The Basics—The Covenant of Works
In Hosea 6:7, the prophet records the word of the Lord as follows: “But like Adam they [Israel and Judah] transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.” Based upon this declaration it is clear that Adam stood in a covenant relationship to his creator while in Eden, and that Adam had indeed violated the terms of that covenant through a personal act of disobedience. In this declaration from Hosea, we find two very important elements of Christian theology as understood by Reformed Christians. The first is that Adam was created in covenant relationship with God–this covenant was not arbitrarily imposed upon Adam after God created him. Second, Adam’s willful violation of this covenant brought down horrible consequences upon himself, as well as upon the entirety of the human race whom he represents and which has biologically descended from him.
The identity and character of this covenant is a matter of long-standing debate. The covenant of works or, as it is also known, the “covenant of creation,” lies at the heart of the balance of redemptive history both before and after Adam’s fall into sin. Indeed, it is important to acknowledge the presence of this covenant from the very beginning of human history for a number of reasons. Because Adam was created as a divine image-bearer, he was therefore in a covenant relationship from the first moment of his existence, because moral and rational creatures are by their very nature obligated to obey their creator. If Adam should disobey the demands of this covenant–perfect obedience in thought, word, and deed—then Adam and all those whom he represents (the entire human race) are subject to the covenant curse, which is death.
The presence of this covenant from the beginning of creation means that if Adam and his descendants are to be delivered from the consequences of their collective rebellion against God, then any deliverance from the curse will require God’s saving grace and redemptive acts to remove the covenant curse and render Adam’s fallen race righteous before the Lord, just as Adam was righteous prior to his fall into sin. The covenant of grace of which Jesus Christ serves as covenant mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), only makes sense against the backdrop of humanity’s collective fall into sin and the resulting curse (death) when Adam rebelled against his creator and broke the terms of the covenant of works.
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How Is the Trinity Involved in Our Prayers?
In prayer the Spirit perfects our requests, petitions, and praises and brings them to the Son, who in his authority as the righteous Son of God has access to the throne of the Father, where he makes our prayers his own.
Prayer is an essential means by which we can commune (fellowship) with God—and not just God as an abstract being, but God as a personal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each member of the Trinity gives himself to us in the work of prayer. Indeed, prayer wouldn’t even be possible if not for the Trinity.
Theologian Carl Trueman writes,
The New Testament makes it quite clear that the human act of prayer is intimately connected to the trinitarian actions of God and is in fact enfolded and subsumed within that larger divine action.[1]
We wouldn’t even pray at all if it were not for the Spirit.
Thus, in Romans 8:26 Paul declares that the Spirit intercedes for believers in their weakness, when they do not know what they should pray for. Even more fundamentally, we wouldn’t even pray at all if it were not for the Spirit. Prayer is a discourse not simply between us as creatures and God as our creator. Prayer is a discourse between us as children and God as Father. And we would not be able to recognize God as our Father if it were not for the Spirit:
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Romans 8:15–16).
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The Pastor as Steward
The same word is used in Titus 1:3, “And at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior.” Paul’s emphasis on this metaphor shows its importance for understanding the nature of ministry as a stewardship. Modern readers have a grasp on the meaning in the English, but to truly understand the text one must examine what it meant to Timothy.
There are many metaphors for the pastor in the New Testament. He is compared to a shepherd, farmer, soldier, and a workmen to note a few. One often overlooked metaphor is the pastor as steward. The New Testament uses metaphors because they are a powerful communication tool that illicit a visual response in the readers mind and make a simple connection to clarify and sharpen the thing to which they are compared. The image not only invokes information but emotion.
Although, there are many metaphors in the pastoral epistles, I would argue the controlling or dominating picture is the estate stewardship metaphor. Paul states his purpose and his occasion in 1 Timothy 3:14, “I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth.” Paul’s reason for writing is that he is concerned he may be delayed in coming to see Timothy and needs to make Timothy aware of what the church should be doing at Ephesus. The purpose of the letter is to stand in place of Paul himself to provide instruction how people are to behave in God’s house.
It is the introduction of this metaphor, the church as God’s household, that would strike the original reader. Modern households are anything but structured or uniformed, but first-century households conformed to strict rules according to the household code. Specifically, Paul is communicating specific instructions as one in authority to a subordinate.
The Apostle Paul was writing to Timothy to entrust a deposit that Timothy was then to steward according to the instructions of the letter. This stewardship language of “entrust” is used multiple times in Pauls’ epistles.
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The Power of Slander: The Bible’s Teaching And Cautionary Example Of Slander Part 2
Written by Thomas D. Hawkes |
Thursday, May 12, 2022
Slander seems to arise out of bitterness and anger. When we feel wronged, no matter how slight it may be, if we allow bitterness to take root, our sinful nature will tend toward slandering and malice, the desire to do the other person harm. Hence, we are cautioned to deal with slander at its root, our own bitterness toward another. “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:31–32).Read Part 1
The Bible Strongly Cautions Us Against Slander
Slander is addressed clearly in both the Old and New Testaments. God prohibits it by name in Leviticus. “You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD” (Lev. 19:16). Slander would be included in the prohibition of the ninth commandment as well, a particular kind of false witness against our neighbor. “And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Deut. 5:20).
God hates slander so much that he warns us that he will destroy the slanderer. “Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy” (Ps. 101:5). Jeremiah denounces the slander common among the people of God. “Let everyone beware of his neighbor, and put no trust in any brother, for every brother is a deceiver, and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer” (Jer. 9:4).
