Transcript HOLY SPIRIT - Erskine College

THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
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THE PROBLEM OF SIN
God is All Powerful
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THE PROBLEM OF SIN
“The biblical doctrine leaves us with mysteries beyond our comprehension, but
these are, as Laidlaw says, 'solvents, not sources of difficulty. Into the problem
of evil, Scripture introduces elements of explanation. It accounts for man's
present moral and physical condition, for the broad phenomena of life and death
in a way that is thinkable and intelligible'. The humble Christian is content to
contain these unresolved problems. They do not disturb his peace of mind
because, in the last analysis, the ground of all peace of mind is the conviction of
the sovereignty, justice, goodness of God. What he cannot resolve he believes
God does. It is the apex of Christian piety to trust in God, just as it is also the
foundation, to say, 'I do not know, but I do know that God does'. Christian piety
leaves unresolved problems in the hand of God, remembering that, if we knew
all, then we would be as God, and worship and adoration would be at an end.
Clouds and darkness are round about him but justice and judgment are the
habitation of his throne.” Murray, CW, 1,76.
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THE DEFINITION OF SIN
• Sin is lawlessness, I
John 3:4
• Sin consists of
attitudes contrary to
the law of God, Ex.
20:17; Matt. 5:22,28
• “Sin is any want of
conformity unto, or
transgression of the
law of God” S.C. Q. 14
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ORIGINAL SIN
• We become sinners
because we are in
Adam
– Really, we are his
physical posterity
– Spiritually, he is our
covenant head and
we are represented
by him
• This is the federal or
covenantal view
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• Three Imputations
in Scripture
– Adam’s Sin to Us
– Our Sin to Christ
– Christ’s
righteousness to us
• Romans 5:14; I
Corinthians 15:22,
45; II Corinthians
5:20
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SIN AND SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
“All the reformers of the sixteenth century, including even the
gentle Melanchthon and the compromising Bucer, under a
controlling sense of human depravity and saving grace, in extreme
antagonism to Pelagianism and self-righteousness, and, as they
sincerely believed, in full harmony not only with the greatest of
the fathers, but also with the inspired St. Paul, came to the same
doctrine of a double predestination which decides the eternal
destiny of all men. Nor is it possible to evade this conclusion on
the two acknowledged premises of Protestant orthodoxy- namely
the wholesale condemnation of men in Adam, and the limitation
of saving grace to the present world.”
-Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, 1,451.
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COVENANT OF WORKS
•
•
•
•
•
Parties: God and Adam, Gen. 1:15-17
Promises: Eternal Life, Gen. 2:9
Conditions: Faith and Obedience, Gen. 2:15-17
Sanctions: Death, Gen 2:17
Hosea 6:7, “But like Adam, you broke my
covenant and sinned against me”
• Romans 5:12, “When Adam sinned, sin entered
the entire human race. Adam’s sin brought
death, so death spread to everyone, for
everyone sinned.” I Cor. 15:21ff
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COVENANT OF WORKS
• Larger Catechism refers to this as a “covenant of life”:
Q.20 “What was the providence of God toward man in
the estate in which he was created? A. The providence
of God toward man in the estate in which he was
created, was the placing him in paradise, appointing
him to dress it, giving him liberty to eat of the fruit of
the earth; putting the creatures under his dominion,
and ordaining marriage for his help; affording him
communion with himself; instituting the Sabbath;
entering into a covenant of life with him, upon
condition of personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience,
of which the tree of life was a pledge; and forbidding to
eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon
the pain of death.”
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COVENANT OF WORKS
• John Murray’s reservations: “This [Adamic]
administration has often been denoted ‘The
Covenant of Works’. There are two
observations. (1) The term is not felicitous, for
the reason that the elements of grace entering
into the administration are not properly
provided for by the term ‘works’. (2) It is not
designated a covenant in Scripture . . .” Murray,
Collected Works, 2:49
• Considerations for students under care of
presbytery
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COVENANT OF GRACE
• Parties: “your God and the God of your
descendants,” Gen. 17:7
• Promises: “I will be your God,” Lev.
