such a person. But we may well know that there is someone else who will try to make some kind of claim, perhaps that we simply forgot about them, or perhaps that we were under undo influence to forget them. To guard against this–though we have clearly said that we left ALL to one person–we WILL nevertheless add the name of the person who we fear may make a claim, and make it very clear that we did not forget about them by leaving them a specific amount–say, five dollars! We have by this means used two forms of expressing what we desired to make plain for the very purpose of making the matter specifically clear; and in the very forms used above more than one form is used. We do not simply leave all that we have–this might be misinterpreted, but we give, devise, and bequeath; and not merely all that we have, but all of our property whether real or personal. By saying what we have to say in more than one way, we have made it just that much more clear as to what our intention is. No judge or court comes along and then says, “Since this man expressed his desire in several ways so as to make very plain his meaning, we therefore judge that he was not interested in the words he used and we may therefore substitute for his words any other words–however they may reinterpret the matter.” The court concludes, from the above process, the very reverse: That the testator shows by his careful statement and restatement of his purposes how very jealous he was to have his words highly regarded so that he could cause to be understood his very and particular meaning.

What our liberal scholars are doing in this attack is to use the argument so that they may restate what God has spoken in such other words that His purpose is lost and their interpretation inserted.

Actually, God, the Holy Spirit, by whom God the Father, and God the Son, gave the Bible to mankind, has caused the writers thus to express the truths in several ways by transliterating under His control, the first appearance of the truth which He gave in different manners so that His meaning is thus made the more clear. The fact that the Holy Spirit thus re-expressess Himself gives no license to the readers to say that He was not jealous of the words He used! His very re-expression does, in fact, reveal just such a jealousy that His meaning be guarded and circumscribed!1

You can find several of Dr. Rudolph’s class lectures on ethics and theology below. I apologize for the poor audio quality. Please spread these around as Dr. Rudolph’s son, Karl, has given me permission to make them public.

Robert K Rudolph Ethics #1

Robert K Rudolph Ethics #2

Robert K Rudolph Ethics #3

Robert K Rudolph Ethics #4

Robert K Rudolph Ethics #5

Robert K Rudolph Theology #1

Robert K Rudolph Theology #2

Robert K Rudolph Theology #3: The Ordo Salutis

Robert K Rudolph Theology #4: The Problem of Human Goodness

Here are Dr. Rudolph’s notes comparing 1 Cor. 1:21 to Romans 1:18-25. You can see the influence that Van Til had upon Dr. Rudolph from these, and the former notes. Here are some of RKR’s brief, yet substantive, thoughts on the attributes of God. You can also read Dr. Rudolph’s notes on A Christian Theory of Knowledge, and on baptism. Thanks to Niel Bech and Paul DiBenedetto for making these available.

You can find a Facebook page commemorating the life and teaching of Dr. Rudolph here.

1. Robert K. Rudolph An Introduction to Theology (Unpublished) pp. 4-5

1) The Redemptive Role of Noah as a Type of Christ: Noah was a type of Christ. He was a typical second Adam, a typical redeemer, and a typical rest giver. Noah was given very similar instructions as Adam with regard to being fruitful and multiplying, filling the earth and subduing it. He was not the second Adam, but was a type of the second Adam. Jesus is the second and last (eschatological) Adam who redeems His people and fulfills the creation mandates. Noah was a typical redeemer. Everyone with Noah on the Ark was saved. Everyone in Christ is saved. Noah was not “the Redeemer.” He was a typical redeemer, providing typical redemption for all those who descended from him. Jesus came to redeem all those He represented spiritually. Noah was a typical rest-giver. Noah’s name meant ‘Rest.’ His father had named him ‘Rest,’ saying, “This one will give us rest from the ground which the Lord had cursed.” Noah only gives typical rest, as the remainder of the Bible bears witness to the ongoing need for redemptive rest. Jesus is the One who finally and fully gives rest to the people of God and to the creation that was brought under the curse at the fall. He is the One who said, “Come unto Me and I will give you rest for your souls.” He is the One who takes the curse on Himself when He wears the crown of thorns–the symbol of the curse on the ground.

2) The Redemptive Foreshadowing of the New Creation: The book of Revelation tells us that the “new heavens and the new earth” will be the new Temple where God dwells fully and permanently with the redeemed. Noah and all of creation were together in the Ark, as in a typical temple. This was foreshadowing the new creation-temple. Interestingly, the Ark and Solomon’s Temple had three levels. It seems that the biblical data substantiates that the Ark was a Temple where God dwelt with His creation.

