Written by Coleman M. Ford and Shawn J. Wilhite |
Wednesday, August 7, 2024
Early Christian pastors dug a deep well of theology to bring forth water for the care of souls, and we can glean many insights from this tradition that will help us deepen our ministry, enrich our theological reflection, and vivify our spiritual communion with God.

The Role of a Pastor
Early in ministry, Shawn and I often heard, “The pastor is supposed to do such and such” regarding various extrabiblical tasks. Several people had expectations that were not rooted in a biblical vision of the pastoral office. It certainly took time for us to learn (and continue to learn) how to remain teachable to some and lead others toward a biblical vision of the pastoral office. But, in general, too many items have been added to the pastor’s job description. According to Scripture, the pastor first and foremost prays (Acts 6), shepherds his people (1 Pet. 5), lives a virtuous life in the Spirit, and upholds sound teaching in local settings.
While writing, I (Coleman) overheard two women describing their church experiences over the last few years. One heard a feel-good message and was then herded out of the sanctuary; she did not feel known or seen. The other said she wanted to be in a church that was more rooted in the community. Both were expressing the desire to attend church in the town where they live, be integrated with others in the community, and be known by their church family and its leaders. This casual conversation in a suburban coffee shop in north Texas over iced lattes perfectly represents why we wrote a book about a biblical vision of ministry. While we don’t want to idolize a specific vision of church life, we do want to bring the ancient voices of the church fathers to bear on this topic. We offer a simple vision of a pastor who prays, tends to people’s souls, and preaches the life-giving word of God. This kind of pastor pursues virtue, contemplation, and slowness. He equips the church and shepherds people’s souls. He cultivates communal and individual liturgies. He leads a local church that, though unknown to the rest of the world, is vital to the surrounding neighborhoods. Overall, the classical pastor is the quiet pastor who displays a peaceful temperament and ministers to souls in his local setting.1
In order to do this, the classical pastor contemplates and proclaims the beauties of the triune God, the gospel, and the Scriptures, using this to walk with people through their current life into the next. He takes these beauties and shows people how to find joy and happiness in God during this life. In a single day, he may walk with someone who shared the gospel for the first time, someone who criticizes his last sermon, someone whose marriage he officiated but who is now on the verge of divorce, and someone expressing an interest in missions work. Such pastors administer the riches of God to address the complexities of various situations in his congregants’ lives, model godly living, and equip others for ministry. Navigating this pastoral life is, as the fathers said, the “art of arts.”2
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If the intention of the American revision was to commend a biblical principle of pluralism, then it seems odd that non-pluralistic (theonomic) principles within the American standards were not reworked along with WCF 23.3.

Kevin DeYoung recently wrote that in 1788, American Presbyterians revised chapter 23 of the original Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) because many “grew wary of granting coercive powers to the civil magistrate and were drawn to more robust notions of religious liberty”. DeYoung reasons that by virtue of the revision, “Presbyterians in America rejected an older, European model of church-state relations whereby the magistrate was obligated to suppress heresies, reform the church, and provide for church establishments.” DeYoung goes on to say that “it’s important to recognize that the two versions of WCF 23:3 represent two different and irreconcilable views of the civil magistrate.”
DeYoung cites other changes to the American standards outside chapter 23 and observes that “[the] most significant change is in chapter 23, where the third article was almost completely rewritten, reflecting a new understanding of church and state that allowed for more toleration and gave much less power to the magistrate over the realm of religion.”
First, a clarification is in order, which is not a criticism per se. Given the religious nature of the Westminster standards and sound Presbyterian polity, the church’s subordinate standards neither grant nor deny coercive powers to the civil magistrate. Nor is it true that they “gave much less power to the magistrate over the realm of religion.”
By the nature of the case, confessions are not in a position to do either, though they may acknowledge civil power and declare that it comes from God.
Not to belabor the point but the purpose of the Confession is to put forth the system of doctrine taught in Scripture, which includes general principles pertaining to the duty and power of the civil magistrate. Consequently, whether the civil magistrate has certain dutiful powers over the church or not, such power is not transferred or taken back by the will of the church. The church may only declare the biblical boundaries of such power. If she tries to grant (or give) it because it is not hers, then it is not hers to give. (In other words, it would have already belonged to the civil magistrate and couldn’t be granted to it by the church.) Yet if the church tries to take it back because it is rightfully hers by divine appointment, then it never truly left her. (The church would merely need to recognize her power and act according to it.)
