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June 14 The Second Commandment and Pictures of Christ(Exo 20:4) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
(Exo 20:5) Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
(Exo 20:6) Are pictures of Christ sinful in light of the Second Commandment?
Here is the London Baptist Confession of Faith Chapter 22.1
Chapter 22 22.1 The light of nature shows that there is a God who has lordship and sovereignty over all. He is just and good and does good to all. Therefore he is to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all the heart and soul and strength.1
But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God has been instituted by himself and delimited by his own revealed will. He may not be worshipped according to human imagination or methods, nor according to the suggestions of Satan, nor by way of any visible representation, nor by any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures.2
(1) Jer_10:7; Mar_12:33 I use to question this often. But recently a friend named Andrew Meyers posted this comment. It seemed to illuminate an answer to my confusion. Here was his insight. Historically, Muslims have interpreted the Second Commandment to forbid all images of any kind whatsoever, but Jews and Christians have not. It is clear from the context that the Second Commandment has to do specifically with worship. It prohibits any representation of the Godhead or any worship of graven images. God himself expounded the Second Commandment thusly: "Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, the likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth: and lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven." Deut. 4.15-19 That is what historic Reformed Confessions and Catechisms teach in their exposition of this Commandment. God himself required the making of certain images in the temple/tabernacle, such as cherubim. The Lord Jesus himself had occasion to observe the image of Caesar on a coin and did not condemn the use of money thereby. Pictures and photographs are lawful as long as they don't violate the Second or the Seventh Commandments. The whole focus of the Second Commandment is worship and any representation of God the Father, God the Son or God the Holy Spirit must inherently violate that commandment because if it does not engender worship it is vain and if it does engender worship it is vain. "Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." Acts 17.29
Thanks Andrew....
Along with this I would recommend J. I. Packers book Knowing God chapter 4 which deals with this issue.
Andrew also posted this illuminating Catachism which might be helpful.
Fisher's Catechism on the Second Commandment asks and answers many relevant questions. Chapter 21: 21:1 May we see Christ as he sees fit. May we see him as he truly is. Be Encouraged,
Pastor Andrew Webb has posted on this also. http://www.providencepca.com/essays/seccomroundup.html April 03 John Tombes's Exegetical Argument of Genesis 17:7I have been discussing Genesis 17 and the Abrahamic Covenant on the Puritanboard.com. In light of this Dr. Mike Renihan recommended to me a portion of his book ‘Antipaedobaptism in the Thought of John Tombes’. I just thought I would take the time to type out the section on Genesis 17 and the introduction to the Exegetical Arguments (With Dr. Renihan’s permission) and post it in a blog so I could reference it more quickly and make it accessible to others. I leave you with only a portion of his exegetical arguments. I think he does bring to light some good points concerning the biblical covenants, continuity, and discontinuity.Be Encouraged,RMS
Exegetical Arguments
The eleven exegetical arguments are primarily negative polemics against infant baptism. Tombes usually presented a paedobaptist position in syllogistic form, then proceeded to show how the argument was flawed. At the outset, a word must be said as regards such a methodology. First, Tombes is setting out arguments for infant baptism as an Antipaedobaptist in order to refute them. This approach seems therefore tainted with question-begging. However, it was the typical scholastic methodology of the day – to set out an argument in a plain and straightforward manner proceeding immediately to deal with objections. Tombes was laying these objections before his peers for their consideration. It was a consistent method that Tombes had used since his early days in considering the matter. The arguments presented to the committee of the Assembly of Divines as the Exercitation were honest attempts to know the truth of this issue. This inquiry to the Assembly came out of an earlier meeting, as Tombes recalled: Whereupon when in a meeting of Ministers in the City of London, the question was propounded what Scripture there was for infant-baptisme, I told my brethren plainly, that I doubted there was none. This occasioned the Dispute Doctor Homes speakes of which happened about January 1643…. Not long after that Conference, my most loving and reverend Father in law Master Henry Scudder fearing the event of this matter, after some writing betweene us, advised me to draw up the reasons of my doubts, and he undertook to present them to the Committee chosen (as I conceived it) to give satisfaction about the point, which I conceived might well be the leave of the Parliament, as the appointing the Assembly to give satisfaction about some doubts in taking the Covenant.(7)
