Edwards concluded Religious Affections by answering the objection that this emphasis on practice might seem like a new legalism. To the contrary, he said, it was all carefully premised on standard Calvinist doctrine that a genuine work of grace would lead to keeping God’s commandments. Edwards was dedicated to the old New England way that celebrated grace and lived by law.
George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life, 289
The Puritan, [Lloyd-Jones] argued, is not ‘the strong man’. He is ‘a very weak man who has been given strength to realise that he is weak. I would say of all men and women that we are all weak, very weak, e difference being that sinners do not appreciate the fact that they are weak, whereas Christians do.’ it was this knowledge of their own frailty, he believed, which made the Puritans careful how they lived and led them to avoid all that is doubtful. ‘sober mess and restraint are the key-notes of the character of the Puritans. Have you any objection to them? If you have, you cannot regard yourself as a Christian because these are two essentially Christian virtues.’”
Iain Murray, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, 98.
. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.A helpful, non-technical comparison between the ESV and NIV that shows the benefits of a translation that seeks to remain transparent to the form and metaphors of the original languages when possible.
Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.See previous post.
William Webb applies his problematic Redemptive-Movement hermeneutic to corporal punishment. The central problem with his approach is that it seems difficult to avoid a Whiggish view of history (or in this case, ethics) with this kind of hermeneutic. He seems to imply that the judicial use of corporal punishment on criminal adults is ruled out with the redemptive-movement at its present stage. But why should an increasingly secularized 21st century West determine this. Why not a more Christianized 19th century? Or why the West; what of the East? Corporal punishment is still practiced in Singapore. Which is more humane, locking up people up in prisons for extended periods of time or instituting corporal punishment for certain crimes? These are questions that Webb fails to wrestle with. He also unhelpfully mixes discussions of child-rearing with passages that seem to deal with criminal punishments. He furthermore gives his readers false options by implying that either one adopt his redemptive-movement hermeneutic or accept as still valid various provisions of the OT Law.
. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011The discussions of the law and the gospel could have benefited from some recognition of the third use of the law. Nonetheless, as the practical discussions unfolded, it seemed that this category was implicit. Readers would also benefit from reading and keeping in mind John Frame’s cautions on redemptive-historical preaching as they read this book. As with redemptive-historical preaching, the emphasis here is on the indicative, and there should be some cautions about not avoiding the imperatives for fear of moralism. Those caveats given, this is a good book. The overall thrust of the book is that parents should not try simply to produce good children. They should instead seek for gospel opportunities in discipline situations. This does not mean that discipline disappears but rather that it is contextualized with the gospel. The book also stresses that following the right formulas will not necessarily produce good children but that God’s grace is necessary to transform children’s hearts. Thus parents must consistently pray for God’s work of grace in the hearts of their children.
. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2002.Good overview of various ecclesiological proposals and the state of the discipline. Negatively, it is slanted toward unorthodox views.
. 1856; repr., Banner of Truth Trust, 1986.Ryle designed this work for family devotions and it is worthy of continued use for that purpose over 150 years from its original publication.
. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.Hannah provides an interesting institutional history. It doesn’t have the same narrative quality as George Marsden’s history of Fuller Seminary or Gregory Wills’ history of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Hannah goes into more detail about curricular changes and other details which break up the narrative. But the discussion of how Dallas emerged from the Bible Conference movement and developed in relation to fundamentalism and evangelicalism was interesting. Hannah placed Dallas somewhat between fundamentalism and the neo-evangelicalism spearheaded at Fuller Seminary.
. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011.I think this has been the most disappointing and most profitable book that I’ve read recently. Disappointing because I came to the book with high hopes and found that I disagreed with his basic thesis. Profitable because it is not only full of wise thoughts but because even when I disagreed I found my thinking helpfully provoked. Goheen did not convince me that the church is defined by its mission. It seems that the church most be more than a “come and join us people.” Its definition must include the what for which people join. Nonetheless, missions is vital to the church, and Goheen’s discussion of mission and missions remain helpful. I also disagree with Goheen’s relation of the church to Israel. This ended up being a major theme of the book. Nonetheless, Goheen has sparked an interest into researching further OT prophecies about the role of Israel in spreading the gospel to the Gentiles.
. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2010.One of the reasons Lewis’s books are so enjoyable for Christians is that they help them see with fresh eyes the foolishness of evil and the wisdom of a God-oriented life. These lessons are not sermonizing within the stories. They are baked into the narratives themselves. And they are the kind of things that stick in the mind and are recalled unbidden when similar circumstances or ideas arise in real life. Wilson highlights these lessons in this book. An enjoyable read.
