Written by R. Fowler White |
Sunday, December 18, 2022
We sing because we have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of sinners. We sing because we have received and are resting upon Christ alone for salvation as He is offered in the Gospel. Don’t sneer at us who sing. Join us in our confession and sing with us the truths that express the great mystery of godliness, once hidden now revealed in Christ: Christ manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

The Apostle Paul wrote in First Timothy 3:16 (NASB95): By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, was vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. 
As we have entered another season of celebrating the incarnation of God the Son, we sing of that great mystery of godliness that, as expressed in the phrases of 1 Tim 3:16, has now been revealed in Christ. So let’s be clear: by mystery we don’t mean something esoteric or cryptic, but rather truth made known only by divine revelation. About this particular mystery there is said to be common consent in God’s confessing church. It is a mystery summarized here in six lyrical phrases from what was most probably an early Christian hymn, sung in three stanzas of two lines each. Let’s consider the truth revealed in each line.
We sing of the incarnation of Christ: He who was manifested in the flesh. According to the Apostle Paul, our song begins with the fact that that Child in the feeding trough was the pre-existent Son of the Father, God of God, God with God, who has permanently taken to Himself human nature, having become forever thereafter one Person with two natures, divine and human. Miraculously conceived and preserved from sin’s defilement by the Holy Spirit, His birth began His suffering. That suffering became hostility and insult; then betrayal, abandonment, scorn, rejection, condemnation; then torment, facing the terrors of death, feeling and bearing the weight of God’s wrath as a sacrifice for sin, enduring painful, shameful, cursed crucifixion. His death brought an end to the earthly phase of His manifestation in the flesh. Of His incarnation we sing in our song, because with it the historical accomplishment of our redemption began. But there is more to our song.
We sing of the vindication of Christ: He was vindicated [justified] by the Spirit. When He was manifested in the flesh, the Son became the servant who submitted Himself to God’s law and conquered Satan, sin, and death. He became the one Man whom God has justified by His works. Made alive by the Spirit, everything Jesus said and did was certified as faithful and true. We sing, then, of Christ vindicated, the only immortal and now glorified Man.
We sing of the appearances of Christ: He was seen by angels.
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Gaffin’s most recent book is a searching exploration of how to apply New Testament eschatology to the unfolding sweep of redemptive history, particularly regarding how the ascended Christ has ushered in the end of the ages by pouring out his Spirit on his church. 

Dr. Richard Gaffin, professor emeritus of biblical and systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia), is famous for his emphasis on redemptive history and the historia salutis, or the factors concerning Christ’s once-for-all accomplishment of redemption. Claiming the legacy of Geerhardus Vos and Herman Ridderbos, he has focused his scholarly efforts on the major redemptive-historical shifts that occurred in Christ’s first coming, also highlighting the eschatological flavor of New Testament, particularly Pauline, theology. Gaffin’s students have often lauded his course on Acts and Paul as his fundamental contribution to the field. His most recent book, In the Fullness of Time, preserves those lectures in published form, produced from transcriptions of his recorded lectures and edited by Gaffin himself.
This book is essentially a work on eschatology, arguing that the inbreaking of the last day in Christ’s advent is a primarily encompassing feature of New Testament theology, and tracing out its implications. It has two parts, the first exploring the theology of the book of Acts, and the second examining the Pauline corpus. Under each topical chapter, Gaffin performs careful and detailed exegesis on several passages related to the point he is considering, each focusing in some way or other on the already-not yet of New Testament teaching.
Part one on the theology of the book of Acts predominantly focuses on Pentecost’s theological significance. Gaffin argues, rooting his claims not only in the events of Acts 2 but also in a holistic consideration of Luke’s treatment of the Holy Spirit and God’s kingdom in both installments of his account to Theophilus, that Pentecost belongs to the historia salutis as a facet of the once-for-all accomplishment of redemption and a turning point in redemptive history itself. His target, of course, is Pentecostalism, which has often posed Pentecost—at least in the categories with which Gaffin is grappling, even if not their own—as part of the ordo salutis. That Pentecostal position entails that every individual believer should experience the same sort of phenomenon as occurred in Acts 2 because they see that tied to how salvation is applied to the believer. Gaffin, on the other hand, makes a strident case that the Holy Spirit’s outpouring at Pentecost is not a normative experience as part of the ordo salutis but was a pivotal moment in redemptive history wherein Christ sent the Helper whom he promised to send, so that the church would be equipped for her kingdom-expanding mission of gospel ministry.