It was not Tombes’s purpose to make controversy for its own sake, but to discover the truth in an important matter as regarded the reformation of his Church. Tombes was guilty, however, of naïveté. He expected that an honest attempt to discover truth would be met with the same. He sought either refutation or affirmation on a point of doctrine and nothing else. By publishing his views, he had everything to lose and the Church’s reformation to gain. His submission was a quest for open and honest debate upon a theological point. Secondly, the form of the argument was very rigid. Tombes, at times, oversimplified the position he was refuting. However, he always continued to give mounds of evidence for his case, positively and negatively presented. The syllogism was an accepted part of the seventeenth century academic debate. At Oxford, it was a remnant of late medieval Scholasticism that survived the Renaissance. This methodology used philosophical categories and logic to serve theological reflection. The main thrust of the argument presented is not always readily apparent. In Tombes’s analysis of the issues he refers continually to these syllogistic building blocks borrowed from the scholastical methodology. Tombes, with very little introduction, started: The present Tenet, according to which Infant-Baptisme is preached, is, that the Infants born of a Believer, are universally to be baptized. This Doctrine and Practise conformable, is made doubtfull to me, by these arguments.”(8)
Tombes’s Starting Point and the Argument from Genesis 17:7
The first argument is one that examines the case for infant baptism from the interest of believer’s children in the promise given to Abraham in Genesis 17:7. It also serves as the all-important starting point for Tombes’s theological reflection: Major Premise: That which hath not testimony in Scripture for it, is doubtful Minor Premise: But this Doctrine of Infant-Baptisme, hath no testimony of Scripture for it; Conclusion: Ergo, it is doubtful. (9)
Tombes’s first exegetical argument is a comprehensive, yet properly basic argument designed to examine any and all of the biblical evidence for infant baptism. The remaining arguments are applications of the first to specific Scriptures, theological constructions or historical precedents. He then used his conclusions to support the doctrine or practice of paedobaptism: The Minor is proved by examining the places that are brought for it, which are these: Genesis 17.7. etc. Acts 2.38,39. 1 Cor. 7.14. Mark 10.14, 16. Acts 16.15,32. 1 Cor. 1.16. The Argument from Genesis 17.7, etc. is almost the first and the last in this business; and therefore is the more accurately to be examined….(10)
Tombes often added colour to the debate with maxims and Latin phrases. The fist argument did not escape his cutting wit. Speaking of the argument for infant baptism from Genesis 17:7, etc., he added: …[B]ut it hath so many shapes, that I may here take up that Speech, With what knot shall I hold shape-shifting Proteus?”(11) But in the issue, it falls into one or other of these forms…(12).
Tombes went on to build his foundation against the interest of believer’s children in the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant. He did not give multiple forms of the opposing argument; rather, one form from which he drew four sub-arguments. He thus supported his refutation of the one argument from Genesis 17:7. This was an application of his overriding principle expressed in Argument One - that there is no Scripture to warrant the baptizing of infants. He continued with another syllogism as if arguing for paedobaptism: Major premise: To whom the Gospel-covenant agrees, to them the sign of the Gospel-covenant agrees also. Minor premise: But to Infants of Believers the Gospel-covenant agrees. Conclusion: [A]nd consequently Baptisme. (13)
Tombes added, “The Minor is proved from Genesis 17:7. where God promiseth to Abraham, I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee”. (14)
Tombes proceeded to four sub-arguments that he believed exposed the basic assumptions of the greater argument presented. By way of introduction to his main point, they were: (1) The Covenant with Abraham is not identical to the Gospel (New) Covenant; (2) Abraham’s seed has more than one meaning; (3) the promise of the Gospel has always been the same irrespective of the age; and (4) Some were circumcised who had no part in the promise made to Abraham. These four parts were intended to undermine the credibility of infant baptism by way of analogy from the Abrahamic Covenant to the New, or in Tombes’s phraseology, the “Euangelicall” or “Gospel Covenant”.(15) These also form the foundation of all of Tombes’s arguments. They were points that were nonnegotiable for him. It is important to see the detail in these sub-arguments in order to understand his inferences within other constructions. Tombes kept coming back to two foundational points, (1) the lack of positive instruction in special revelation for the practice of infant baptism, and (2) to an alternative ( and creative) explanation of the biblical texts which became the foundation of his emerging covenantal and credobaptistic theology. On the first of the sub-arguments, Tombes declared; 1. The Covenant made with Abraham, is not a pure Gospel-covenant, but mixt, which I prove; The Covenant takes its denomination from the promises but the promises are mixt, some Euangelicall, belonging to those to whom the Gospel belongeth, some are Domestique, or Civill promises, specially respecting the House of Abraham, and of Israel; Ergo. (16)