. Edited by Sam Storms and Justin Taylor. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010.A helpful overview of the centrality of the glory of God in every part of the biblical storyline/canon.
. Edited by Andreas J. Köstenberger and Robert W. Yarbrough. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.A basic unpacking of the doctrine of the church in terms of its four ancient attributes and two/three Reformation marks. Includes helpful thoughts on church membership
. Edited by John J. Hughes. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2009.He likes Frame, Clowney, Old, and Webber. But the essay is pretty thin on content.
. Edited by Gary T. Meadors. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.When I referenced this book for my dissertation, I found that Wolters had the most perceptive reflection on the four views presented. In the dissertation, I drew on him for his critique of Vanhoozer’s theodramatic view. This time I read him to refresh my mind on his critique of Webb. Here too he was perceptive. He notes several problems with a redemptive-movement hermeneutic: (1) It treats ANE ethics monolithically. There were multiple ethics in multiple cultures. Further, some may have been more advanced that Israel if one assumes the “ultimate ethic” that Web lays. (2) His approach depends on the Bible reader having access to ANE background information that many ordinary readers don’t have access to and that even scholars did not have access to before the nineteenth century. Even today scholarly knowledge of the ANE is patchy. (Wolters is clear that he is not against making use of ANE background materials.) (3) “There appears to be no standard by which to measure what an ‘ultimate ethic’ might be. A clue to what is in fact the implicit and unacknowledged standard for Webb is provided by the proximity in the diagram of ‘Ultimate Ethic’ to ‘Our Culture.’ To be sure, the latter is qualified by the words in parentheses: ‘where it happens to reflect a better ethic than Y,’ but no criterion is provided by which we can judge that ‘our culture’ on this or that point reflects a better ethic than Y. This is a remarkable statement when we recall that Y represents ‘the concrete words of the text,’ that is, the biblical text. For all practical purposes it seems that Webb’s ‘Ultimate Ethic’ is pretty well equated with ‘Our Culture,’ at least insofar as the latter is the bearer of human and liberal values. It looks for all the world as though the values ‘we’ hold trump the explicit ethical instruction of Scripture” (p. 306).
It was interesting to happen across this article shortly after having finished Webb’s book on corporal punishment. It comments on Peter Moskos’s work, In Defense of Flogging, which raises the issue of whether flogging might be more humane than locking people up in prison. He tentatively proposes the flogging be an option that those convicts who are not a danger to society may choose instead of a prison term. This is interesting because Webb rhetorically reacts in horror at the idea of corporal punishment as a punishment for adult criminals. But what if Webb’s trajectory toward from Scripture toward our culture isn’t a trajectory to that which is more humane after all? This article at the very least raises that question.
. Chicago: Moody, 1986.
. HarperCollins, 2001.An excellent application of the tenth commandment to friendship. The best fictional correspondence to this address in Lewis’s writing is the character of Mark Studdock in That Hideous Strength.
. Edited by Andreas J. Köstenberger and Robert W. Yarbrough. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.When I was writing my dissertation on theological interpretation of Scripture, I found the literature so voluminous and diverse that I struggled in finding a structure for my analysis. In the end I focused on the role of tradition, the place of pre-critical interpretation as it relates to authorial intent, and how theological interpretation relates to biblical and systematic theology. I was therefore pleased to see that Grant Osborne’s survey of the same material covers these same key areas. Furthermore, I think he points his readers in the right direction on every point. He sees tradition as valuable but supplementary to Scripture, which retains its primacy. He argues that seeking authorial intention is correct and viable. One difference is that he seems to see Childs as a move forward after the collapse of the Biblical Theology Movement. I think that Childs carries many of the same weaknesses. That criticism aside, Osborne’s introduction to theological interpretation is a fine one.
Strange provides a description of both Common-Kingdom (emphasis on natural law as the authority for the common kingdom) and Confessional-Kingdom (emphasis on the authority of Scripture for all of life) models of engagement with public life. He sides with the Confessional-Kingdom approach. His survey is helpful and his application to the UK is useful even for those in the USA.
. Edited by John F. MacArthur, Jr. and Wayne A. Mack. Dallas: Word, 1994.Bookman’s concerns are entirely valid. But in making his case, Bookman seems overly reliant on arguing the definition of terms (while granting what many would identify as general revelation and its application in four affirmations), and even these definitions receive only the most cursory support from Scripture. Bookman’s discussion of general revelation would have been stronger if it had focused on the key general revelation texts, and his case against integrationist counseling would have been stronger if it focused on the substantive issue of psychological theories being equivalent to a theology rather than being revelation itself.