26:12
• Conditions: “You will be my people,”
Deut. 6
– Faith
– Obedience
• Rewards: “He will live with them and
they will be his people,” Rev. 21:3
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COVENANT OF GRACE
• Davidic Covenant• Adamic CovenantII Samuel 7; Psalm
Hosea 6:7
89
• Abrahamic
•
New
CovenantCovenant- Genesis
Ezekiel 34:22-31;
12:1-5; chapters
36:25-37; Jeremiah
15,17
31:3,31-40; 33:15• Mosaic Covenant26
Exodus 6:1-8;
• Fulfillment- Luke
19:5,6; 32:13;
22:20; Hebrews
9:15
Deuteronomy 6; 7:6
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STRUCTURE: Bookends
• A Garden, Gen. 2:15
• A Tree of Life for our
parents, Gen. 2:9
• Greater and Lesser
Lights, Gen. 1:16
• Presence of God in
cool of evening,
Gen. 3:8
• Perfect Creation,
Gen. 1:31
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• A City, Rev. 21:2
• A Tree of Life for the
healing of all nations,
Rev. 22:2
• The Lord is the Light,
Rev. 22:5
• Dwelling of God is
with men, Rev. 21:3
• Perfect re-creation,
Rev. 21:1
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STRUCTURE: Centrality of Christ
• Gen. 3:15- the seed of the woman to
bring about the destruction of Satan
• Isa. 7:14, the virgin-born “Immanuel”
• Matt. 1:22,23, the fulfillment, the
“Immanuel” born to Mary
• John 1:14, the Word became flesh,
“tabernacled” among us
• Matt. 26:28, Luke 22:20, the new
covenant in my (Jesus’) blood
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STRUCTURE: The Covenant Formula
• Lev. 26:9-13a, “I will look on you with favor and
make you fruitful and increase your numbers,
and I will keep my covenant with you. You will
still be eating last year’s harvest when you will
have to move it out to make room for the new. I
will put my dwelling place among you, and I will
not abhor you. I will walk among you and be
your God, and you will be my people. I am the
Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so
that you would no longer be slaves to the
Egyptians”
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STRUCTURE: Ancient Near Eastern
Treaty Pattern
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Preamble
Historical Prologue
Stipulations
Blessings, Curses, Ratification
Succession
This is the pattern found in the Book of
Deuteronomy, as noted in the work of
Mendenhall and Kline (2d millennium B.C.
treaty patterns)
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STRUCTURE: Covenant w/Adam
• Gen. 2:15, “the Lord God took the man and put
him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take
care of it”
• Gen. 3:8, “the Lord God as he was walking in the
garden in the cool of the day”
• Elements of this covenant
– Gracious- creation not required; was free act of God
– Relationship- meet in garden in evening, condescension
– Responsibilities- covenant fulfillment, tend garden (no
great burden)
– Promises- life (tree of life)
– Warning- covenant breaking leads to death
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STRUCTURE: Covenant w/Adam
• According to Hosea 6:7, this was a
covenant
• Yet, when Adam broke covenant
– God still sought after him
– God provided means to make covenant
breaker once again become covenant keeper,
Gen 3:21
• BUT- the principle is established that it is
only when the innocent takes the place of
the guilty that the covenant can be
restored
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STRUCTURE: Covenant w/Abraham
• GOD MADE COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM:
Gen. 17:7
• From the individualism of Adam’s children to a
family and tribe With Abraham and his seedeverlasting covenant/covenant sign
• Promise of Seed who would be a blessing to all
nations
– basis of Great Commission
– Gal. 3:7, all who believe- are children of Abraham
• Promise of land, an inheritance for his people
(Rom. 4:13) heir of world
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STRUCTURE: Covenant w/Abraham
• Covenant is established by God: Gen 15:12-21
• Covenant is bilateral: involves mutua obligatio
– Promise (“I will be your God”)
– Obligation (“you will be my people”)
• Gen. 17:7, “I will establish my covenant as an everlasting
covenant between me and you and your descendants”
• Gen. 17:9, “you must keep my covenant”
• Gen. 17:14, “any uncircumcised male . . . will be cut off”
• Gen. 18:19, “I have chosen him, so that he will direct his
children and his household after him to keep the way of
the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord
will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him”
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STRUCTURE: Covenant w/Moses
• Deut. 5:2ff, “The Lord our God made a covenant with us
at Horeb”
• From a tribe to a nation, “a kingdom of priests and a
holy nation” Ex. 19:6 (Cf. I Peter 2:5,9)
– Moses the mediator of the old covenant
– He establishes the covenant code (Ex. 20, Deut. 5)
– He leads redemptive journey from Egypt through baptismal
waters of Red Sea to promised land
– Redemption REMEMBERED IN PASSOVER
• Israel becomes God's “treasured possession”- his own
dear children, Deut. 7:6
• Tent of Meeting- dwelling presence of God (God with us)
but only through Mediator, Ex. 33:7ff; 40:34-38
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STRUCTURE: Covenant w/Moses
• This covenant was not in opposition to the
Abrahamic covenant
– The law did not set aside the Abrahamic covenant,
Gal. 3:17
– The Mosaic covenant was one of the “covenants
(plural) of promise,” Eph. 2:12
– The law is not opposed to the promises of God- and
was never intended to be the means by which
righteousness comes, Gal. 3:21
– The obligation to keep the commandments comes only
after the redemptive prologue, Ex. 20:2, Deut. 5:6
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STRUCTURE: Covenant w/David
• II Sam. 7:11, “the Lord himself will establish a house
for you”; 7:14, “I will be his father and he will be my
son. When he does wrong, I will punish him . . .”