Noah also lead the way into a typical new creation when he and his family stepped off of the Ark and into a world that has been typically cleansed of pollution. Jesus brought about the new creation through His death and resurrection. Noah knew that the flood had not really made “all things new,” because he sacrificed when he stepped off of the Ark. The flood waters could never cleanse the evil out of the heart of man. God had destroyed the earth with a flood because “every intent of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). God promised never to destroy the earth with a flood again because “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21). The reason for the latter declaration was that the flood was never meant to deal with man’s real problem–the sinful pollution of his heart. Noah’s sons would populate the earth with depraved sinners. Only the blood of Jesus could cleanse the hearts of sinners. The cleansed world onto which Noah and his family stepped when the waters receded was a type of the “new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells.”

3) The Redemptive Purpose of Animals: Noah was commanded to take seven clean and two unclean of every animal into the Ark. The clean/unclean distinction was relavent in redemptive history for several reasons. First, it would be used in Israel’s sacrificial system. Because Jesus is likened to “a Lamb without blemish and without spot,” Israel would be commanded in the OT to offer spotless (clean) lambs to God. All of Israel’s sacrifices were to be clean. The cleanness was symbolic of the sinlessness of Jesus. When he stepped off of the Ark, the very first thing that Noah did was offer a sacrifice to God. The sacrificial system stretched back to Adam and Eve and was carried forward in redemptive history until Christ was sacrificed.

In addition to the preparation for the sacrificial system in Israel, the clean and unclean animals would, in time, become illustrative of the two groups of mankind–Jews and Gentiles. These two classifications represented spiritually clean and unclean groups of humanity in redemptive history until Christ came. The Scriptures expressly teach this in the account of Peter’s vision of the unclean animals brought down from heaven in the sheet for him to eat. (Acts 10:9-11:18). For a more thorough treatment see this post.

The final thing to note about the animals in the Ark is in regard to food. Before the flood it appears that man was only permitted to eat vegetation. After the flood, God told Noah that he and his descendants could eat meat (only without the blood). What was the reason for this shift? The eating of meat would not serve as a precursor to the eating of the sacramental and ceremonial redemptive meals, such as the Passover. There were no vegetarians in the Old Covenant church because God was foreshadowing the spiritual eating of the flesh and blood of His Son in the sacrifices. If man had not been allowed to eat meat, then the eating of the sacrificial meals–symbolizing the spiritual eating of the flesh of the Son of God by faith–would have been an unintelligible concept. God was preparing His people for what would come as the history of redemption unfolded.

4) The Redemptive Nature of the Death Penalty: The death penalty is clearly established in the Noahic Covenant. Again, this falls in the realm of redemptive history. If murderers were not put to death (a punishment fitting the crime in accord with the justice of God) then mankind would have a very difficult time “being fruitful and multiplying.” Human extermination was restrained via the death penalty. This served the redemptive purposes of God. Interestingly, this would also safeguard the coming of the Redeemer. In His human nature, Jesus may rightly be said to be in the loins of Noah. Each generation of Israel hoped that God would fulfill the promise of the Seed-Redeemer (Gen. 3:15). Unless God had protected His people–through whom the Seed would come–from mass murder, His promise would have failed. This is the purpose of the book of Esther. Had God allowed Hamen to exterminate the Israelites, the promise of the Redeemer would have failed. The same is true with regard to the animals that might shorten the population. God’s plan was the redeem a people “out of every tongue and tribe and nation and language” through the Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

In addition, God would save His people by Himself undergoing the death penalty. Though He did nothing deserving of death, He stood in the place of His people who did. If there were no death penalty, we would not be saved. Jesus died the death of a murderer, adulterer and every other death deserving criminal so that we might be redeemed.

In short, God was preserving the world to be the stage in which redemption would occur. Had God not promised to preserve the fallen world, He would have been untrue to His promise to redeem a people (Gen. 3:15). All of the features surrounding the covenant itself were aspects of redemptive history, which makes the Noahic Covenant more important than most have realized. Every time we see the rainbow we should remember God’s covenant faithfulness in sending the Redeemer to save a people for Himself. Just as God had placed a rainbow in the sky to show His steadfast covenant fidelity, so there is a rainbow around the throne of Jesus Christ in glory (Rev. 4:3). We, like Noah, are beneficiaries of the mercy established in the Noahic Covenant in Jesus Christ.

Friday, May 11
On Day One of the Spring Theology Conference, from 7:00pm to 8:30pm Burk Parsons will give two talks. Afterwards, Burk and Nick will moderate a Q&A session, followed by light refreshments.

Saturday, May 12
On Day Two of the Spring Theology Conference, from 9:30am to 11:30am, John Jones and Nick Batzig will give two talks followed by a Q&A session. At 11:30am, lunch will be provided at All Saints’ for all those who are interested, or you may wish to try one of the many downtown restaurants. From 12:30pm to 2:30pm, Nick will give two more talks followed by a Q&A session.