Explaining his distinction between the evangelical (Evangelicall) and domestic (Domestique) or civil (Civill) promises in the Abrahamic Covenant, Tombes implied there were some spiritual promises and some physical or material promises that had to be distinguished. Tombes explained what he means by “Euangelicall promises”: That was Euangelicall which we read, Genesis 17.5. I have made thee a father of many nations; and that which we find, Gen 15.5 so shall they seed be; in which it is promised, that there shall be of all Nations innumerable that shall be Abrahams children by believing, Rom. 4.17,18. It was Euangelicall, which we find in Gen 12.3 & Gen. 18.18. and in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed; for in these is promised blessing to Believers, of whom Abraham is father, Gal. 3.16. Acts 3.25 (17)
Tombes immediately proceeded to the “Domestique” or “Civill” promises: Domestique and Civill promises were many; of the multiplying the seed of Abraham, the birth of Isaac; of the coming of Christ our of Isaac; the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt, and deliverance thence; of possessing the Land of Canaan, Gen 15.13,18. Gen. 17.7, 8.15,16. Act. 7.4,5,6,7,8. and many other places. (18)
The distinction is between the spiritual blessings which accrue to believers as believers which are called evangelical, and physical (or natural) consequences pertaining to Abraham’s descendants as domestic (or civl); between a spiritual seed brought about by heavenly activity and a natural seed brought about by the earthly procreative act. Tombes continued to legitimize this distinction as he involved a rigorous trinitarianism in his defence to clarify and balance the issues of continuity and discontinuity within the two aspects of the Abrahamic covenant and the same issues as regards other covenants. Yea, it is to be noted, that those promises which were Euangelicall, according to the more inward sense of the Holy ghost, do point at the priviledges of Abrahams House, in the outward face [sense} of the words; whence it may be well doubted, whether this Covenant made with Abraham, may be called simply Euangelicall, and so pertain to Believers, as Believers. There were annexed to the Covenant on Mount Siani, sacrifices pointing at the sacrifice of Christ, and yet we call not that Covenant simply Euangelicall, but in some respect.(19)
Therefore, because of the distinction asserted and shown, that the Abrahamic Covenant is not one and the same with the new or Gospel Covenant, Tombes went on to answer the remaining three of this original four questions that paralleled the concerns already stated, “(2) Who is the seed? (3) What is the promise? (4) What of those who were circumcised who had no part in Abraham’s covenant”? Tombes moved to his second sub-point: Secondly, The seed of Abraham is many wayes so called: First, Christ is called the seed of Abraham, by excellency, Gal 3.16. Secondly, all the Elect, Rom. 9.7 all believers, Rom. 4.11,12. 16.17,18, are called the seed of Abraham, that is spiritual seed. Thirdly, there was a natural seed of Abraham, to whom the inheritance did accrue; this was Isaac. Gen. 21.12. Fourthly, a natural seed, whether lawfull, as the sons of Keturah, or base, as Ishmael, to who the inheritance belonged not, Gen. 15.5. But no where do I find, that the Infants of Believers of the Gentiles are called Abrahams seed, of the three former kinds of Abrahams seed, the promise recited, is meant, but in a different manner thus; that God promiseth, he will be a God to Christ, imparting in him blessing to all nations of the earth, to the spiritual seed of Abraham in Euangelicall benefits, to the natural seed inheriting, in domestick and politicall benefits.(20)
Tombes extended the blessings of the New Covenant back upon the Abrahamic covenant in both aspects of the covenant - spiritual and civil. He saw this as part of the fulfillment of the New Covenant expressed in the time before Christ. He attempted to explain himself as he answered the question as regards the nature of the promise in his third sub-point; 3. That the promise of the Gospel, or Gospel-covenant, was the same in all ages, in respect of the thing promised, and condition of the covenant, which we may call the substantiall and essentiall part of that covenant, to wit, Christ, Faith, Sanctification, Remission of sins, Eternall life; yet this Euangelicall covenant had divers forms in which these things were signified, and various sanctions, by which it was confirmed: To Adam, the promise was made under the name of the seed of the Woman, bruising the head of the Serpent; to Enoch, Noah, in other forms; otherwise to Abraham, under the name of his seed, in whom all nations should be blessed; otherwise to Moses, under the obscure shadows of the Law; otherwise to David, under the name of a successor in the kingdome; otherwise in the New Testament, in plain words, 2 Cor. 3.6. Heb. 8.10. It had likewise divers sanctions. The Promise of the Gospel was confirmed to Abraham by the sign of circumcision, and by the birth of Isaac; to Moses by the Paschall Lamb, and the sprinkling of Blood on the [door], the rain of Mannah, and other signs; to David by an oath; in the New Testament, by Christ’s blood, 1 Cor. 11.25. Therefore circumcision signified and confirmed the promise of the Gospel, according to the form and sanction of the covenant with Abraham, Baptisme signifies and confirms the same promise according to the form, sanction and accomplishments of the new Tesmament…. (21)
