Sin and Salvation
Written by W. Robert Godfrey |
Saturday, January 29, 2022
Jesus was perfectly obedient to the Law of God. In this way He is the Second Adam. As Adam was created in the image of God to be the obedient and faithful image bearer of God, so the eternal Son of God came in the flesh and was born under the Law to do what the first Adam failed to do. Jesus kept the Law completely so that He was fully holy in Himself and perfectly righteous in the light of God’s justice. Jesus also satisfied God’s justice for sinners who could not help themselves. Although Jesus was perfectly holy and not personally liable for the curse visited on sinners, He took the place of sinners on the cross and bore the penalty and curse for all those in Him.
“Why do we need to talk about sin? We ought to just talk about the love of God.” This comment was not made by a dedicated liberal. Rather, it was made by a woman who is a member of an evangelical church and has enrolled her children in a Reformed Christian School. She does not seem to have grasped much of the character of Calvinism.
Regrettably this comment is not just a strange aberration. In a recently published book, sociologist Alan Wolfe argues that this attitude is wide-spread throughout American religious groups and denominations, including evangelicals. In The Transformation of American Religion Wolfe states, “Talk of hell, damnation and even sin has been replaced by a nonjudgmental language of understanding and empathy.” Most American churches and synagogues today are characterized by attitudes and practices which are “joyful, emotional, personal and empathetic on the one hand, impatient with liturgy and theologically broad to the point of theological incoherence” on the other.
Wolfe is fundamentally sympathetic to this new development. He believes that this common attitude serves the interests of a diverse society that values toleration, cooperation and civility. Religions that are too exclusive in their claims undermine social unity and must be seen as somewhat dangerous and bigoted. For Wolfe, true Calvinism must be a problem for a tolerant society because of its stress on the seriousness of sin and on Christ as the only way to God.
The concern of Wolfe and many others is not new. Such criticism has been directed against Christianity since its beginning. In the Roman empire, Christians were called traitors and atheists because they would not worship the Roman gods. Christians were bigots and dangerous to the unity of the empire because of the exclusive claims they made for their faith.
Faithful Christians have always rejected the call to conform their faith to the desires of those who want to say that all religions are equally true and useful. As Christians we insist that we must talk about sin if we are to be truthful about the human condition. If we do not understand our sin, we will not understand the kind of savior we need. vOur sin creates two problems for us as we stand before God. First, we need to have the guilt of our sin taken away. Adam’s original sin and our actual sin have made us guilty before God and worthy only of condemnation. We need to be forgiven and so we need a savior who can ensure our forgiveness. Second, as sinners we need to have a positive righteousness with which we can stand before God. Adam was not created as a morally neutral being, but was created righteous and holy. So as sinners who want to become new creatures, we need righteousness and a savior who can make us righteous.
The Reformation was a recovery of the biblical doctrine of sin and salvation. Sin was again seen as a problem that could not be solved by human action. Salvation was again seen as entirely the work of God. God in Christ pays the penalty of our sin. And God through Christ justifies and sanctifies the sinner. In justification the sinner becomes perfectly holy in the judgment of God. In sanctification the sinner by grace becomes progressively more holy in his own life.
The Reformation doctrine of justification in particular is under serious attack in our time and we need to be renewed in an understanding of that doctrine and in our commitment to it. One way to do that is to meditate on the teaching of the great Reformation catechisms. For example, the great Reformation doctrine of justification was beautifully captured in a ques- tion of the Heidelberg Catechism. This catechism, published in 1563 in the Palatinate in Germany, was designed to clarify the doctrinal commitments of the church there and to instruct the people of God in the true faith.
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The History of Covenant Theology
Written by R. Scott Clark |
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Throughout the history of the church there has always been a theology of the covenants. The Reformation recovery of the gospel and the biblical distinction between grace and works made it possible for Reformed theology to construct a detailed and fruitful covenant theology.Until recently, it was widely held that covenant theology was created in the middle of the seventeenth century by theologians such as Johannes Cocceius (1609–1669). In fact, covenant theology is nothing more or less than the theology of the Bible. It is also the theology of the Reformed confessions. In the history of theology, the elements of what we know as covenant theology; the covenant of redemption before time between the persons of the Trinity, the covenant of works with Adam, and the covenant of grace after the fall; have existed since the early church.