Gaffin’s exegesis is thoroughly persuasive on this point, demonstrating Pentecost’s age-shifting significance as the extension of Christ’s kingdom into this world by the power of the Spirit to be carried forward in the church’s means of grace ministry. As a convinced cessationist, I am glad for this thorough pushback against destructive understandings of the Christian’s experience of the Spirit. The presentation, however, does leave some questions unanswered. Gaffin convincingly outlines what Pentecost’s implications are not, yet never outlines what its implications are with much specificity. The dawning of the age of the Spirit is of course an exhilarating idea, prompting thanks for the Spirit’s presence with the church in our endeavors. This material’s value could be richly supplemented, however, by focusing also on what it means to live in the age of the Spirit and how the Christian experience of the Spirit should be understood. That is not to say this experience need be described all that experientially, but is to say that sometimes extended refutation (and even positive exposition that is nonetheless rightly but primarily aimed to circumvent error) can leave us with only half of what we need. What does the Spirit do in the church during this period of redemptive history?
Another question arises from Gaffin’s helpful case that Pentecost belongs to the historia salutis: namely, related to the difference, if any, that comes in relation to the ordo salutis compared to believers who lived prior to the Incarnation and Pentecost. This question is a necessary point to consider because the recent increase of Baptist reflection on the covenants and the unity of redemptive history has focused on the Spirit’s indwelling as the difference between Old and New Testament soteriology. In this respect, and to some degree in relation to the emphatic concern to preclude Pentecostal conclusions, this book could have used some slight updating as it seems to focus on matters that may be somewhat out of date in most recent discourse. That certainly does not diminish its value for what it does contribute, but leaves some important matters unclarified. It would have been a significant help to see Gaffin think Pentecost’s redemptive-historical shift all the way down to its specific applications for more precise systematic theological questions. This point in no way suggests that Gaffin’s answers to these questions would be deficient, just that it would have been most helpful to get to read those answers.1
Part two, which concerns the theology of the Pauline letters, likewise emphasizes Paul’s contributions to understanding the shifts in redemptive history that accompany Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. This section too, then, focuses on eschatology—namely, the inbreaking of the last days through Christ’s humiliation and exaltation. The survey of the history of interpretation for Paul’s letters is particularly helpful regarding the higher critical period, showing Gaffin’s familiarity with a host of literature, available only in the European languages when he would have been originally preparing this course, with which modern readers of Paul must in some way or other reckon. After framing the investigation of Paul’s letters in terms of the history of interpretation and the overall eschatological structure of his thought, the bulk of part two focuses on the significance of Christ’s resurrection for redemptive history and for the Christian life. The chapters here probe deeply into how Christ’s resurrection should reorient the way we think about eschatology, redemptive history, and salvation.
I am aware that readers of the Heidelblog will be especially interested in this book’s treatment of the doctrine of justification. Gaffin has made controversial claims about justification in his earlier published writings, particularly concerning an application of our already-not yet eschatology to justification itself, leaving some aspects of it to be completed in the future. Although valuing his emphasis on eschatology and his thoroughgoing amillennialism, I have disagreed with Gaffin on this point, especially his interpretation of Romans 2. Two points must be noted here: 1) This post is a review of a particular book, not an engagement with everything Gaffin has ever written, and 2) nonetheless I believe that there was a demonstrable shift in Gaffin’s thought on the ordo salutis in his 2016 essay “The Work of Christ Applied.”2
The second point may be worth elaborating. Whereas Gaffin had formerly criticized the notion of fixed relationships between Christ’s benefits within a truly ordered ordo salutis, this essay contains more resolute statements concerning a logical order. For example, he contended that the blessings of the ordo salutis “are not received as an arbitrary or chaotic mix but in a set pattern with fixed connections among them,” which prevents “misrepresenting individual aspects or acts and so distorting the work of Christ applied as a whole.”3 In another instance, Gaffin also affirmed the priority of the legal aspects of salvation:
While these two [forensic and renovative] aspects are inseparable, the judicial aspect has an essential and decisive priority. Because his [Christ’s] obedience unto death is the requisite judicial ground for his resurrection, his becoming the life-giving Spirit presupposes his being justified in the Spirit, not the reverse.4
It is possible that this suggested shift in Gaffin’s thought on the ordo salutis occurred while he edited the English translation of Geerhardus Vos’ Reformed Dogmatics, an invaluable contribution. Vos took positions that remarkably resemble Gaffin’s most recent arguments. For instance: “The subjective application of the salvation obtained by Christ does not occur at once or arbitrarily.” Rather, “there are a multiplicity of relationships and conditions to which all the operations of grace have a certain connection.”5 This point has bearing on how we must review In the Fullness of Time.