Tombes admitted that each of these covenants has a sign to confirm the promise made. However, he maintains a distinction between the specific sign of circumcision given in the Genesis 17 covenant given to Abraham as part of that specific covenant and the specific sign of baptism given in the New Covenant. He went on to contrast other aspects of these covenants to demonstrate there was not a quid pro quo relationship between them. There was some continuity; there was also discontinuity. If they were identical in all things, they would be the same in essence, character and name. Since there was at least one difference, the sign, it was, for Tombes’s theological opponents, fallacious to impose a view of radical continuity between the covenant made with Abraham and the covenant brought about by Christ, the New Covenant. Tombes continued by looking at the elements involved: …[N]ow these forms and sanctions differ many wayes, as much as concerns our present purpose in these: First, circumcision confirmed not Evangelicall promises, but also Politicall; and if we may believe Mr. Cameron, in his Thesis, of the threefold Covenant of God. Thesi. 78. Circumcision did primarily separate the seed of Abraham from other nations, sealed unto them the earthly promise; Secondarily, it did signifie sanctification. But Baptisme signifies only Evangelicall benefits. Secondly, circumcision did confirm the promise concerning Christ to Come out of Isaac’ Baptisme assures Christ to be already come, to have been dead, and to have risen again. Thirdly, circumcision belonged to the Church, constituted in the House of Abraham, Baptisme to the Church gathered out of all nations; whence I gather, that there is not the same reason of circumcision and baptisme, in signing the Euangelicall covenant; nor may there be an argument drawn from the administration of the one to the like manner of the other.(22)
For Tombes, circumcision sealed an earthly promise and identified Abraham’s seed as set apart to God for God’s purpose. A great part of that purpose was in the Incarnation of Christ from the line of Isaac. Tombes was not denying Isreal’s prized position as God’s special ancient people, he was affirming it. However, for Tomes, it was important to understand the pre-incarnational Covenants in the brighter light of the fulfillment in the New Covenant. Salvific aspects of the New Covenant were found in types and shadows within the older covenants (especially the Abrahamic), but their primary purpose was to anticipate the day when God would bring redemption. The New Covenant, however, looked back to the reality of redemption accomplished and applied. I was through these New Covenant glasses that Tombes saw the salvific aspects of all antecedent covenants. In Tombes’s theological scheme, circumcision was the sign of the former, pointing to among other things, the spiritual realities that will be certain possession of Abraham’s spiritual seed. Baptism looks back at what has been done by the mediator of the New Covenant for his people and is the sign of the latter. Tombes demonstrated even more discontinuity between the Abrahamic and new Covenants while anticipating the question as regards the subjects of circumcision: 4. That some there were circumcised, to whom no promise in the covenant made with Abraham did belong; of Ismael, God had said, that his covnenant was not to be established with him, but with Isaac; and yet he was circumcised, Gen. 17.29, 21.25 Rom. 9.7,8,9. Gal. 4.29,30. the same may be said of Esau; All that were in Abrahams house, whether strangers, or born in his house, were circumcised, Gen. 17.12,13. of whom nevertheless, it may be doubted, whether any promises of the covenant made with Abraham, did belong to them; there were other persons, to whom all, or most of the promises of the covenant pertained, that were not circumcised; this may be affirmed of the females coming from Abraham, the Infants dying before the eighth day, of just men, living out of Abrahams house, as Melchisedech, Lot, Job. If any say that the females were circumcised in the circumcision of the Males, he saith it without proof; and by like, perhaps greater, reason it may said, that the children of Believers are baptized in the persons of their own parents, and therefore are not to be baptized in their own persons. But it is manifest that the Jewes comprehended in the covenant made with Abraham, and circumcised, were nevertheless not admitted to Baptisme by John Baptist, and Christs Disciples, till they professed repentance, and faith in Christ. Hence I gather, first, that the right to Euangelicall promises, was not the adequate reason of circumcising these or those, but Gods’ precept, as is expressed, Gen. 17.25. Gen. 21.4. Secondly, that those terms are not convertible, [federate and to be signed].(23)