The writer of 1 Chronicles traced humanity from Adam to David (1 Chronicles 1 and 2) by means of historical genealogy. If Adam was not a historical being then neither were all the people from Adam to David.

Job likened the hiding of his sin to Adam’s covering his sin (Job 31:33).

Luke traced Jesus’ genealogy (from Mary) back to Adam (Luke 3:38). If Adam was not a historical being then neither were all the people from Adam to Jesus.

Jesus declared that “He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ (Matthew 19:4).

Paul explained that the reason for death and condemnation was the representative, imputed guilt of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:12-21).

Paul also explained that the external giving of the law was first with Adam and then with Moses. Those who were not given external law from Adam to Moses still had the sentence of death in them because of Adam’s sin. Paul explains, “death reigned from Adam to Moses” (Rom. 5:13). If Adam was not a historical being then neither was Moses.

Paul explained the solution to our deserved condemnation in the obedience of the second Adam, Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:12-21). He explicitly suggests that the first Adam was a “type” of the second Adam. If Adam was not a historical being then neither was Jesus.

The apostle defended the role relation of men and women in the church by the order in which Adam and Eve were created and were tempted (1 Timothy 2:13-14). Eden was the prototype of every subsequent culture. No one can say Paul’s teaching was culturally bound because he takes it back to the Garden. He takes the Genesis account as an accurate historical record of Eden.

The apostle urged the NT church to defend the Gospel by reminding them of the way in which Satan had historically deceived Eve: “I fear, lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Cor. 11:3).”

I think its this mentality (at least in part) which feeds into the current multisite practice. The preaching pastor is the guy who shows up on screen each week. But we need someone to run the show, make things happen, and pray with someone who comes under conviction at the local church. So, we have the local administrative pastor. He gets up at the beginning of the service, sits down for the sermon, and joins the congregation for the praise time. He will get up again after the service, make a connection to the people and then send them on their way, perhaps with a benediction. So, you have the local administrative pastor who prays and meets with people (in the flesh) and then you have the preaching pastor (via satellite).

Now, I’m not such a curmudgeon that this rubs me the wrong way simply because its not how we’ve done it in the past. So, here are my questions about this approach: in Scripture, is there such a thing as a pastor who counsels but does not also preach? Is there such a thing as a pastor who teaches but does not also do administrative work? Is there such a thing as a pastor who sets the vision but does not also disciple Christians?

In response to these questions, I think that Titus provides an example of how not to fragment the office of pastor. What is Titus? Is he an administrative pastor, a preaching pastor, a visiting pastor, a youth pastor, or a counseling pastor?

Yes.

Paul placed Titus in charge of organizing the churches in Crete (v. 5). Titus was the man to do the administrative work of putting what remained in order. But he was also to teach and preach sound doctrine (2:1). Titus was also a pastor of youth and discipleship (2:6). He is also to rule the household of God well, counseling the sheep by exhorting and even rebuking them when necessary (2:15).

Is it possible for one pastor to do all those things? I venture to guess that Paul knew what he was saying when he charged Titus in this way. Though, to be sure, Titus was not alone in his work. He had others to help him. Like Moses, he would have had elders “in each town” to help him, and we can assume there were deacons as well if Paul’s letters to Timothy and Philippians are any indication. Dare we believe that these three offices alone are sufficient for the advancement of the church of Jesus Christ? But, I digress.

It is true that different ministers have different gifts and callings in the church. Not all ministers are pastors; some are evangelists and some are teachers (Ephesians 4:11). Paul was an evangelist, he went preaching from town to town, not even baptizing many of his converts (1 Corinthians 1:17). But Titus was pastor, or overseer, and as such he had to be the preacher, visionary, administrator, youth worker, and visitor of the sick. To put it bluntly, a man who preaches to his people but does not counsel/visit/disciple those same people is not a pastor in the biblical sense of the word.

When these tasks become fragmented, then things like multi-site churches become permissible. The ministry of the church has been divvied up and compartmentalized like a factory. You have one person doing quality control, another screwing in the bolts, someone else applying the labels, and so forth.

But, over against the multisite church (though not just the multisite church), the Bible seems to teach that the pastor is one man, with many tasks. God intended it that way. The individual tasks ought not to be abstracted from one another. When they are, there will be consequences. Titus not only preached to these people, but he also discipled them. After preaching to them on Sunday, he counseled them during the week. He ordained elders and deacons who were also trained and pastored by him.