. Master Books, 2008.Mayhue provides an able refutation of Hugh Ross’s claim that nature is the 67th book of the Bible. But he seems to overly limit general revelation in a few places. First, when he says that the breadth of content for general revelation is limited to knowledge of God alone, this seems to rule out natural law (though he grants Romans 2 deals with both general revelation and moral standards). When he says that the corpus of general revelation does not grow over time, Mayhue excludes history from general revelation. He says he does so on the basis that history does not show up in Ps. 19:1-6; Acts 14:17; 17:23-31; Rom. 1:18-25; 10:18, but I would have benefited from some further discussion on why many theologians include history. Does Mayhue think they wrongly see it in the texts he examines; does he think they wrongly see it in other texts that do not teach general revelation? Mayhue then says to expand general revelation beyond special revelation adds to Scripture. But this is not clear. Scripture is special revelation and general revelation is not. These reservations and questions do not affect Mayhue’s case against Ross; Mayhue successfully refutes Ross’s claims.
One of [Machen’s] students recalled his saying that
“the great Dr. Hermann presented his position with such power I would sometimes leave his presence wondering how I could ever retain my confidence in the historical accuracy of the Gospel narratives. Then I’d go to my room, take out the Gospel of mark and read it from beginning to end at one sitting—and my doubts would fade. I realized that the document could not possibly be the invention of the mind of a mere man.”
Machen came to see that Herrmann’s position was fallacious for two reasons. First, the picture of the ‘liberal Jesus,’ which called forth Hermann’s unbounded reverence, was a fictitious creation. Second, the type of religious experience that Ritshclian liberalism endeavored to conserve was hardly true Christian experience. It knew nothing of the biblical view of sin and redemption through the death of Christ.
David B. Calhoun, Princeton Seminary: The Majestic Testimony, 1869-1929 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1996), 230.
Because the liberals of Machen’s day were so pious, many in the churches would not remove them from the church. But if the liberals’ reverence was directed toward a “fictitious creation” of their own making, it was not praiseworthy but idolatry.
Barth explains his objections to exegesis that never moves beyond the historical-critical level [for context see previous two posts]:
Taking Jülcher’s work as typical of much modern exegesis, we observe how closely he keeps to the mere deciphering of words as though they were runes. But, when all is done, they still remain largely unintelligible. How quick he is without any real struggling with the raw material of the Epistle, to dismiss this or that difficult passage as simply a peculiar doctrine or opinion of Paul! How quick he is to treat a matter as explained, when it is said to belong to the religious thought, feeling, experience, conscience, or conviction,—of Paul! And, when this does not at once fit, or is manifestly impossible, how easily he leaps, like some bold William Tell, right out of the Pauline boat, and rescues himself by attributing what Paul has said, to his ‘personality’, to the experience on the road to Damascus (an episode which seems capable of providing at any moment an explanation of every impossibility), to later Judaism, to Hellenism, or, in fact, to any exegetical semi-divinity of the ancient world!
Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 7f.
The most influential opponent to the kind of commentary critiqued in the previous post is Karl Barth. In the Römerbrief Barth critiqued historical criticism’s failure to serve the preacher. He advocated moving beyond historical critical study in order to understand what God is saying to Christians in the present day. This demanded the commentator understand the theological import of the text. Barth also insisted that each part of the Bible be interpreted in light of the whole.
Though Barth’s polemics against liberalism made him unpopular among many liberals in his day and in the decades that followed, the influence of postmodernity on theology led to a revival in interest in Barth. For some Barth is attractive because he provides theologians with a way of addressing the problems of modernism without entirely abandoning their liberal presuppositions or theology. (For the view that Barth’s theology, despite its critique of liberalism, remained liberal theology see Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining Progressive Religion (Louisville: WJK, 2001), xxi.)
In April, Rick Phillips made this insightful observation about commentaries:
I also find that if you want doctrinal insights and applications, you need to look at older commentaries. More current commentaries are far more likely to note literary connections, and often to real profit . . . . Yet, while the technical exegesis is in some respects improved of late, the sense of the message of the text has regressed. If our commentaries reveal anything, we are becoming more technically acute but also less receptive of the prophetic message of the text for us. Does this indicate a professionalization of the exegetical calling, so that we are more skilled in working over the Word and less attuned to sitting under the Word? Yes, I think it does.
Rick Phillips, “Working Over or Sitting Under the Word,” Reformation21.
The roots to this shift go back to Benedict Spinzoa. Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise in 1670 marked a decisive turning point in biblical studies. In that work he de-privileged the Bible from its canonical status and laid the basis for the historical critical method. As a result, the Bible was no longer a canonical text that supplied theological meaning but one religious text among others to be dissected historically.