Tombes’s conclusions were drawn from the positive, declarative use of circumcision and baptism in Scripture. His rigid adherence to the meaning of texts as God’s words for his people, and his governing principles for all matters of faith and practice, compelled him to demand positive evidence for paedobaptism beyond mere theological constructions. Tombes demanded some evidence from “God’s precept[s]” for the practice. He also saw more discontinuity between the Abrahamic and the New Covenant through the assertion “those terms were not convertible”. By “convertible”, Tombes meant, synonymous. There may be some similarities; yet great differences remained. In review, Tombes’s original, foundational argument was stated thus: Major Premise: That which hath not testimony in Scripture for it, is doubtful Minor Premise: But this Doctrine of Infant-Baptisme, hath no testimony of Scripture for it; Conclusion: Ergo, it is doubtful. (9)
Applying this argument to Baptism, he suggested a second:
Major premise: To whom the Gospel-covenant agrees, to them the sign of the Gospel-covenant agrees also. Minor premise: But to Infants of Believers the Gospel-covenant agrees. Conclusion: [A]nd consequently Baptisme. (25)
After giving the four reasons above why this is not exegetically or theologically accurate, he concluded his first and most fundamental argument. Whereupon I answer to the Argument: First, either by denying the Major, if it be universally taken, otherwise it concludes nothing: or by granting it with this limitation; it is true of that sign of the covenant which agrees universally in respect of form and sanction, to them that receive the Gospel, but it is not true of that sign of the covenant, which is of a particular form or sanction, of which sort is circumcision. Secondly, I answer by denying the Minor, universally taken, the reason is, because those children only of believing Gentiles, are Abrahams children, who are his spiritual seed, according to the election of grace by faith, which are not known to us, but by profession, or speciall Revelation.(26)
Here, Tombes, in a summary, has given his refutation of the argument from Genesis 17:7. He denied the Major premise to be universal. Circumcision was a particular part of a particular covenant made with Abraham. Circumcision fits within the structure of that narrow convenantal application to Abraham’s descendants physically. It was a sanction or stipulation from God to Abraham for his house through procreation. Baptism, for Tombes, was a covenantal stipulation through the New Covenant because of, and not antecedent to, regeneration. However, with Tombes’s conclusion there is this explanatory comment, “[T]he reason is, because those children only of believing Gentiles, are Abrahams Children, who are his spiritual seed, according to the election of grace by faith….”(27) The true children of Abraham are those who are brought into his family through an act of God.
Taken from…….
Pp 69 -78
Antipaedobaptism in the Thought of John Tombes
An untold story from Puritan England
Michael T. Renihan, PhD
February 01 Does Baptism replace Circumcision?Nehemiah Coxe, Covenant Theology: From Adam to Christ (Palmdale: Reformed Baptist Academic Press, 2005, 140) A reprint of A Discourse of the Covenants that God Made with Men before the Law, 1681 Circumcision was an ordinance of the old covenant and pertained to the law and therefore directly bound its subjects to a legal obedience. But baptism is an ordinance of the gospel and (besides other excellent and most comfortable uses) directly obliges its subjects to gospel obedience. Therefore it is in this respect opposed to, rather than substituted in the place of, circumcision. Certainly it is safer to interpret one text according to the general current of Scripture and in full harmony with it, than to force such a sense on many texts (which they will in no way admit) to bring them into a compliance to a notion with which our minds are prepossessed. It is plain that the notion I have insisted on fully agrees with other places where circumcision is discussed according to its immediate and direct use in the old covenant. For there can be no contradiction in ascribing a different and seemingly opposite use and end to the same thing, if it be done in a different respect. What circumcision was directly and in its immediate use is one thing; what it was as subordinate to a better covenant and promise that had precedence to it, is another. It is easy to conceive that it might be that to the father of the faithful in its extraordinary institution, what it could not be to the children of the flesh or carnal seed in its ordinary use. To conclude: if circumcision and baptism have the same use and are seals of the same covenant, I can hardly imagine how the application of both to the same subjects should at any time be proper. Yet we find those that were circumcised in their infancy were also baptized on the profession of faith and repentance even before circumcision was abrogated. Yes, according to the opinion that has been argued against, the Jews that believed before Christ suffered were at the same time under a command both of circumcising and baptizing their infant seed. But if the principles that this discourse is built upon are well proved by Scripture, as I take them to be, there must be allowed a vast disparity between circumcision and baptism. The old covenant is not the new; nor that which is abolished, the same with that which remains. Until these become one, baptism and circumcision will never be found so far one that the law for applying the latter should be a sufficient warrant for the administration of the former to infants.