I’ll close by giving an example. If I have someone in my congregation struggling with assurance, that will affect the way I preach my sermon on Sunday. If I counsel him on Tuesday, and he shares with me his doubts, on Sunday that will be in my mind as I stare in his eyes and proclaim to him the glorious and comforting truths of God’s gracious and enduring love in Jesus Christ. I can’t do that staring into a camera and being broadcasted on a screen. In fact, I would say that if we refuse to fracture the pastor by placing his various tasks in abstraction, then it would be impossible for us to engage in a multi-site model.

Herman Hermeneut: Can we come up with a “how-to” list for interpreting the Bible?

Dottie Doctrinalist: That’s definitely useful, provided it is based solidly on the Bible.

Oliver Objectivist: We certainly need such a list, in order to be rigorously objective in our interpretation, and to eliminate subjective biases.

Peter Pietist: I’m not so sure. Won’t a method interfere with my personal communion with the Lord?

Laura Liturgist: I’m just as uneasy as Peter. Does “method” mean something purely academic? Or would it include participation in worship?

Missy Missiologist: I can see both advantages and disadvantages. We certainly need to take steps in order to make sure we are not blinded by the blind spots of the culture in which we were raised. But we need to be careful. Our focus on method can introduce a Western bias. The idea of having a technique or assembly-line process for producing the right meaning seems natural within an industrialized society, where we pursue technique.

Poythress concludes the chapter by laying out 3 steps that he believes are indespensible in coming to the right interpretation of a passage of Scripture:

Step 1. Original time and context.

a. Understand the person who is God’s spokesman (for example, Micah the prophet) (personal).

b. Understand the text itself (normative).

c. Understand the situation of the times and the situation of audience (situational).

d. Understand the total import of God’s speaking to the people through his spokesman.

Step 2. Transmission and its context.

a. Understand the persons who engage in transmission: official tradition bearers, and more broadly the people belonging to God.

b. Understand the transmission of the text and its message (normative). Both text criticism and the history of interpretation are involved.

c. Understand the situation of transmission. Understand narrowly the concerns of scribes and broadly God’s plan for history.

d. Understand the total import of God’s speaking to the whole church through the Scripture.

(1) Understand with different foci.

(a) Understand later use of the passage (exegetical focus).

(b) Understand how the passage fits into growing revelation (biblical theology).

(c) Understand how the passage fits into an entire body of teaching on various topics and issues (systematic theology and practical life).

(2) Understanding Christocentrically.

(a) How does Christ fulfill the word of the passage, by climaxing its truths, and embodying its wisdom, righteousness, and holiness?

(b) How does Christ fulfill the facts of the passage, by fulfilling its promises and predictions and bringing to climax the historical struggle with which the passage interfaces?

(c) How does Christ fulfill the personal aspect of communication (the prophet as mediator)?

Step 3. Modern context.

a. Understand what God is saying now through the text and its larger biblical theological and systematic theological context.

b. Understand your situation, as controlled by God.

c. Understand your gifts and capabilities and those of other speakers or hearers with whom you are communicating.

d. Understand the total import of God’s call to you as speaker and/or hearer.

Among the more helpful volumes that have been written to address this subject include O. Palmer Robertson’s The Israel of God, David E. Holwerda’s Jesus and Israel: One Covenant or Two, and Hans K. LaRondelle’s The Israel of God in Prophecy.

O. Palmer Robertson The Israel of God in the Past
O. Palmer Robertson the Israel of God Present and Future
O. Palmer Robertson Israel and the Priesthood of Christ (Heb. 7:1-15)
O. Palmer Robertson Israel and the Coming Kingdom (Acts 1:1-6)
O. Palmer Robertson The Israel of God and Romans 11 (Rom. 11:1-32)
O. Palmer Robertson The Gospel for All Nations (Matt. 24:1-14)
O. Palmer Robertson A Plentiful Harvest, Few Laborers (Matt. 9:18-38)

An evil is in the professed camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence, that the most shortsighted Christian can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years this evil has developed at an alarming rate. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments!

The devil has seldom done a more clever thing, than hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. From speaking out the gospel, the Church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses!

My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the Church. If it is a Christian work why did not Christ speak of it? “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel.” No such words, however, are to be found.

Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all His apostles. What was the attitude of the apostolic Church to the world? “You are the salt of the world,” not the sugar candy; something the world will spit out, not swallow.

Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into his mission, he would have been more popular when they went back, because of the searching nature of His teaching. I do not hear him say, “Run after these people Peter and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick Peter, we must get the people somehow.” Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them.

In vain will the Epistles be searched to find any trace of this gospel of amusement! Their message is, “Come out, keep out, keep clean out!” Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon.

After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the church had a prayer meeting but they did not pray, “Lord grant unto thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are.” If they ceased not from preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). That is the only difference! Lord, clear the church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her, and bring us back to apostolic methods.

Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to affect the end desired. It works havoc among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the church met them halfway, speak and testify. Let the heavy laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment has been God’s link in the chain of the conversion stand up! There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today’s ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

(1834-1892)

]]> Featured http://feedingonchrist.com/the-sermon-on-the-mount-and-the-savior-on-the-mount/ It is one of the hardest--and yet most necessary--tasks of the exegete to deal carefully with a particular text in the Bible while not forgetting it's redemptive-historical context. Forgetting this … <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://feedingonchrist.com/the-sermon-on-the-mount-and-the-savior-on-the-mount/">Read more&#8594;</a> http://feedingonchrist.com/?p=4382 Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:35:17 +0000 It is one of the hardest–and yet most necessary–tasks of the exegete to deal carefully with a particular text in the Bible while not forgetting it’s redemptive-historical context. Forgetting this all-important principle will inevitably lead a man to misinterpret the text, and so to potentially do much harm to his hearers. One of the areas in which this principle must be rigorously applied is with regard to the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). It is not uncommon to hear a minister preach a series of sermons out of this portion of Scripture without helping his hearers see their need for Jesus as Savior. “It’s Jesus as Lord that we must emphasize here,” they will emphatically respond. Such an approach divides the Person of Christ from the work of Christ. He is, to His people, both Lord and Savior–at ever point in His ministry. The salvation He alone accomplished must ever be the undergirding foundation upon which His Lordship finds significance in the lives of His people. To say that Jesus did not intend the teaching in the Sermon on the Mount to drive men to Him for salvation is to rip the Savior out of the redemptive-historical context in which He lived and breathed. He was always moving toward something. He was heading to the mount–not the mount upon which He taught the loftiest ethic any man has heard, but to the mount upon which He would die for His people’s violations of those ethical teachings. In his sermon “Hungering and Thirsting after Righteousness,” Geerhardus Vos masterfully explained this dynamic when he wrote:

It is not so much what people find in the Sermon on the Mount, it is what they congratulate themselves for not finding there, that renders them thus enamored of its excellence. It is because they dislike the story of the helplessness of man, of man’s utter condemnation in the sight of God, and the insistence upon the necessity of the cross…All such forget that both Jesus and the Evangelists expressly relate the Sermon on the Mount to the disciples, and consequently place back of what is described in it the process of becoming a disciple, the whole rich relationship of saving approach and responsive faith, of calling and repentance and pardon and acceptance and the following of Jesus, all that makes the men and women of the Gospels such disciples and Jesus such a Lord and Savior as this and other records of His teaching imply. It is therefore folly to suggest that no specific doctrine of salvation is here. It is present as a living doctrine in the Person of Jesus. We are apt to forget that in the days of our Lord’s flesh there was no need for the explicit teaching about the Christ found in the Epistles of the New Testament. At that time He, the real Christ, walked among men and exhibited in His intercourse with sinners, more impressively than any abstract doctrine could have done, the principles and the process of salvation. If we have but eyes to see, we shall find our Savior in the out-door scenes of the Gospels, no less than in the walls of the school of the Epistle to the Romans. And we shall find Him too in the Sermon on the Mount. For this discourse throughout presupposes that the disciples, here instructed, became associated with Jesus as sinner needing salvation, and that their whole life in continuance is lived on the basis of grace.1

Even a consideration of the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount will lend itself to such an interpretation. Notice that at least three of the beatitudes reveal a consciousness of personal helplessness, and an acknowledgement of spiritual inability. Believers are poor in spirit because they acknowledge that “nothing good dwells in them.” They mourn because they know the sinfulness of their hearts. They hunger and thirst after righteousness because they know that the do not have “a righteousness of their own.” With the fourth beatitude, our Lord clearly articulates this sense of spiritual poverty and the need for them to be filled with a righteousness outside of ourselves–a righteousness that He alone can provide. Vos went on to explain the relationship between the “hungering and thirsting” and the “being filled with righteousness” when he wrote:

The Lord here assures the hungry and thirsty ones, that they shall be satisfied. Every instinctive desire, when normal, carries in itself the knowledge that there is that which can satisfy it. The great gifts of God and the great desires of life have been created for each other, and call for each other. If this be true in the natural world, it is equally true in the spiritual world, in the sphere of redemption. The craving described in our text is a prophecy; it tells of a law in the kingdom of God, a sure creative appointment, out of which, twin-children of the divine grace, the hunger after righteousness and the righteousness itself are born. It is God, and God alone, who can produce in the deepest heart of man a thing so instinctive as what is here spoken of. No sinner can give this to himself. If we feel it at all, to however slight a degree, it is from no other cause than that the love of God has found us, and the breath of the Spirit Creator has blown upon us, quickening us into newness of life. If this were a desire artificially awakened or stimulated by man, there could be no assurance of either the existence or the satisfying character of its object. Even in the case of our noblest and most elevating desires after the creature, we too often make sad experience of the failure of our ideals to meet the expectation. The reason is that in our dreams we ourselves are the creators of the excellence we crave, and because we cannot also create the satisfaction, we hunger in vain. But it is different here. He that gave the thirst likewise provides the water, and the one exactly meets the other.