Consequently, we must be careful in saying that our Presbyterian forefathers “gave much less power to the magistrate over the realm of religion” and “grew wary of granting coercive powers to the civil magistrate and were drawn to more robust notions of religious liberty.” If “granting” and “gave” means allowing, permitting, bestowing etc., then hopefully they didn’t think they granted or gave coercive powers to the civil magistrate. If what was intended by “granting” and “gave” is that they got tired of acknowledging the civil magistrate’s coercive powers, then fine. (Again, this is merely intended to be point of clarification given the common confusion over the ministerial and declarative functions of the church.)
With that clarification aside, my focus as it relates to the article will be on the WCF’s revision that pertains to church and state, with particular attention given to the claim that the two versions (England’s and America’s) are irreconcilable on the matter of religious pluralism. That specific concern will be considered in the larger context of Westminster’s civil ethics. (For brevity sake, I won’t spend time on points of agreement or possible agreement as they relate to the principles of civil ethics.)
The American Revision:
The American revision confesses that Protestant denominations should be protected from being prevented to assemble and worship without violence or danger. The standards further state: “It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people… and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance.”
Some have tried to maintain that “all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies” refers back to the duty of civil magistrates to protect only Christian denominations and, therefore, may not be applied to non-evangelical assemblies whether trinitarian or not. For instance, some have argued that the revision does not suggest in any context that public synagogue worship as well as the sacrilege of the Romish mass is to be protected under the law. It seems to me that such a reading of the revision is not only strained but would render the American emendation awkwardly superfluous. If so, then the Confession is stating now, by its revision, that false worship is to be protected under the law. Notwithstanding, if that contradicts the original standards, then it necessarily contradicts WCF 19.4 along with Westminster Larger Catechism 108 (WLC 108).
Before delving into the reason why the revision does not contradict the original with respect to religious pluralism, it might be helpful to consider those two portions of the standards (WCF 19.4 and WLC 108) in order to see how they complement both the original and the revision.
The duties required in the Second Commandment are…the disapproving, detesting, opposing, all false worship; and, according to each one’s place and calling, removing it, and all monuments of idolatry.WLC 108
Surprising to most, elders and deacons who subscribe to the Westminsters standards vow to disapprove of all false worship and seek its removal, even through the civil magistrate. Ordained servants also vow, according to WCF 29.4, to consider the mass a corruption of the Lord’s Supper. Consequently, faithful elders and deacons desire to see the centerpiece of Roman Catholic experience lawfully removed from the land. Consequently, faithful ordained servants are in this sense theonomic and do not advocate for a principle of religious pluralism. Accordingly, I find this troubling:
Gone from WCF 23:3 in the American revision are any references to the civil magistrate’s role in suppressing heresies and blasphemies, in reforming the church, in maintaining a church establishment, and in calling and providing for synods…. In its place, the American revision lists four basic functions for the civil magistrate relative to the church…(4) protect all people so no one is injured or maligned based on his or her religion or lack of religion.Kevin DeYoung
Given WLC 108 (along with WCF 19.4, which will be touched on momentarily), Christian citizens should do all within their influence to ensure that all heresies, blasphemies and false religions are suppressed. Consequently, if DeYoung is correct regarding the American standards, then not only does it contradict the original, it also contradicts itself!
Because of what WLC 108 clearly states, consistent antinomians who have taken up a similar position to DeYoung‘s have been constrained to limit the scope of WLC 108 to families and the Christian church in order to relieve any possible inconsistency between the alleged pluralism of chapter 23 and the theonomic import of WLC 108, which without qualification declares opposition to all false worship. In other words, in order not to allow the revised standards to contradict itself, WLC 108 has been reinterpreted to mean that only heads of family and presbyters may purge false worship in the home and Christian church respectively, but civil magistrates may not do so as WLC 108 plainly teaches when it speaks of removing all false worship and monuments of idolatry.
Additionally, WCF 19.4 must be reinterpreted as to now oppose its originally intended meaning.
To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.WCF 19.4
Ordained servants who subscribe to the Westminster standards have vowed to believe and teach that civil magistrates are obliged to apply Israel’s civil laws according to their general equity.