January 24 What the Bible is All About What the Bible is All About
Reading the Bible with Christ at the center is not reading anything into Scripture; it is refusing to read him out of it. The hit TV show Seinfeld has been called a show about nothing. One of the most pernicious falsehoods about the Bible is that it, too, is a book about nothing, that it is a random collection of ancient myths and moral aphorisms. Strangely, some Christians seem to regard Scripture this way. Others find unity in Scripture around God's plan for national Israel and/or a time of millennial glory. Still others treat the Bible as if it is about the reader, as if there is no such thing as a "text" or authorial intent but only the reader's experience of the text. Even more crassly, the Bible is read as if the reader (and his or her prosperity and happiness) is at the center of the story. Reading the Bible the New Testament WayThese errant approaches to the Scriptures are borne from the misapprehension that the biblical writers themselves did not understand themselves to be contributing to a larger unified story and that they did not have a way of reading the Scriptures. There are writers who admit that such a unity and way of reading Scripture exists, but they contend Scripture is inspired and therefore it is beyond our ability to imitate the biblical hermeneutic. This view is mistaken. Scripture is inspired, but the biblical hermeneutic is not-at least not so that we cannot observe and imitate it. That is precisely what we shall begin to do in this essay. The Scriptures are organized around God the Son who was "manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory" (1 Tim. 3:16; esv). Jesus' HermeneuticOur Lord himself claimed throughout his ministry to be not only God the Son incarnate but also to be at the center of God's saving purposes and revelation. Indeed, he attacked the hermeneutic of the Pharisees as wrongheaded. "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life," but the Scribes and Pharisees missed the unifying message of the history of redemption and revelation: the Scriptures "bear witness about" Jesus (John 5:39). The Pharisees claimed to believe Moses, but they did not, because Moses, "on whom you have set your hope" (John 5:45) accuses them. The Pharisees missed the point of the Pentateuch: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me" (John 5:46). One of the great and common misunderstandings of the Bible is that, before the incarnation, believers had direct, immediate access to God the Father and that the mediating work of the Son began only with his incarnation. Such a view is directly contradictory to the explicit teaching of Jesus. He said the Father's "voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen." He was even more explicit in John 6:46 that no one has "seen the Father except him who is from God ...." If anyone would see the Father he must look at Jesus, the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15). According to Jesus, his mediation does not mean less access to the Father, but more: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). Jesus was conscious of his office as the "revelation" of God (John 1:1). He knew that "No one has ever seen God. The only begotten God ... has revealed him" (John 1:18). Jesus repeatedly challenged the myopic hermeneutic of the Jewish leaders. Just as they claimed to follow Moses, they also claimed to be Abraham's "children." Jesus rejected the premise of their claim. He said that he is the fulfillment of Abraham's deepest longing: "'Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, he saw it and rejoiced.'" Not only did Abraham and Moses trust in God the Son and in the salvation he would bring to his people, but so did the prophet Isaiah when he said, "Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" (Isa. 53:1). He was anticipating Jesus' response to the blindness of the Jews (Isa. 6:9, 10) and predicting the reception Jesus received. The Apostle John says "Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him" (John 12:41). Jesus provoked the Pharisees by querying them about the identity of the Messiah: "'What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?'" Good scholars that they were, the Pharisees replied that the Messiah must be the "son of David" (Matt. 22:42). After evading so many of the Pharisees' traps, Jesus had set one of his own. If the Messiah must be David's son, how is it that, according to Psalm 110:1, David calls the Messiah "Lord?" whom God the Father has placed at the right hand in power (Matt. 22:42-46)? Totally baffled, they did not see that Jesus, whom they sought to murder, was both David's son and David's Lord. On the cross our Lord, by applying Psalm 22 to himself, appropriated to himself all the Psalms. He made it clear that it was not David who was utterly abandoned by God; David did not substitute for those whom the Father had given to him (John 6:39; 10:39), David did not drink the cup the Father had given to him (John 18:11). Jesus is the man who delights in the law of Yahweh. He announced God's name to the brothers (Ps. 21:23; Heb. 2:12). It is his royal signet ring (Ps. 2:12) that must be kissed in submission. He is the "shepherd" (Ps. 23) who went through the valley of the shadow of death, and he alone had "clean hands and a pure heart" (Ps. 24:4). We can see how the New Testament reads the Psalter by the way it uses Psalm 110. In more than twenty quotations and allusions, the New Testament makes clear that God the Son, who became incarnate, is the "Lord" to whom the Father said, "Sit at my right hand." It is to and about him that Yahweh has sworn, "You are priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." After his resurrection and ascension Jesus gave the disciples a vital lesson in biblical interpretation. All the prophets, he