Indeed, Reformed readers who turn to the early church fathers (c. 100–500 AD) might be surprised to see how frequently they used language and thought patterns that we find very familiar. The covenant theology of the fathers stressed the unity of the covenant of grace, the superiority of the new covenant over the old (Mosaic) covenant, and that, because Jesus is the true seed of Abraham, all Christians, whether Jewish or gentile, are Abraham’s children. They also stressed the moral obligations of membership in the covenant of grace.
The covenant theology of the medieval church (c. AD 500–1500) was related to that of the early fathers but distinct in certain ways. In response to the criticism that Christianity gave rise to immorality, the early church tended to speak about the history of redemption as the story of two laws, the old (Moses) and the new (Christ). They tended to speak of grace as the power to keep the law in order to be justified.
This habit only increased in the medieval church. The major theologians argued that God can only call people righteous if they are actually, inherently, righteous. This, they thought, will happen when sinners are infused with grace, and cooperate with that grace, so that they become saints. In this scheme, sanctification is justification, faith is obedience, and doubt is of the essence of faith.
In medieval covenant theology the word “covenant” became synonymous with “law.” They did not speak of a covenant of works and a covenant of grace, as we do. Rather the grace of the covenant enables one to keep the law.
Late in the medieval period, some theologians began to stress the idea that God has given a kind of grace to all humans and made a covenant so that “to those who do what is in them, God does not deny grace.” In effect, God helps those who help themselves. The Reformation would not only reform the covenant theology of the early fathers, but wage full-scale war on the covenant theology of the medieval church.
When he rejected the medieval doctrine of salvation by cooperation with grace, Martin Luther (1483–1546) rejected the old law/new law understanding of redemptive history. He came to understand that all of Scripture has two ways of speaking, law and gospel. The law demands perfect obedience, and the gospel announces Christ’s perfect obedience to that law, his death and his resurrection for his people.
Not long after Luther came to his Protestant views, others were already reforming covenant theology along Protestant lines. In the early 1520s, the Swiss Reformed theologian Johannes Oecolampadius (1482–1531) was teaching what would later become known as “the covenant of redemption” between the Father and the Son from all eternity. He also distinguished between the covenant of works as a legal covenant and the covenant of grace as a gracious covenant. A few years later Heinrich Bullinger (1504–75) published the first Protestant book devoted to explaining the covenant of grace. Like the early fathers, this work stressed the graciousness and unity of the covenant of grace.Related Posts:
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Why You and I Need the Local Church
It is true that we can worship God anywhere, but is that the only purpose of the church gathering? No. God has designed the gathering to do what can’t be done alone in your living room. You can meet with God by yourself, but God didn’t call you to serve him merely as an individual; he called you to be a part of the whole body. Christ is the head who provides nourishment to the rest of the body, and every believer needs this nourishment.
“I don’t need to go to a building to meet with God.”“I can read my Bible and pray anywhere.”“I love Jesus, but I’m against organized religion.”
I often hear these types of statements as a justification to skip out on the weekly gathering of God’s people (church). It’s true that we can meet with God anywhere, but is that a biblically acceptable reason to miss the church?
We live in a culture where church attendance is valued less and less, especially among younger generations. I’m not talking about non-believers either many who call themselves followers of Christ don’t place a high value on church attendance anymore.
Perhaps some are rebelling against hypocrisy or inconsistency they have witnessed among churchgoers. For some, church attendance may never become more than a religious ritual that seemed irrelevant to them. Or perhaps we’ve become too busy, and the church isn’t high on our priority list.
You Need the Local Church
We are all likely familiar with the admonition in Hebrews 10:24-25:
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
This well-known passage reminds us that we NEED to meet together with God’s people. Doing so stirs our hearts and affections toward the Lord and provokes us to do good works. You NEED brothers and sisters to encourage you and pray for you. You NEED people in your life who will correct you in grace and love. Our hearts cannot be trusted, so we depend upon others in our lives to help us see our blind spots.