It is not the will of our Heavenly Father that any longing in our hearts, prompted by Himself, and therefore sincerely seeking Him, shall perish unsatisfied. A satisfying righteousness therefore must be provided for the people of God. And it must be provided outside of us. To eat means to be nourished from without. Since the sinner is devoid of all righteousness, it is self-evident, that the source of his supply must be sought beyond the confines of his own evil and empty nature. For it to be otherwise would mean that hunger could be stilled with hunger. Our Lord’s meaning obviously is that the coming order of things, the new kingdom of God, brings with itself, chief of all blessings, a perfect righteousness, as truly and absolutely the gift of God to man as is the entire kingdom. What is true of the kingdom, that no human merit can deserve, no human effort call it into being, applies with equal force to the righteousness that forms its center. It is God’s creation, not man’s. The prophet recognized it as such when, despairing of sinful Israel, he promised that in the future, in the new covenant, God would remember the sin no more, and would write his law upon the tablets of the heart. Our Lord here simply declares that what prophets and psalmists saw from afar is on the point of becoming real. The acceptable year of Jehovah is about to begin. His beatitudes are the evangel, giving answer across the ages to the prophesies of old. It means that with comfort and riches and mercy and sonship and the vision of God, righteousness will be given in abundance to a destitute people.

True, Jesus does not enter here upon any description of the method by which this is to be accomplished. As little as He specifies what will bring comfort in the place of mourning, does He tell how righteousness will banish sin. But does not the very fact of his foregoing to tell this afford a presumption that He is conscious of carrying the source and substance of all these things in his own Person? The same Jesus who immediately afterwards in interpreting the law puts side by side with the commandment of God his sovereign, “I say unto you,” the same Jesus here takes into his hands all the riches of prophecy, as only the God of prophecy can take them, and disposes of them as his own sovereign gift: “Theirs is the kingdom,” and “They shall be filled.” What gives Him the right to speak thus, not merely in the sphere of power, but also in the sphere of righteousness? As God He could change sickness into health, and mourning into joy, but even as God He cannot change sin and guilt into righteousness by a mere fiat of his will. When, nevertheless, He here declares that this will be done, the reason is that in his own life, his life of a servant, this greatest of all tasks is being accomplished.

In one sense the Sermon on the Mount was a sermon preached out of his own personal experience. The righteousness He described was not a distant ideal, it was an incarnate reality in Himself. He alone of all mankind fulfilled the law in its deepest purport and widest extent. His keeping of it proceeded from that sanctuary of his inner life where He and the Father always beheld each other’s face. He made it his meat and drink to do the will of God, His human nature was an altar from which the incense of perfect consecration rose ceaselessly day and night. He submitted to the cross and endured the shame, not merely on our behalf, but first of all in order that not one jot or one tittle of the divine justice should fall to the ground. He not only hungered and thirsted but was satisfied with the travail of his soul. And now you and I can come and take of the bread and water of life freely. Through justification we are even in this life filled with the fulness of his merit, and appear to God as spotless and blameless as though sin had never touched us. Through sanctification his holy character is impressed upon our souls, so that, notwithstanding our imperfections, God takes a true delight in us, seeing that the inner man is changed from day to day after the likeness of Christ. And the full meaning of our Lord’s promise we shall know in the last day, when He shall satisfy Himself in us by presenting us to God perfect in body, soul and Spirit. Then shall come to pass the word that is written: “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.” For we shall behold God’s face in righteousness and be satisfied, when we awake, with his image.2

J. Gresham Machen also observed:

Without the cross the Sermon on the Mount would be an intolerable burden; with the cross it becomes the guide to a way of life. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus held up an unattainable ideal, he has revealed the depths of human guilt, he has made demands far too lofty for human strength. But thank God, he has revealed guilt only to wash it away, and with his demands he has given strength to fulfill them. It is a sadly superficial view of the sermon on the mount which substitutes it for the story of the cross. A deeper understanding of it leads straight to Calvary.3

Finally, Machen summed up everything said above when he wrote, “The Sermon on the Mount, like all the rest of the New Testament, really leads a man straight to the foot of the cross.”4

1. Gerrhardus Vos, Grace and Glory pp. 39-40

2. Ibid., pp. 54-57

3. J. Gresham Machen The New Testament: An Introduction to its Literature and History (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust) pp. 196-974.

4. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity And Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1923), 38

Barth takes a decidedly different approach to what the image of God in man is from the tradition. In fact, it seems a good deal of his influence is Dietrich Bonhoeffer rather than the Reformed confessions or even broadly Protestant dogmatic tradition. Whereas the tradition taught that the image consisted of original righteousness, holiness, and knowledge, Barth emphasizes the idea of relation in act.

The first principle to keep in mind, then, in understanding Barth’s doctrine of the image is that it is articulated in a thoroughly anti-metaphysical context. What does that mean? It means that Barth stands in the tradition of modern German protestant theology which grew increasingly suspicious of speculative medieval and Greek ontological formulations. This goes back to Schleiermacher and is a common concern through Ritschl and von Harnack. So, to put it simply, the image is NOT a substance or thing which man possesses. But if it is not a substance, a thing, then what is it?

That brings us to the second principle found in Barth’s doctrine of the image. The image is fundamentally a relationship. There is an I/Thou relationship in God. However, that relationship is not that of two individuals, but of one. In God there is contained in a whole the object-subject relationship. But this I/Thou relation in God has an analogue in man, who is himself relational.

That brings us to the third principle. Man images God by virtue of his male/female relation. Man confronts man in the male/female relationship. This is the I/Thou relationship which imitates God who is himself an I/Thou, object/subject, relationship. Barth makes much of this. This IS the image of God in man. Man is the imago dei only and in so much as he is male and female.

And, finally, the image of God is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is himself the I/Thou relationship. He IS the male/female relation in that he is never an abstract person. But is always an everywhere the groom of his bride, the community of faith. He is the I-groom in eternal relation with his Thou-bride. He is the the solution to the age-old subject/object relation. He IS the eternal divine I who eternally relates with the human Thou in the everlasting knowledge of God as the one who is with us in a third time of redemption.

Makes, sense, right? Um, er, or does it? You decide!

Next week I plan on talking about “The Church as Spiritual Israel.” Some of the more helpful book on this subject are O. Palmer Robertson’s The Israel of God, David E. Holwerda’s Jesus and Israel: One Covenant or Two, and Hans K. LaRondelle’s The Israel of God in Prophecy.

• Epistemological – what is the status of the believer’s and unbeliever’s knowledge?
• Eschatological – what has Christ redeemed at this point in redemptive history and what, if anything, will remain from it in the new heavens and the new earth?
• Ecclesiological – what is the proper relationship of the church to non-church culture?

Epistemological

I consider it fortunate that on this site I don’t need to introduce Van Til, so hopefully a few familiar concepts will suffice in pointing out a few Reformed epistemological fundamentals. First and not surprisingly, Rom 1:18f is a great place to start. Unbelievers possess the truth about God clearly described in v. 20 while they also suppress that same truth and behave in the ways described in v. 21f. Which unbelievers is Paul describing? If unrighteousness is the condition (v. 18) for suppression, Paul is describing whoever is unrighteous: all unbelievers. Unbelieving doctors, unbelieving hunters, unbelieving historians, unbelieving homemakers, etc.

Moving from the dynamic of simultaneous knowledge/suppression in Romans 1, Paul elaborates in 1 Cor 1:18-2:16 on the epistemological antithesis between believer and unbeliever. There is no trithesis, only two options: believing knowledge and unbelieving ignorance. What are the “things” of 1 Cor. 2:10 that God has revealed and how are they revealed? God reveals wisdom that is not of this temporary world, and he reveals His wisdom by his Spirit. The natural person of this age cannot understand them because he does not have the Spirit to discern them. So we see that when describing the epistemological situation of “humanity”, it makes all the difference in the world whether we refer in individual cases to a person who has the Spirit to discern or to a person who does not have the Spirit.

This is also why there should be no sharp separation between general revelation and special revelation, but between those who have the Spirit to receive rightly both modes of revelation and those who do not. The issue is not with the clarity of revelation, it is with the condition of those to whom it is revealed. Too often general revelation is defined as something like “that truth at which one arrives by virtue of neutral (perhaps God-given in some cases) reason.” Van Til is exceedingly helpful in clarifying this relationship in his essay “Nature and Scripture” where he elaborates on what the Westminster Confession teaches on revelation and gives us principles for a Reformed philosophy of history.