said, testified that the Messiah must suffer before entering into glory. "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:25-27). Jesus did not simply apply particular Messianic passages to himself. He interpreted the entirety of the Hebrew Scriptures as referring to himself. Thus, reading the Bible with Christ at the center is not reading anything into Scripture; it is refusing to read him out of it. The Apostolic HermeneuticThe first official, public proclamation of the apostolic message centered on the "foolishness" of Christ and him crucified (Acts 2; 1 Cor. 1:25; 2:2). Like Jesus, Peter interpreted the patriarchs and the prophets with Jesus at the center of their message. He preached not an earthly millennium, but "This Jesus whom you crucified, God has made him both Lord and Messiah" (Acts 2:36). This twofold title, "Lord and Messiah," is important because it gives us a clue as to how Peter understood the Hebrew Scriptures. Frequently in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, the covenant name of God, Yahweh (Exod. 6:3) is translated with the Greek word Kyrios. For example, in Psalm 110:1, the Hebrew text says, YAHWEH says to Adon, sit at my right hand ...." The two characters in the dialogue are distinguished by two different titles. The Greek translation of Psalm 110:1, however, from which Peter quoted in Acts 2:34 reads: "the Lord says to my Lord...." Our English versions reflect the fact that the same noun is used for both persons. The distinction that was clear in the Hebrew text became ambiguous in the Greek text and the apostles capitalized on this ambiguity. They did so because what distinguishes the Father and the Son is not a difference in divine essence, but a difference in their persons and it belongs to the person of the Son to become incarnate, but the incarnate Son is and remains consubstantial with the Father. Thus, to call Jesus Lord and Messiah is to say, "When you see the LORD speaking or acting in Scripture, think of Jesus." All this means that God the Son did not first appear in the history of redemption in the incarnation, but has been mediating the knowledge of God and saving his people for thousands of years before. This is how the Apostle Paul read the history of salvation and why he declared, "There is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5). We see this way of thinking in his admonition to the Corinthians regarding their conduct at the Lord's Table, where he reminded them that they were not the first to be baptized (1 Cor. 10:1-2) and they were not the first to eat the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 10:3). Indeed, they ate the same food and drank the same drink we do: "For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ." Paul did not see only occasional types of Christ in the Hebrew Scriptures. Rather, he saw God the Son actively operating throughout Scripture. In other words, the unity of the covenant of grace is not merely typological but substantial. We Christians today are partakers of the same justifying and saving grace by which God the Son justified and redeemed his people before the incarnation. Paul said this much when he told the Corinthians, "For the Son of God Jesus the Messiah whom we preached among you ... is not Yes and No, but in him the Yes has come. For however many are the promises of God, their Yes is in him. Wherefore also through him is our Amen to God for his glory" (2 Cor. 1:19-20). The writer to the Hebrews also saw Christ as the center of redemptive history. Much is made of the heroes of faith and of the quality of their faith in Hebrews 11, but not enough is made of the object of their faith. Moses turned his back on privilege in favor of identification with God's people, because "He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt... " (Heb. 11:24-26). This means that there were Christians before the incarnation, believers who had, in the words of the Heidelberg Catechism Q. 21, "a certain knowledge and a hearty trust" in Christ fifteen hundred years before the incarnation. Moses' story is the story of a Christian pilgrim on the way to the heavenly city (Heb. 11:16), as we are, but who happened to live in the time of types and shadows (Rom. 5:14; Col. 2:17; Heb. 8:5). More than looking forward to the incarnation, Hebrews also places God the Son at the center of the action of the story of redemption. Arguably, no place was more basic to Israel's national identity than Sinai, and whom does Hebrews place thundering at the top of the mountain? Jesus, "the Mediator of a New Covenant" (Heb. 12:24). The one to whom we have come was there all along, with whom Jacob and Moses spoke "face to face" (Gen. 32:30; Exod. 33:11) and now, in the incarnation, with us. Read this way, we understand that with the incarnation we have not been cut off from God by the incarnation. Rather, we have more and greater access to God (Heb. 4:15-16; 9:15). Writing to the suffering Christians of Asia Minor (central Turkey), the Apostle Peter assumed a Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. The salvation that had been preached to them was the same prophesied by the prophets, into which those prophets had "searched and enquired carefully," asking "what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories" (1 Pet. 1:10-11; ESV). According to Peter, God the Son unifies the history of redemption and revelation despite the variety of circumstances and human authors of Scripture because God's Word also has one divine, unifying author, the Holy Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit who moved all the writers to write as did they in Scripture (2 Pet. 1:21), and who intended all along that Scripture should reveal Christ throughout. The Son in the Hebrew ScripturesChrist is the subject of Scripture. The question is not whether the Bible is Christ-centered