In order to reconcile WCF 19.4 with the alleged advocacy of the principle of pluralism found in WCF 23.3, the general equity of Israel’s civil sanctions can no longer apply to modern day civil sanctions. Instead, as Rick Phillips, representative of many ordained servants in the Reformed tradition, has unabashedly stated:
While there is an undisputed wisdom contained in this civil law it can not be made applicable to any nation today, since there are no biblically sanctioned theocracies now…They are transformed into the judicious application of church discipline.Rick Phillips
Such a rendering cannot be derived from the standards. The claim is exegetically preposterous and has suffered from philosophically dubious argumentation. The translation defies the plain meaning of words and the proof-texts, while cashing out as an outright abrogation of the civil law as opposed to preserving its general equity in the civil sphere. (See also discussion on William Perkins’ use of general equity, the epistemological conundrum and logical incoherence of R2K, and an overview of the disagreement.)
If the intention of the American revision was to commend a biblical principle of pluralism, then it seems odd that non-pluralistic (theonomic) principles within the American standards were not reworked along with WCF 23.3. It seems highly unlikely that the unambiguous requirement of the second commandment should no longer be applied to the civil sphere without a word of explanation by American Presbyterians. Moreover, if American Presbyterians sought to teach that the plain teaching of WCF 19.4 no longer applies to the civil magistrate but instead applies to the church, then it seems axiomatic that such a bald claim must be deduced from the standards and not just assumed and asserted. (Special Pleading: If x then y, but not when it hurts my position.) However, if revision 23.3 does not contradict the original, then we can continue to take WLC 108 and WCF 19.4 at face value without contradiction. That is the common sense approach, especially if it can be shown that the American revision does not oppose the original Confession on the subject of religious pluralism. However, if the revision denies the original, then the revision is inconsistent with other portions of the Westminster standards (given the plain and unaltered portions of WCF 19.4 and WLC 108).
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“Pop Squad” offers a rare window into the mind of an abortionist. It also hints at a path for his redemption. 

Progressive media has been quick to dismiss recent accusations by high-ranking Republicans like former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis that Democrats support “post-birth” abortion. Debunking DeSantis, an article from the fact-checking website Politifact notes that no U.S. state, not even those with the most permissive abortion laws, allows for the killing of newborn infants, and that the federal Born Alive Infants Protection Act already confers legal personhood upon any infant born alive after a failed abortion. MSNBC contributor Steve Benen finds it beyond belief that “Republicans like Trump…seriously expect voters to believe that there are women, medical professionals, and Democratic policymakers who ‘want abortion literally when the child is coming out of the birth canal.’ That’s insane. There are no such people.”
Assuming that were true, one nonetheless wonders why these rebuttals never state that post-birth abortion is morally wrong. They merely point out that abortionists are prohibited by law from dispatching infants once they are born, in which case Republicans are attacking a non-issue. Perhaps to affirmatively denounce infanticide would play into the hands of the enemy, many of whom use the term to refer to abortion at any stage in a pregnancy.
Briefly setting aside the question of what abortion advocates actually think about infanticide, let us imagine a world in which the slaughter of children—not fetuses in utero—is not only legal but mandatory. Such a world is the setting for “Pop Squad,” a 2006 short story by science fiction author Paolo Bacigalupi. A cinematic adaption has since appeared on the popular streaming service Netflix as an episode of Love, Death & Robots, an anthology series consisting of animated short films. As absurd as “Pop Squad” may seem, closer inspection reveals that its premise has already been taken for granted by much of modern society.
Following George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, “Pop Squad” continues the “banality of evil” trope by casting as its protagonist a bureaucratic enforcer of a ruthless regime. The film centers around Officer Briggs. He raids an apartment where the inhabitants are illegally raising children. In the original story, Briggs recounts with sheer disgust what he witnessed upon entry: “I squeeze my finger over my nose and breathe through my mouth, fighting off nausea… The shit smell thickens, eggy and humid. The nosecap barely holds it off. Old peas and bits of cereal crunch under my feet. They squish with the spaghetti, the geological layers of past feedings.” He discovers a “brood” of children from whom emanates an endless cacophony of “howls” and “shrieks.” The mother is dragged away, kicking and screaming, and Briggs aims his pistol, ready to “pop” the children. He pulls the trigger just as a boy offers him a green stuffed dinosaur.
Why are kids being put to death? Does the human race not need the little vermin to replenish itself? It turns out that affordable rejuvenation (“rejoo”) treatments enable individuals to live on indefinitely. Desperate to halt environmental degradation, the state has made rejoo mandatory, as it causes infertility. Any children born to people who refuse rejoo are summarily executed. In Briggs’ words, “we can’t keep letting people into this party if no one ever leaves.”