Christians (using the term in Machen’s sense) have for centuries rejected historical criticism of the kind proposed by Spinoza, but they have also been profoundly affected by it. In their defense of orthodoxy conservatives have often been shaped by the emphases of their opponents, if in the inverse. Craig Bartholomew comments, “There has been an (understandable) tendency for orthodox scholars to fight the battle for Scripture where opponents have attacked. Thus a huge amount of Christian energy has been devoted to historical issues during the twentieth century. Far less, alas, to interpretation of the Bible as God’s address” (“Calvin, Barth, and Theological Interpretation,” in Calvin, Barth, and Reformed Theology, ed. Neil B. MacDonald and Carl R. Trueman [Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008], 164).
The Post-Reformation Digital Library looks to be an enormously valuable resource. Nick Batzig says “This is the most comprehensive collection of free online PDF theological resources. It will be, without a doubt, a massively important site for those interested in pre-20th Century studies.”
There is an enormous amount of helpful theological primary sources available on Google Books, Internet Archive, and other sites. The PRDL helpfully organizes these by category: Reformed, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Anabaptist, Arminian-Remonstrant, and Socinian-Unitarian. Also included are smaller sections on Early Modern Philosophy and Patristic and Medieval Philosophy.
In the nineteenth century the Princtonians, despite some hyper-spiritualist statements (Hodge, 451f., 453), clearly affirmed that the eternal state would be on the new earth, though at times this is termed heaven (Hodge, 457, 460-62). Bavinck provides a much clearer defense of the new earth as the eternal home of the redeemed (page 716ff.).
Dispensationalists have long held to a re-created earth in the eternal state. Scofield and Chafer seem to have taught that Israel would dwell on earth for eternity while the church would dwell in heaven (Reimers’ Eschatology notes). Alva McClain states, “The ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ here undoubtedly refer to the physical universe. The ‘first’ or original universe passes away, and is replaced by a ‘new’ universe. This does not necessarily mean the annihilation of our present world of matter; for the Greek kainos may mean new in character rather than in substance. The same term is used of the regenerated believer: he becomes a ‘new creation’ (II Cor. 5:17, ASV) in a crisis which does not annihilate the personal entity but transforms it” (McClain, 510).
Though the popular view of the eternal state remains an eternal existence in heaven, several popular works, including Randy Alcorn’s Heaven and N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope, have argued for the eternal state on the recreated earth.
Bibliography
Alcorn, Randy. Heaven. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2004.
Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics: Volume 4: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation. Edited by John Bolt. Translated by John Vriend. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.
Hodge, Archibald Alexander. Outlines of Theology. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1863.
McClain, Alva J. The Greatness of the Kingdom. Chicago: Moody, 1959.
Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope. New York: HarperOne, 2008.
By the time of the early Medieval period, the conception of heaven as the place of beatific vision was firmly established by authors such as Pseudo-Dionysius and Gregory the Great (Russell, 93, 96). Nonetheless, it is important to note theologians still affirmed physicality of the resurrected body (Russell, 95). In popular discourse, people still described heaven in physical terms and often as a garden or a city. With the revival of towns, heaven was more often described as a city (McDannell and Lang, 72-73). It is not clear whether these physical paradises were conceived to be located in the present world or in heaven. The latter is most likely.
As interest in astronomy grew, theologians began to locate heaven in the outermost of the heavenly spheres as a realm of pure light. Thomas Aquinas did not deny the existence of a future new earth (though he did deny that it would have any plant or animal life). Nonetheless, in Aquinas’ thought the saints will do nothing but contemplate God in the eternal state (McDannell and Lang, 82-83, 89).
During the Renaissance the conception of heaven as a static place of contemplation gave way to a two-tiered vision of eternity. Above was the New Jerusalem as the dwelling of God and below was a garden paradise. The redeemed could move between contemplation of God above and the joys of human reunion and companionship below (McDannell and Lang, 119, 142-43).
The reformers Luther and Calvin both affirmed the restoration of earth and the access of the saints to both the restored earth and heaven. Unlike Aquinas, Luther and Calvin believed plants and animals would exist on the restored earth. The focus of the eternal state remained the worship of God (McDannell and Lang, 154f.). Diversity of views existed among the theological descendants of the Reformers. In his The Saints Everlasting Rest, the puritan Richard Baxter emphasized the delight in and knowledge of God that the saints will experience. The puritan Cotton Mather spoke of a re-created earth, but it is difficult to tell if he saw this as a millennial or eternal habitation (Smolinski, ed., 268ff.).
Bibliography
McDannell, Colleen and Bernhard Lang. Heaven: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
Russell, Jeffery Burton. A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.
Smolinski, Reiner, ed. The Threefold Paradise of Cotton Mather: An Edition of ‘Triparadisus.’ Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995.