• Psalm 89:20-29, “I will maintain my love to him forever
and my covenant with him will never fail” (vs. 28)
• From a nation to a Kingdom
– God promises a kingdom without end
– God promised to establish a throne in righteousness
– God promises to bring about this rule by his power
• God promised to establish a temple through Solomon- a
place to meet with his people, II Sam 7:13
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STRUCTURE: New Covenant
• Jer. 31:31-3, “‘The time is coming’ declares the
Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It
will not be like the covenant I made with their
forefathers when I took them by the hand to
lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my
covenant, though I was a husband to them,’
declares the Lord. ‘This is the covenant I will
make with the house of Israel after that time,’
declares the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their
minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their
God and they will be my people.”
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STRUCTURE: New Covenant
• Eze. 34:23ff, “I will place over them one shepherd, my
servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them
and be their shepherd. I the Lord will be their God, and
my servant David will be prince among them. I the Lord
have spoken. I will make a covenant of peace with them
. . .”
• Eze. 36:24-28, “For I will take you out of the nations; I
will gather you from all the countries and bring you back
into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and
you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your
impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new
heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you
your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh . . .you
will be my people and I will be your God.”
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STRUCTURE: New Covenant
• From an earthly kingdom to a
kingdom of priests, Jer. 33:21,22
• God would write his law on the
heart
• All would come to know the Lord
• None would need to be taught
• Their sins will be forgiven
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STRUCTURE: New Covenant
established by Christ
•
•
•
•
John 1:14, “tabernacled among us”
Matthew 1:23, “Immanuel, God with us”
Luke 22:20, “the new covenant in my blood”
From a Nation to the church catholic
– Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant
– He establishes covenant code
• New commandment, John 13:34
• After Transfiguration, Luke 9:30, “his exodus”
– He leads redemptive journey from sin to promised land
– REMEMBERED IN LORD'S SUPPER
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STRUCTURE: New Covenant
established by Christ
• Jesus guarantees a better covenant, Heb. 7:22
• Jesus has a permanent priesthood, Heb. 7:24
• Jesus mediates a better covenant, Heb. 8:6,
9:15
• Jesus makes the first covenant obsolete, Heb.
8:13
• Jesus enters the perfect tabernacle, Heb.
9:11,24
• Jesus offers one perfect sacrifice, Heb. 10:10,14
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STRUCTURE: Old vs. New Covenant
• Anticipation
• Types and Shadows
• Blood of bulls and
goats
• Aaronic/Levitical
Priesthood
• Temporary
• Moses, the servant,
as Mediator
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• Fulfillment
• Reality
• Once-for-all offering
of Christ
• Melchizedekan
Priesthood
• Eternal
• Christ, the son, as
Mediator
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STRUCTURE: Continuity?
• Epochal shifts (from one covenant to next) are
organic
– There are similarities
– There are differences
– There is an underlying unity
• Dispensationalism tends to overemphasize
differences
• Theonomy tends to overemphasize similarities
• Old Testament teachings and requirements still
applicable unless clearly stated otherwise
– Cf. Col. 2:16,17; Rom. 14:5-8; Heb. 9:10
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CONDITIONALITY
• God initiates the covenant; in its origin, the
covenant is unilateral and unconditional
• Christ is the Mediator and the fulfillment of the
covenant; his role as covenant-keeper is
complete and fulfills the “pactum salutis”
• The people of God are “in” the covenant by
God’s grace, and respond to that grace
– In Faith
– And Obedience, LC 32
• The covenant, in its outworking, is bilateral and
conditional
• See Turrettin’s comments on “duties”
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COVENANT SUCCESSION
• “The covenant promise of God today is the same
promise of God’s fatherly love, the forgiveness of
sin, and eternal life made before to Abraham and
it similarly embraces children with their Christian
parents.” Rayburn, Presbyterion, 22.2, 76-112
• “The children of believers are baptized not in
order that they who were previously strangers to
the church may then for the first time become
children of God, but rather that, because by the
blessing of the promise they already belonged to
the body of Christ, they were received into the
church with this solemn sign.” Calvin, ICR,
4.15.22.
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COVENANT SUCCESSION
• “For it is very clear from many testimonies of Scripture
that circumcision was also a sign of repentance. Then
Paul calls it the seal of the righteousness of faith. For
although infants, at the very moment they were
circumcised, did not comprehend with their
understanding what that sign meant, they were truly
circumcised to the mortification of their corrupt and
defiled nature, a mortification that they would afterward
practice in mature years. To sum up, this objection can
be solved without difficulty: infants are baptized into
future repentance and faith, and even though these
have not yet been formed in them, the seed of both lies
hidden within them by the secret working of the Spirit.”
Calvin, ICR, 4.16.20
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COVENANT SUCCESSION
• The Real Problem
– The Evangelical Paradigm: “Decisional Regeneration”
• Is Arminian and not Calvinistic
• Is Missional and not Covenantal
• The Question of “Conversion Experience”
– Is the Wrong Question
– The Right Question is a “Relationship Question”
• Often, it is difficult to pinpoint the beginning of a relationship,
“There are Christians who can give the day and hour of their
conversion, but the great majority do not know at exactly
what moment they were saved.” Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, 140
• That is the expectation in the model of the covenant
succession of children
– “Are you trusting in Jesus,” not “Have you had this experience”
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THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
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