The scene cuts to Briggs’ self-driving police cruiser escaping the rundown neighborhood. It soars through the clouds and approaches a futuristic spire where Briggs attends a symphony. His romantic partner, Alice, performs a majestic solo. At a ceremony afterwards, Alice, described in the story as “perfectly slim” and “well curved,” remarks that she “can’t imagine stopping the rejoo treatment just like that.” “Why give all this up?”, she asks, standing atop a balcony outside the dazzling art deco concert hall, the city glimmering in the backdrop. “So not having kids seems a small price to pay for getting to live forever!” Briggs teases that he would marry Alice had they not been immortal. Alice, alluding to her upcoming rejoo session, responds that “if we weren’t gonna live forever, I’d let you get me pregnant.”
Intentional or not, Alice is a caricature of those who identify as DINKs, or “Dual Income, No Kids.” To quote one journalist, DINKs “present themselves as permanent adolescents with a lot more money and time to spend on themselves.” “We don’t have kids to feed, but we’ve got lots of money to spend on goodies,” says one woman in a TikTok video showing her and her husband purchasing $252.88 of mostly processed foods. For her, marriage appears to be a never-ending streak of fun dates: “You cannot tell me that grocery shopping and a fresh slice of Costco pizza isn’t a good date night.” Aside from perhaps a shared income, the marriage resembles a non-marital relationship, and just like Alice and Briggs, many DINKs are indeed unmarried and will never marry. If given access to rejoo, DINKs will no doubt choose it. For now, many make the most of their finite youth by sterilizing themselves.
Not all DINKs spend their childless lives going on Costco shopping trips. Alice, for one thing, spent 20 years (or 15 years in the story) perfecting her solo. Briggs recalls her practice routine: “[S]he practiced on the balcony, testing herself, working again and again against the limitations of her self. Disciplining her fingers and hands, forcing them to accept [the instructor’s] demands, the ones that years ago she had called impossible and which now run so cleanly through the audience.”
Historian Christopher Lasch observes that the elite in Western societies live a highly regimented lifestyle consisting of private schools, extracurriculars, and social events, all to inculcate delayed gratification. This attitude of command and control extends to the corporeal. In 2022, American households earning at least $125,000 a year spent over $200 billion on wellness-related products. “It is as though the white-collar class thinks of the body as a machine to be preserved and kept in perfect functioning condition, whether through prosthetic devices, rehabilitation, cosmetic surgery, or perpetual treatment.” They express “an impatience with biological constraints of any kind,…a belief that modern technology has liberated humanity from those constraints…”
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Machen stuck to his doctrinal guns and his insistence on Christian doctrine, mission, and ministry in Christian churches—for a certain intolerance. And he paid dearly for it. 

Religious intolerance was no more welcome in Machen’s day than now. The same was true 2000 years ago in the polytheistic, polyamorous, anything-goes Roman Empire. Theology is necessarily mathematical, but have one god or many…just don’t be seen as dissing the emperor. The great sin was really exclusivity, regardless of your first-century mathematical-theological calculations:
That brings us to our second point. The primitive Church, we have just seen, was radically doctrinal. In the second place, it was radically intolerant. In being radically intolerant, as in being radically doctrinal, it placed itself squarely in opposition to the spirit of that age. That was an age of syncretism and tolerance in religion; it was an age of what J. S. Phillimore has called “the courtly polygamies of the soul.” But with that tolerance, with those courtly polygamies of the soul, the primitive Christian Church would have nothing to do. It demanded a completely exclusive devotion. A man could not be a worshiper of the God of the Christians and at the same time be a worshiper of other gods; he could not accept the salvation offered by Christ and at the same time admit that for other people there might be some other way of salvation; he could not agree to refrain from proselytizing among men of other faiths, but came forward, no matter what it might cost, with a universal appeal. That is what I mean by saying that the primitive Christian Church was radically intolerant.
It’s pretty obvious what “courtly polygamies of the soul” and what toleration Machen had in mind in 1933:
Just the year before a very respectable call for tolerant religion had gone out, funded by no less than zillionaire John D. Rockefeller, one of the mainline’s main moneymen.
“In 1932, the book “Rethinking Missions” was published. It stated that its aim was to do exactly what the title suggested, namely, to change the purpose of sending foreign missionaries to the world. Its aim was to seek the truth from the religions to which it went, rather than to present the truth of historic Christianity. There should be a common search for truth as a result of missionary ministry, was the consensus of this book. (Former presbyterian missionary) Pearl Buck agreed one hundred per cent with the results of this book. She believed that every American Christian should read it.” 1
Machen’s call to intolerance was not unreasonable at all. What he wanted was a Christian church (and hence Christian ministers and missionaries) who were Christian.