God has provided the local church to be this kind of spiritual community. If we are not involved in a local church, if we are not living life with people we have covenanted with, or if we try to live out an “it’s between Jesus and me” kind of spiritually, then our spiritual growth will be stunted. Thus, the Lord warns us not to neglect this important time together.
Hebrews 3 also reminds us of our need for Christian brothers and sisters:
“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
What will help us remain strong in the faith and fight against a hard heart? Exhortation from our brothers and sisters in Christ. The regular gathering of the saints is a God-ordained community for that very purpose.
It is true that we can worship God anywhere, but is that the only purpose of the church gathering? No. God has designed the gathering to do what can’t be done alone in your living room. You can meet with God by yourself, but God didn’t call you to serve him merely as an individual; he called you to be a part of the whole body.
Christ is the head who provides nourishment to the rest of the body, and every believer needs this nourishment.
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A New Sin, and a New Salvation Requirement?
If you have questions about the efficacy of masks, or lockdowns, or the new Covid vaccines, you are looked at like some sort of despicable heathen. You are treated with contempt by some of these ‘Christians’ as they try to make you feel like you cannot possibly be saved. You are now a heretic who dares to differ from this New Gospel of theirs.
Are you saved? The new Covid Gospel:
Yes we have actually got to the place with all the hysteria and fear over this virus that the traditional understanding of sin and salvation are now being thrown in the air. You may have thought that there are no new sins – just the plain old standard ones like murder, theft, lying, etc. Well, it seems that some folks have managed to create a whole new sin: the sin of being unvaccinated.
Sadly we have gotten to the place where some believers are basically arguing that fully submitting to medical mandates is somehow tied in with being a good Christian. Indeed, one wonders if some of these folks now believe this to be a requirement for salvation!
Two millennia ago the Apostle Paul had to chew out the Galatians because they were adding to the gospel. They wanted to add works of the law to their salvation by grace through faith. Paul asked them: ‘Who has bewitched you?’ (Gal. 3:1).
There have always been temptations to add to the gospel and to make salvation dependent upon various works that we might perform. Now we have those who have hesitancy about various health mandates being viewed as subpar Christians – maybe not even Christians at all.
If you have questions about the efficacy of masks, or lockdowns, or the new Covid vaccines, you are looked at like some sort of despicable heathen. You are treated with contempt by some of these ‘Christians’ as they try to make you feel like you cannot possibly be saved. You are now a heretic who dares to differ from this New Gospel of theirs.
In the old days one could ask if a person was actually saved if they had not been baptised or who had not done certain religious works. Now we have a new test for Christian orthodoxy. And we have the zealous Covid evangelists preaching their gospel to the unclean unconverted. Sadly I have had to deal with many of these evangelical Pharisees.
I know of too many of these folks who are utterly obsessed with the Rona jab, and they spend all their time attacking and denouncing any believer who dares to ask honest questions and show the least bit of hesitancy about them. They are convinced that we are all evil, deluded conspiracy theorists who must repent and get saved – saved to the New Covid Vaccine Gospel.
Thankfully many Christian leaders are standing against all this nonsense, including the matter of the State forcing churches to ban the unvaxxed from entering churches. I wrote about this very alarming matter just yesterday: billmuehlenberg.com/2021/09/09/the-big-brother-war-on-churches/
This shocking new development should greatly bother every true Christian out there. And some are speaking out. Sydney church leaders like Archbishop Anthony Fisher of the Catholic Church and Archbishop Kanishka Raffel of the Anglican Church have both taken a strong stance against this.
The latter for example said this: “Jesus is Lord of all, and his gospel is a gospel for all. A ‘No Entry’ sign at the door of the church is wholly inconsistent with the gospel preached inside. Neither race, gender, ethnicity, age, nor economic or educational status – or vaccination status – are to operate as divisions within the Christian community or barriers to the fellowship we share because of Jesus.” sydneyanglicans.net/news/consultations-begin-on-post-lockdown-plans
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