but how? Following the pattern established by Jesus and the apostles, we find that Christ is revealed by an extensive series of types (illustrations of the reality to come) in the history of redemption. Jesus and the Apostles, however, have clued us in to an even more profound way of reading Scripture whereby Jesus does not simply appear typologically, but as a pre-incarnate actor in the drama of creation, fall, and redemption. He was the agent of creation. John 1:3 says that "All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made." Remembering that Jesus is the only Mediator, we must consider that when Genesis 2:15-16 says that YAHWEH Elohim put Adam in the garden and instituted the covenant of works (Westminster Confession of Faith 7.2), we must identify that divine person as the pre-incarnate Son of God. It was he who made the woman, conducted the wedding ceremony, whom Adam heard coming in judgment in the garden (Gen. 3:10), and who pronounced the curse. It was also the Son who preached the gospel for the first time: "he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel" (Gen. 3:15) and who covered his people (Gen. 3:21). Read this way, this narrative takes on new depth. This is neither saga nor idle promise, for with this oath the Son solemnly committed himself to incarnation, suffering, and death in order to conquer the enemy. He did so again in the covenant-making ceremony of Genesis 15:17. It was he who went "between the pieces," swearing a maledictory oath against his own life (Gen. 15:13). The mysterious figure with whom Jacob wrestled, and with whom he spoke "face to face," (Gen. 33:20) was none other than the Mediator. That same person revealed himself to Moses as the "I Am" (Exod. 3:14; John 4:26; 6:20, 35, 41, 48, 51, 8:12, 58). Not only was his incarnation illustrated by the blood on the doorposts (Exod. 12:7) but it was he who sent the plagues and led his people through the Red Sea. When we read the Bible this way, we are not only following Jesus, Peter, and Paul, but we are also following a confessional Protestant pattern. At the Heidelberg Disputation (1518). Luther argued that seeking unmediated access (trying to get around the Son) is a "theology of glory" and sub-Christian. A genuine theologian only approaches the Father through the Son and his cross.# Suggestively and brilliantly, Luther spoke of seeing God's "backside." He was alluding to Exodus 33:32 where God did not allow Moses to see his glory but only his "back, but my face shall not be seen." If we would find God, it will not be in glory, but in the mediator who became wretched for us carrying a cross up Golgotha. ConclusionScripture is not a random collection of ancient myths and aphorisms. It has a unifying message told in every genre, by every author, in every period of redemptive history. The unifying thread is not God's plan to establish a glorious national people on the earth nor is the Bible about the reader. The Bible is about God the Son who became incarnate for us. The Son has been revealing himself to his people since the garden. It is not that God is indifferent to us. After all, we are those "upon whom the end of the ages has come" (1 Cor. 10:11), but we always remain readers of and not actors in crafted drama of redemption supervised by the same Spirit who hovered over the face of the deep (Gen. 1:2) and who hovers over the living temple of God (1 Pet. 4;14). The gospel is that the Mediator "become flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." 1 [ Back ] For more detail on Jesus' applications of Psalm 22 to himself, see Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching Christ from All of Scripture (Wheaton: Crossway, 2003), p. 41. See also Geerhardus Vos, "Eschatology of the Psalter," Princeton Theological Review 18 (1920): 1-43.For examples of how the New Testament reads the Psalter, refer to Matthew 22:44; 26:64; Mark 12:36; 14:62; 16:19; Luke 20:42; 22:69; Acts 2:34; Romans 2:5; 8:34; 11:29; 1 Corinthians 15:25; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3, 13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:3; 8:1; 10:12; 11:15, 17:21.For information on Luther's participation in the Heidelberg Disputation, see Martin Luther, Luther's Works, Vol. 31: Career of the Reformer I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957), pp. 52-53. R. Scott Clark is associate professor of historical and systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California). He is editor of Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry (P&R, 2007). Scott blogs at http://www.oceansideurc.org/the-heidelblog/. Issue: "Gods Unto Ourselves" March/April Vol. 16 No. 2 2007 Pages 20-24 Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you do not make more than 500 physical copies. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be explicitly approved by Modern Reformation. Copyright © 2007 Modern ReformationNovember 07 The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith in its Historical and Theological ContextThe 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith in its Historical and Theological Context
The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1677/89, along with its predecessor of 1644/46, are perhaps the two most influential Baptist Confessions in existence. In many ways, the more recent Confession eclipses the earlier in importance, for by 1689 copies of the First London Confession had become scarce, so much so that one of the key subscribers to the Second Confession, Benjamin Keach, stated in 1692 that he knew nothing of the earlier document until someone informed him of it earlier that year. It was the Second Confession which quickly became the standard of Calvinistic Baptist orthodoxy in England, North America, and today, in many parts of the world. |
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