This was no new concern for Machen. Ten years earlier in Christianity and Liberalism he had already contended that “what the liberal theologian has retained after abandoning to the enemy one Christian doctrine after another is not Christianity at all, but a religion which is so entirely different from Christianity as to be long in a distinct category…despite the liberal use of traditional phraseology modern liberalism not only is a different religion from Christianity but belongs in a totally different class of religions.” One might conceivably accuse Machen of unoriginality or cussed stick-in-the-muddiness. What you cannot accuse him of is inconsistency.
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God has the last laugh, though, because even when people blaspheme, they reinforce what God says. It’s another clear indicator that Christianity is true and Jesus is God. He has created the frame that we all live inside, and even those who hate it cannot escape.

Friday’s drag-queen parody of Christ at the Paris Olympics opening shows yet again that people who hate Jesus just can’t escape His art, archetypes, created realities, or authority.
The exhibition replaced Christ in the iconic Leonardo Da Vinci painting with a queer activist who describes herself as “a fat, Jewish, queer lesbian” and his disciples with cross-dressing sex performers. It immediately prompted an international backlash that can’t benefit queer acceptance. Neither can the performance, which portrayed queer people as creepy sex maniacs.
The show also backfired symbolically. In their attempts to slime what they see as their enemies, queer activists reinforced things they’re trying to destroy.
The Last Supper on Display
The most obvious demonstration of this is the derivative nature of the “art.” The best the queer Paris Olympics “artistic director” and sex performers could come up with is badly deforming others’ artistic triumphs. They didn’t think up their own world, symbols, and referents, they just sabotaged others’ then pretended what any three-year-old can do is brilliant. This doesn’t compete with or replace Christianity and its symbols, it reinforces them.
If one wanted an entire civilization to forget about Christ’s Last Supper, one would adopt the left’s usual strategy: the memoryhole. Indeed, that seems to be already happening for the Paris blasphemy show, with clips of this massive event oddly difficult to find online.
Today, few Westerners know almost anything about their artistic, religious, and cultural heritage. In earlier generations, varying-quality reproductions of the famous Last Supper painting graced numerous homes by the dinner table. This was a culturally well-understood archetypal invitation for Christ to join and bless every meal, a symbol of the eternal feast Christians enjoy in the Sacrament.
In the Last Supper, and all administrations of what Christians call the Sacrament (or Communion) thereafter, Christ Himself gives “us Christians to eat and to drink” the “true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine,” as clearly explained by “the holy Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and St. Paul.” This act of obedience to God produces forgiveness of sins, faith, and eternal salvation. It is the high point of every Christian church service around which all other elements are arranged.
Even though Christianity is the world’s largest religion and the one that created Western civilization, most Westerners today know almost nothing about Christianity, including this central doctrine. The savvy thing for Christ-haters would have been to keep the Last Supper imagery in the cultural attic, with the dust bunnies, catechisms, and two-parent nuclear families. Instead following the sadistic urge to hate on their self-chosen enemies has millions searching “Last Supper” and learning about this keystone of faith.
A Dance for Enemies
The Last Supper blasphemy display was thematically and metaphorically interesting in many other ways. A Renaissance art expert noted to The New York Times that the sex performers made vogueing poses. Voguing is a dance that originated among queer people. It also, Vox says in a 2017 explainer, has a violent undertone: It’s “an extension of throwing shade. Instead of fighting, two people would settle their beef on the dance floor.”
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Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Wednesday, August 7, 2024
Those who stay “inside the room” of the universe to account for intrinsic human dignity and inherent human value simply cannot justify their prejudice toward humans. If, however, humans are the special creation of a Creator God who created us in His image, our position “inside the room” would indeed be worthy of moral obligation.

In my book, God’s Crime Scene, I examine eight pieces of evidence in the universe by asking a simple investigative question: “Can I explain the evidence ‘in the room’ (of the natural universe) by staying ‘in the room’?” This is a question I ask at every death scene to determine if I actually have a crime scene. When evidence in the room can’t be explained by staying in the room, I’ve got to consider the involvement of an intruder. If the evidence inside the universe can’t be explained by staying “inside” the natural realm of the universe, we must similarly consider the involvement of a cosmic intruder. One critical piece of the evidence in the universe is the existence of moral obligations. Can we explain these obligations by staying “inside the room”? Can naturalism account for the human dignity and value necessary to ground moral obligations?