So how do we account for the achievements of unbelievers (much of which exceed the achievements of believers at times)? Does the epistemological antithesis have no effect? What is said above may be relevant when speaking directly of epistemology or religion, but what about in other spheres like dentistry, computer repair, athletics, bridge engineering, or the office of mayor? Simply because an engineer may never need to think about or articulate the epistemological context in which he finds himself in order to maintain the patterns acceptable within his vocation and field does not mean he has, in fact, no epistemological context. Not only does he take for granted things like order within the creation, ethical norms and practices, etc. but he also does so without affirming the Originator and rightful Owner of those foundations, Christ himself. It should also go without saying that “success” within any vocation is not first measured by whether one’s operations and achievements are acceptable within a given field (although it may include that), but by whether one is consistently living out the Christian faith within his or her vocation (which, admittedly in some vocations, may empirically look identical to an unbeliever who lives out his or her vocation contrary to the Christian faith). The heart is the spring from which thought and behavior flow, and the condition of the heart as either Spiritual or unspiritual will have an effect on thought and behavior, regardless of whether that effect is seen or unseen, visible or invisible.

There may be some who draw a false implication from this that Christians should then legalistically micro-scrutinize every thought and behavior to see whether it passes the test of “Christian” or “unChristian.” That is a test that has already been passed for us. Believers are in Christ and a new creation, redeemed, given a regenerate heart and indwelt by the Spirit. Of course believers still sin, but we are now able not to sin, and this has profound implications for covenant-keepers. The behavioral details in the life of the believer may often come down to an issue of biblical wisdom, and this is where the dynamic between God’s law and Christian liberty must be thought through carefully in individual cases.

Another false implication may be that because of what is said above, we must avoid any secular vocation or field, or perhaps give up any notion of our “success” in a secular field or vocation and merely keep our head down while getting by as a Christian in an unbelieving sphere. Nothing is further from the truth, and perhaps an example would serve well here. Alvin Plantinga, generally undisputed by both believers and unbelievers to be in the very top tier of philosophers in the 20th/21st centuries, writes the following in his “Advice to Christian Philosophers”:

First, it isn’t just in philosophy that we Christians are heavily influenced by the practice and procedures of our non-Christian peers. (Indeed, given the cantankerousness of philosophers and the rampant disagreement in philosophy it is probably easier to be a maverick there than in most other disciplines.) The same holds for nearly any important contemporary intellectual discipline: history, literary and artistic criticism, musicology, and the sciences, both social and natural. In all of these areas there are ways of proceeding, pervasive assumptions about the nature of the discipline (for example, assumptions about the nature of science and its place in our intellectual economy), assumptions about how the discipline should be carried on and what a valuable or worthwhile contribution is like and so on; we imbibe these assumptions, if not with our mother’s milk, at any rate in learning to pursue our disciplines. In all these areas we learn how to pursue our disciplines under the direction and influence of our peers.

But in many cases these assumptions and presumptions do not easily mesh with a Christian or theistic way of looking at the world. This is obvious in many areas: in literary criticism and film theory, where creative anti-realism (see below) runs riot; in sociology and psychology and the other human sciences; in history; and even in a good deal of contemporary (liberal) theology. It is less obvious but nonetheless present in the so-called natural sciences. The Australian philosopher J. J. C. Smart once remarked that an argument useful (from his naturalistic point of view) for convincing believers in human freedom of the error of their ways is to point out that contemporary mechanistic biology seems to leave no room for human free will: how, for example, could such a thing have developed in the evolutionary course of things? Even in physics and mathematics, those austere bastions of pure reason, similar questions arise. These questions have to do with the content of these sciences and the way in which they have developed. They also have to do with the way in which (as they are ordinarily taught and practiced) these disciplines are artificially separated from questions concerning the nature of the objects they study-a separation determined not by what is most natural to the subject matter in question, but by a broadly positivist conception of the nature of knowledge and the nature of human intellectual activity.

And thirdly, here, as in philosophy, Christians must display autonomy and integrality. If contemporary mechanistic biology really has no place for human freedom, then something other than contemporary mechanistic biology is called for; and the Christian community must develop it. If contemporary psychology is fundamentally naturalist, then it is up to Christian psychologists to develop an alternative that fits well with Christian supernaturalism-one that takes its start from such scientifically seminal truths as that God has created humankind in his own image.

Of course I do not presume to tell Christian practitioners of other disciplines how properly to pursue those disciplines as Christians. (I have enough to spare in trying to discern how to pursue my own discipline properly.) But I deeply believe that the pattern displayed in philosophy is also to be found in nearly every area of serious intellectual endeavor. In each of these areas the fundamental and often unexpressed presuppositions that govern and direct the discipline are not religiously neutral; they are often antithetic to a Christian perspective. In these areas, then, as in philosophy, it is up to Christians who practice the relevant discipline to develop the right Christian alternatives. [italics mine]

One can argue how consistent Plantinga is in his writings on this particular matter, but that discussion aside, I think he articulates well some fundamental truths regarding vocational pursuit as a Christian.

Next: Eschatology.