When he speaks here of “new creation,” this is not meant merely in an individual sense (“a new creature”), but one is to think of the new world of the re-creation that God has made to dawn in Christ, and in which everyone who is in Christ is included. This is also evident from the neuter plural that follows: “the old things have passed away, the new have come,” and from the full significance that must be ascribed here to “old” and “new.” It is a matter of two worlds, not only in a spiritual, but in a redemptive-historical, eschatological sense. The “old things” stand for the unredeemed world in its distress and sin, the “new things” for the time of salvation and the re-creation that have dawned with Christ’s resurrection. He who is in Christ, therefore, is new creation: he participates in, belongs to, this new world of God. [pp. 46-47]

When Paul says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,” we can also point and say “there is the new creation.” In being called out of darkness into the kingdom of God, believers are part of the new creation—God’s overarching plan of redemption that culminates in Christ’s return and the resurrection of believers unto glorified bodies. We should never forget the work of the Spirit in individual lives, but we ought also remember that each individual salvation account is part of a larger sweep of redemption. This communal and biblical-theological view of redemption is the explanatory context for the ordo salutis, the application of redemption to individual believers.

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.

… what does it mean for God to condescend to and to be with his creation? Certainly the notion of “condescend” or “coming down” is a metaphor… We mean that God freely determined to take on attributes, characteristics, and properties that he did not have, and would not have without creation. In his taking on these characteristics, we understand as well that whatever characteristics or attributes he takes on, they cannot be of the essence of who he is, nor can they be necessary to his essential identity as god. In other words, given that whatever properties he takes on are a result of his free knowledge and will, he did not have to take them on; he could have chosen not to create or decree anything. [p. 110]

Oliphint emphasizes God’s freedom to create and to relate to creation. Whatever we might say of God’s condescension, we must begin with the dogmatic truth that God was not bound to create. In other words, Christianity is not a form of pantheism. Later, Dr. Oliphint explains how this concept of condescension is developed under the idea of a covenant.

God condescended to his creation in order to begin and maintain a relationship with that creation, more specifically, with those he had made in his image. [...] the Confession summarizes God’s condescension in the word covenant [specifically, Westminster Confession of Faith, 7.1]. The condescension itself includes a contract that God makes with his human creatures, a contract that requires, first, God relating himself to us and, second, an understanding of our relationship to him. [p. 111]

This covenantal arrangement rests upon the pactum salutis (Covenant of Redemption/Salvation), which is an eternal (though free) agreement between the Father, Son, and Spirit to create and redeem a people for God’s own glory. In terms of redemptive-history, this general covenantal relationship has been expressed by means of two main covenants: the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace. This is one of the most basic features to Reformed theology, but it’s one that might be a bit perplexing to evangelicals. It gets a bit more complicated since the Covenant of Grace itself has been issued under two administrations, often called the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. For a quick explanation of these covenants and how they pertain to the gospel, watch our series of several short videos with Dr. Lane G. Tipton.

The Reformed doctrine of God can be intimidating to people new to Reformed Christianity. I would recommend working [slowly] through Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, volume 2. For those even more adventurous, Dr. Oliphint’s MDiv course, Doctrine of God is available for free on iTunesU. We would all do well to know our God more fully as he has revealed himself to us in creation, in Scripture, and in Jesus Christ.