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In sum, LeCroy was wrong and did well to retract his claims and apologize, and Stover was right to publicly oppose him. But in the process he stumbled and suggested things are more hopeful than they are just now. For it is written that we will know men by their fruits (Matt. 7:15-20), and who can deny that the fruits of Revoice and Transluminate and the like have been vile? Strife and quarreling, the driving of people and churches from our fold, the threat of a denominational split, and the shameless public discussion of what it is shameful and dangerous to mention publicly (Eph. 5:3), and which was previously unthinkable, have all hobbled our church. All this has happened because the leaven was not purged at the first infection (1 Cor. 5:6-7; Gal. 5:9), and for that there is much occasion for grief on the part of all of us.

In a recent article Tim LeCroy made some claims to which another Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) minister, Charles Stover, objected in a response. LeCroy’s original article has been withdrawn and replaced with an apology, so I have little inclination to address it directly. But having read the two articles and pondered the matter for a few days I find myself thinking that it is Stover’s article that is the more alarming.
That is perhaps a startling statement, and if you are familiar with my previous writing you will know that I have been quite blunt in responding to LeCroy and to the purportedly now defunct National Partnership of which he was a prominent member. Permit me an explanation. I do not object to Stover’s rebuttals, which accord with the truth and were justified by LeCroy’s original claims. It is rather statements like these that unsettle my conscience terribly:
I had no idea that Missouri Presbytery was meeting regularly to investigate Memorial Presbyterian Church, Transluminate, and Greg Johnson. I was not aware of the impassioned debates and floor speeches being conducted at Presbytery.
And:
I am quick to correct detractors when they accuse our presbytery as being liberal.
For it would seem to me that investigations and impassioned debates do not justice make, at least not as a matter of course. They perhaps produce the appearance of energy and life, but it is their end result that matters, not they themselves.
And what was the end result of all Missouri’s debating and investigating? Were the Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) purity and peace increased? No indeed, and it was very much the opposite. The accused seized the investigation as a vindication. He went before the whole nation and exposed his own denomination and his ostensible brethren to ridicule in the eyes of unbelievers – something no believer should ever do to another – and appealed to these investigations and debates as proof that he was guiltless and was subject to needless opposition on the part of others in the PCA.
Let me state it plainly: the many words and the passion notwithstanding, those debates and investigations accomplished nothing beneficial, at least as far as the PCA as a whole is concerned. They did not punish wrong, but rather forced the opponents of wrong to pursue the matter by other means and in other forums. Even now the denomination is greatly absorbed in the matter as it seeks to amend its Book of Church Order to hopefully prevent another similar debacle, a matter which will drag on for the foreseeable future. What should have been put to rest efficiently long ago has festered and spread throughout the whole denomination and occasioned continued disagreements, with no end in sight.
That passion and those debates and investigations do not, as such, suggest that the presbytery in question is solidly orthodox/conservative/sound/faithful or whatever we wish to call it; nor do they commend our processes as fair, efficient, and apt to produce a good result. To the contrary, they suggest inefficiency, delay, and an excessive fondness of words, wrangling, and procedural minutiae, as well as an elevation of process over result and of procedure over its proper end. If it be objected that the churches and elders in question nonetheless confess sound doctrine as expressed in Scripture and in our standards, let me rejoin with a paraphrase of James: ‘You say that you have sound doctrine and holiness apart from discipline; should you not rather show me your soundness in the faith and your zeal for holiness by your discipline?’ For professions of orthodoxy notwithstanding, such an orthodoxy is as dead and useless as the purported faith of James’ readers (2:14-26). It may sparkle in the sun and have the appearance of great majesty; but in the time of testing it proved no more than a façade. It failed utterly, and it did not even do that efficiently.