Why do we, as humans, feel obligated toward other humans when we don’t recognize moral obligations toward other forms of life on the planet? We seldom hesitate to exterminate the rodents and insects in our homes and we feel no moral obligation toward the weeds growing in our garden. What, from a naturalistic perspective, gives us the right to consider humans differently? Can we stay “inside the room” of the universe to explain why humans ought to be honored with dignity and value when we don’t afford these considerations to other species or forms of life?
If humans are simply the product of blind physical and chemical laws, there is no reason to believe we are anything more than the accidental consequence of an evolutionary process. If this is the case, there’s nothing special about us when compared to other species or forms of life in our environment.
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John Murray demonstrates from the totality of Scripture’s witness that our faith cannot be our righteousness. This is clearly the work of a systematic theologian and not that of an exegete enamored with a single text believing it has the power to uproot and upset an entire system of thought! 

For those who believe that God does not accept and account a person righteous by imputing to them faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience, as the Westminster Confession contends, a passage like Romans 4:3 is hard to understand.  Not because of the grammatical construction. We see it in Genesis 15:6, from where Paul derives the quote, and we see the same construction in other places like Psalm 106:31. There we read that Phinehas’s killing of an Israelite man and Midianite woman was “counted to him as righteousness.” So, were the Westminster divines simply oblivious to something so plain as Romans 4:3 when they wrote chapter eleven or is there something that we might be missing?
The divines also state that “all things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves” and therefore require some work on our part to understand them. Therefore, I opt for the latter. We are missing something. But before we can start talking about what is missing from our understanding of the text, we need to start a little farther back.
Unity of the Theological Disciplines
To put it simply, what’s missing is the unity of the theological disciplines. We ought to think of the disciplines as a pyramid. At the foundation is the Bible, God’s Word. The Old Testament and the New Testament form the foundation of the pyramid. These disciplines include, at the very least, a study of the original languages and exegesis. Having done their work, these exegetes hand up the fruit of exegesis to the Biblical theologian whose method is historical in character. After he are finished, the historical theologians assess the development and continuity of a particular doctrine or movement.  And finally, the ripened fruit of these disciplines is handed to the queen of the sciences, systematic theology, and she assesses and organizes the evidence into a logical concatenated system of thought.
However, today the disciplines have gone rogue. Scholars have placed a chasm between the testaments and the queen has been accused of being a Greek philosopher in disguise. As a result, it is each discipline for itself. So, today it might help us to think about our opening example from the perspective of one scholar who appreciated the unity of the theological disciplines.
John Murray was a professor at old Westminster, and he was both a New Testament exegete and a first-rate systematic theologian who understood the need for the theological disciplines to respect and work together for the well-being of the church. Consider what Murray wrote in his essay titled, “Systematic Theology.”
Systematic theology is tied to exegesis. It coordinates and synthesizes the whole witness of Scripture on the various topics with which it deals…. Thus, the various passages drawn from the whole compass of Scripture and woven into the texture of systematic theology are not cited as mere proof texts or wrested from the scriptural and historical context to which they belong, but, understood in a way appropriate to the place they occupy in this unfolding process, are applied with that particular relevance to the topic under consideration.  Texts will not thus be forced to bear a meaning they do not possess nor forced into a service they cannot perform.  But in the locus to which they belong and by the import they do possess they will contribute to the sum-total of revelatory evidence by which biblical doctrine is established. We may never forget that systematic theology is the arrangement under appropriate divisions of the total witness of revelation to the truth respecting God and his relations to us men and to the world.[1]
Thus, in the work of exegesis, Murray is unwilling to do systematic theology and yet systematic theology is the end and capstone of the vital process of interpreting Scripture. This is a valuable lesson. In our haste to prove a point we must not press a particular passage to teach more or even less than it does. Or, as Murray puts it, we should not ask a text to bear a meaning that it cannot sustain. Now, you can already see how this applies to Romans 4:3.