In the New Testament, Jesus lists slander among those sins that defile the person who practices it. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person” (Matt. 15:19–20). It is interesting to note that while our slander may injure the person we target, it has a worse impact on us, defiling us.
The wives of deacons are to be found free of slander. “Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers,” (1 Tim. 3:11). We are to resist the temptation to slander and put it away entirely from our practice. “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander” (1 Pet. 2:1).
The sins of the tongue, like slander, are so heinous that we are warned about our misuse of our words. “No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (Jam. 3:8–10). Full of deadly poison. Is that not the story behind slander? We curse those whom God intends to bless.
Slander seems to arise out of bitterness and anger. When we feel wronged, no matter how slight it may be, if we allow bitterness to take root, our sinful nature will tend toward slandering and malice, the desire to do the other person harm. Hence, we are cautioned to deal with slander at its root, our own bitterness toward another. “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:31–32). Slander is bitterness incarnated, the fruit of malice. Slander is the sign that forgiveness, kindness, and tenderheartedness are no longer controlling the person. Hence, God wants his children to have nothing to do with slander.
A Case Study of Slander: The Slander of Jesus
We can easily see the deadly power of slander when we realize that Jesus was slandered to death. Think about that. The only perfect man who ever lived was killed through slander! The religious leaders of Jesus’ day wanted him killed. They were threatened by his holy life, a life that made their lives seem flat, lifeless, and unrighteous by comparison. They were threatened by Jesus’ success with the crowds as they were drawn to his teaching, that left the Pharisees with fewer admirers. Most of all, they were threatened when he exposed their hypocrisy, for Pharisees depend on their external displays of uprightness to justify their lives. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence,” (Matt. 23:25).
They needed some believable accusation against Jesus that they could use to destroy him. But imagine their real frustration. He never did, or said, anything wrong. How to get him convicted of a crime to justify their hatred, destroy his reputation, and remove him—permanently—from his ministry so they could be in control again? Slander. It was the single most perfect and economical solution.
During his ministry in Jerusalem the Sanhedrin intentionally sought false testimony against Jesus so they could justify ending his life.
Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, “This man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.’” And the high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” (Matt. 26:59–62).
Note the cleverness of the slander. It takes something that is partially true and twists it, making an innocent statement from Jesus into something sinister, sinful. What had Jesus actually said?
“Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body” (John 2:19–21).
See how they twisted the words of Jesus? Jesus never said, “I am able to destroy the temple,” but rather, “Destroy this temple.” He said in effect, “If you destroy this temple, I will rebuild it in three days.” Of course, he was speaking of an entirely different temple, his body, the temple of the Holy Spirit, which he did raise up in three days.
The powerful religious leaders of Jesus’ day used slander to falsely accuse Jesus and have him executed. They used a religious sounding rationale to conceal their bitter desire to murder him. Certainly, they would claim that they were protecting the people of God from a blasphemer. Their motives were “pure”!
Here we find an important axiom: slander is more powerful than an upright life. If Jesus, in all his perfection of uprightness of life can be slandered to death, then no one is immune from the destructive power of slander.
Beyond the obvious, that the Sanhedrin were threatened by the ministry Jesus, what moved them to such deep, irrational hatred for one so inoffensive? It became clear, even to Pontius Pilate, that the Jews hated Jesus from simple jealously. “So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, ‘Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?’ For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up” (Matt. 27:17–18). They despised him, not because they believed he was a worse man than they were, but because they envied him as a better man than themselves.
The Bible lays out this dynamic of the wicked hating those more righteous than themselves. “Bloodthirsty men hate one who is blameless and seek the life of the upright” (Prov. 29:10). The blameworthy hate the blameless, so much so that they want to kill the upright. Jesus decried the undeserved nature of the hatred that he received from those who slandered him to death. “But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause’” (John 15:25). There was nothing bad in Jesus that justified their hatred. It was the evil in their own hearts that gave rise to it.
David cried out, protesting the wrong done against him, when he had done no fault. His innocence did not stop his enemies from lying, slandering him, demanding he repay what he had not taken. “More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause; mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies. What I did not steal must I now restore?” (Ps. 69:4).
Jealousy is the dynamic that leads wicked people to utterly despise those more upright than themselves. “One whose way is straight is an abomination to the wicked” (Prov. 29:27). This aptly explains the violence of the hatred that the Pharisees felt for Jesus.
In his book Moby Dick, Herman Melville writes of the natural jealousy that those in power have for their social inferiors, who are yet their moral superiors.
Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional world of ours—watery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command over his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he conceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he had a chance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern’s tower, and make a little heap of dust of it.
This is a good description of the irrational hatred that the Pharisees had for Jesus, the root of their envy. Seeing a man better than themselves they developed “an unconquerable dislike and bitterness,” for him. They applied all their energy to make his life, or so they thought, “a little heap of dust.” Until, of course, the dust cleared, and Jesus stepped out from the ground very much alive. So, they attempted to cover their sin with another lie, a slander against the disciples and Christ: “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep’” (Matt. 28:13).
The Bible clearly leads us away from slander, encouraging us to see not only the evil of slander, but the evil in the heart of the slanderer.
Dr. Thomas D. Hawkes is a Minister in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and serves a Director of Church Planting for the ARP Florida Presbytery, and as Lead Pastor of Christ ARP Mission in Fernandina Beach, Fla.
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