Now one might say that these are only the rants of a fundamentalist doom monger who has in espousing them committed slander himself. If one is so inclined I invite her or him to look at this and to make the case that this is anything other than slander (my contact info is in the bio line) or that objecting to such a thing is somehow inherently ‘fundamentalist’ or sinful. And I would invite such a person to ask himself these questions: was John a fundamentalist when he objected to Diotrephes “talking wicked nonsense” about him and his companions (3 Jn. 10)? If the answer is no, why then should I be deemed a fundamentalist for opposing someone who showed his character in such unjust malignment as in the tweet linked above?
As for Stover’s claim that Missouri Presbytery is not liberal, let us grant, for the sake of argument, that the public profession of faith of its members is indeed sound. About the most generous thing that can be said in such a case is that, as far as the maintenance of public orthodoxy and discipline is concerned (key phrase), such a conservatism gives cause to say ‘with conservatives such as these, who needs liberals?’ That sounds excessively harsh and uncharitable; but I do not make it, if you can accept it, because I am a hateful fundamentalist provocateur who revels in quarreling. Remember what was being investigated by Missouri Presbytery. Memorial Presbyterian allowed its property to be used for a series of plays promoting and celebrating unnatural sexual confusion (what is called, with doubtful accuracy, ‘transgenderism’).
Now God says in his law that “a woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God” (Deut. 22:5). How much worse do you think it is when someone puts on the physique of the other sex and subjects himself or herself to physical mutilation by surgical or chemical means to attain it? Such a thing involves a revolt against nature and against God’s created order itself – which is to say that it is about the pinnacle of impiety. That it is often a result of mental disturbances and past trauma and is attended by a plethora of other miserable mental maladies I grant; but the thing clearly propagates by example. The more acceptable it is, the more common it is; and if anything, the misery to which it reduces its sufferers is all the more reason to refuse to do anything, no matter how slight, that in any way encourages the existence and spread of such a dangerous thing.
Now God also abundantly attests that when his people use that which he has given them to commit abominations in his sight they arouse his anger and jealousy, defile the places in question, and bring God’s curse and just condemnation upon themselves (Lev. 18:24-29; 20:22; Deut. 27:15-68; Isa. 1:28; Jer. 2:7; 16:18; Eze. 36:17-18). He attests further that those who have authority and responsibility to restrain wrong in such cases are solemnly obligated to do so, and that they themselves will suffer his wrath if they fail in this (Ex. 32:25; 1 Sam. 2:12-36; 3:11-13; 2 Chron. 28:19; Rev. 2:14, 20). Now a church in Missouri Presbytery did what was abominable in God’s sight and did what must be considered an act of apostasy after the fashion of the ancient Israelites. And the presbytery’s response was to investigate and issue a report, and not to meaningfully punish the church or its leadership or restrain the evil. Its response was about as effective as Eli’s to his wayward sons, and we see how that ended (1 Sam. 4:17-21).
All of which is to say that conservative or not, professedly orthodox or not, the actual nature of Missouri’s deeds was not productive of orthodoxy and tended strongly in the other direction. That’s a bold claim, admittedly, and it is not everyday that I – who am an insignificant man and vile sinner – accuse an entire presbytery of being derelict in its duty. That is defensible only if my view of things is correct. But if my view is correct, then it would seem to me that Scripture (Zech. 7:9; 8:16; Eph. 4:25) and our standards (WLC Q. 144) require me to speak in such a way, but with much sorrow and the strong hope that there will sincere and full repentance for the future.
In sum, LeCroy was wrong and did well to retract his claims and apologize, and Stover was right to publicly oppose him. But in the process he stumbled and suggested things are more hopeful than they are just now. For it is written that we will know men by their fruits (Matt. 7:15-20), and who can deny that the fruits of Revoice and Transluminate and the like have been vile? Strife and quarreling, the driving of people and churches from our fold, the threat of a denominational split, and the shameless public discussion of what it is shameful and dangerous to mention publicly (Eph. 5:3), and which was previously unthinkable, have all hobbled our church. All this has happened because the leaven was not purged at the first infection (1 Cor. 5:6-7; Gal. 5:9), and for that there is much occasion for grief on the part of all of us.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name.
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