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Written by O. Palmer Robertson |
Tuesday, August 6, 2024
The Word of the new covenant gospel must forever be proclaimed. Through all the ages and even into eternity, the gospel must be verbally declared. Particularly by those select people called and commissioned to the gospel ministry, the Word shall be spoken. It must be articulated for people to hear. But even further, by all the disciples, all the brothers and sisters, all the followers of Jesus as their Lord and Christ, the gospel must be spoken. Nothing can ever replace the speaking out of the good news of the new covenant. “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” Speak it out! Proclaim it to the nations! This spoken Word embodies the true and abiding hope of the world.

Introduction
In the progress of redemptive history, the preaching of the Apostles preceded any writing of new covenant scriptures by at least a generation. The apostolic preaching of the gospel began immediately after the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, which would have been about 33 A.D. But the first writings of new covenant scriptures came approximately twenty years later, with Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians in about 50 A.D. For approximately a whole generation the newly forming church of Jesus Christ depended for its inspired directives primarily on the preachings of the Apostles. The God-inspired new covenant canonical writings were not completed for another 40 to 50 years, until about 90 to 100 A.D. The extent to which this original proclamation of the gospel permeates the book of Acts testifies to its significance.[i] The writings of the old covenant scriptures continued to provide direction for the church’s self-definition. But the proper application of these prophetic scriptures in a new covenant context depended heavily on the ongoing analysis of their significance as provided by the preaching of the Apostles.
The question may be appropriately asked, Why did God order that these years must pass before the inspired scriptures of the new covenant could finally be produced for the direction of the church?  Several observations may be offered in response to this question.
(1) Time for “Occasions” (“Situational Circumstances”) To Arise
The new covenant documents, even the four gospels, must be read as occasional documents. That is, each of the writings of the New Testament were composed in response to certain concrete circumstances in the life-experience of God’s new covenant community. Paul’s letter to the Galatians addresses in the most stringent terms one of the first and most persistent heretical challenges to the true Christian gospel. His first letter to the Corinthians deals with numerous problems related to a proper Christian lifestyle, including party spirit which divides the body, sexual immorality, discipline in the church, the use and abuse of spiritual gifts, the freedom of the Christian conscience, order in worship, the nature of the bodily resurrection, and the collection of offerings. His later pastoral epistles address the question of the maintenance of the “faith once delivered to the saints” as well as church traditions that must extend beyond the apostolic age. 
All these challenging circumstances would not present themselves within each of the various churches immediately upon the first re-formation of a people of God under the auspices of the new covenant. Lengths of time would have to elapse before all the “occasional” challenges of the emerging church would present themselves. In its proper time, the apostolic response to differing challenges to the well-being of the church would anticipate many aspects of the subsequent, prolonged history of Christ’s church. In the meantime, the public proclamation of the basic apostolic gospel could and must run to the ends of the earth.
(2) Time to Allow the Old Testament to Establish Its Foundational Role
As the speeches of the Apostles demonstrate so clearly, the faith and life of the new covenant people of God must rest squarely on the revelations found in the old covenant scriptures. With few exceptions, the messages of the Apostles recorded in the book of Acts look back to the prophecies of the Old Testament as the basis for their proclamation. A delay in the formation of the canonical scriptures of the new covenant would keep the way clear for this principle to be firmly established in behalf of future generations living under the new covenant. If the significance of the old covenant scriptures is widely ignored or altogether lost among numerous groups of Christians today despite the clear directives found in the preaching of the Apostles, how much more would their significance be obscured if the new covenant people of God had had access to a completed new covenant canon immediately upon the birth of the church? So it was quite appropriate that the gospel found its first formation through the apostolic preaching of the gospel in clear dependence on the old covenant scriptures apart from a completed canonical scriptures of the new covenant. 
(3) Time for “Chosen Witnesses” to Confirm Their Testimony
So long as eyewitness reports by “chosen witnesses” of the realities of the gospel were still available, the need for an inspired, written record of the new covenant regarding the life, death, resurrection and ascension of the Christ was not so pressing (Acts 10:39-41).
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Reporting on violence against Christians in Nigeria is slim. Christianity Today has covered some attacks. The BBC did a story in 2022. Newsweek recently published an opinion piece. It is difficult to find reports or stories of persecution in Nigeria. Christians are being killed in Nigeria, and few people are even noticing. The United States government is turning a blind eye. Of the 15 years that the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has recommended Nigeria be designated a Country of Particular Concern, the U.S. State Department has only accepted its recommendation once, in 2020. Nigeria was removed in 2021 and has not been listed since. No wonder the call is to hear the stories.

In 2019, Alheri Magaji spoke about her Adara community in Kaduna State of Nigeria during an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. She told the audience about how her ethnic group suffered vicious attacks carried out from mid-February through April of that year that left about 400 dead and displaced thousands in her community.
“I spoke to a woman whose limbs were cut off. She had four kids and was nine months pregnant,” said Magaji. “Fulani herdsmen came to a Kajuru town in February, about 400 of them with AK-47s. They came at around 6:30 a.m. They spoke Adara. They came in with war songs. They were singing songs that translate into, ‘The owners of the land have come. It’s time for settlers to leave.’”
“We are here today to beg the U.S. government and for the world to hear our story,” she continued.
On my shelf is a book I bought at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, titled “The World Must Know.” Atrocities cry out to be known like Abel’s blood crying out to God from the ground (Gen. 4:10). I’ve always felt a responsibility to know when atrocities are occurring around the world. On this topic, you can find books on North Korea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. You can find an avalanche of articles on Gaza and Ukraine, but Nigeria? Not so much. This is shameful. Not only are atrocities occurring in Nigeria, but they are happening to brothers and sisters in Christ. I feel a burden to spread the word about Nigeria.
What’s Going On
Sadly, many could not even identify Nigeria on a map. In West Africa, the sixth most populated country in the world, Nigeria is ground zero for violence against Christians.
When Open Doors USA released its 2024 World Watch List this past January, they reported 4,998 Christians were killed around the world in 2023. About 9 out of 10 of those Christians killed were in Nigeria. This is a conservative count. The Nigerian-based International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) reports that at least 8,222 Christians were killed across Nigeria from January 2023 to January 2024. That is an increase from the 5,068 Christians in Nigeria killed in 2022, not to mention the wounded, the abducted, or the displaced.
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We cannot rank the divine persons; they are distinct from each other but not divided from each other. They are not three parts that add up to a single godhead. John Calvin understood the name God to be “the one simple essence, comprehending three persons.” In our chaos we can come to a God in whom, as the Athanasian Creed puts it, “the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.” Such as the one is, so are the three. “None in this Trinity is before or after, none is greater or smaller” (arts. 6, 7, 25). We can trust one God in three equal, co-eternal persons.

One of the best questions we can ask is also the most challenging: “What is God?”[1] As the Church has searched Scripture for answers it has consistently used a surprising word to describe the divine Being: simplicity. God is simple—not in the sense of “easily understood” but as “being free from division into parts, and therefore from compositeness.”[2] God is one (Deut. 6:4); He is both unique and indivisible.
The word simplicity, like trinity, is not found in the Bible, but reformed confessions affirm that the doctrine is biblical. The Lutheran Augsburg Confession states that “there is one Divine Essence…which is God: eternal, without body, without parts” (art. 1). Dutch Reformed believers confess the same thing: “There is a single and simple spiritual being, whom we call God” (Belgic Confession, art. 1). In the Church of England divine simplicity is taught in the Thirty-nine Articles, “There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions” (art. 1). The Westminster Assembly—which convened to modify these articles but then chose to replace them—retained the exact language of Anglicanism (Westminster Shorter Catechism 2.1), as did English Baptists (London Baptist Confession, 2.1). These confessions draw on the testimony of church fathers like Augustine, medieval theologians like Aquinas, and reformers like Calvin, Melanchthon, and Zwingli.
Divine simplicity is firmly embedded in the reformed confessional tradition. If we understand simplicity, we may come to join the doctors of the church in treasuring this doctrine.
What Is Divine Simplicity?
When God revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush He identified Himself as being—the “I am” (Ex. 3:14). Unlike everyone else, He is not from somewhere or the fruit of ancestors. He is not even a species within a genus. Instead, He is the God who is, “the ultimate principle and …category of all things.”[3] Herman Bavinck wrote, “God is the real, the true being, the fullness of being, the sum total of all reality and perfection, the totality of being, from which all other being owes its existence.”[4] God is truly “all and in all” (Col. 3:11). Drawing from texts like these, divine simplicity maintains that in God there is “no composition, no contradiction, no tension, no process.”[5]
No Composition
God is not a sum of parts, as we are, made up of body and soul, atoms and neurons, past, present, and future. God’s attributes do not add up to what He is. As a child I wore out a book that described a little boy’s attributes—quickness, loudness, bravery—that made him who he was. Here is the climax of the book: “Put it all together and you’ve got me!” That’s true for us. It is untrue for God. Each of God’s attributes is identical with Himself and His other perfections because each is infinite.
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