Author Archive
Burke
I enjoyed reading Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution. He’s wise and witty. Following are a few favorite quotes.
Burke describes the outcome of the Glorious Revolution as being one of “hereditary descent qualified with Protestantism,” establishing a line of succession that are “Protestants, to the end of time.”
Prince William has the opportunity to be a great man.
Burke describes constitutional liberties as an inheritance, one that is both received and to be guarded: “We wished at the period of the Revolution, and do now wish, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers.” By contrast, the French “began ill, because you began by despising everything that belonged to you.” The irony is that the French engaged in “extravagant and presumptuous speculations which have taught your leaders to despise all their predecessors, and all their contemporaries, and even to despise themselves, until the moment in which they became truly despicable.” This sharp wit shows up around every corner. He wishes, for example, to carefully “distinguish benevolence from imbecility.” Later he writes that “in this you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with Nature.”
There were a few familiar turns of phrase which Burke must have either invented or helped to popularize; for example, the “long view.” Of course the phrase “little platoon” originates with him: “To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ, as it were) of public affections.” Here is a longer expression of that idea:
To a person who takes a view of the whole, the strength of Paris, thus formed, will appear a system of general weakness. It is boasted that the geometrical policy has been adopted, that all local ideas should be sunk, and that the people should be no longer Gascons, Picards, Bretons, Normans,—but Frenchmen, with one country, one heart, and one Assembly. But, instead of being all Frenchmen, the greater likelihood is that the inhabitants of that region will shortly have no country. No man ever was attached by a sense of pride, partiality, or real affection, to a description of square measurement. He never will glory in belonging to the chequer No. 71, or to any other badge-ticket. We begin our public affections in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen. We pass on to our neighborhoods, and our habitual provincial connections. These are inns and resting-places. Such divisions of our country as have been formed by habit, and not by a sudden jerk of authority, were so many little images of the great country, in which the heart found something which it could fill. The love to the whole is not extinguished by this subordinate partiality. Perhaps it is a sort of elemental training to those higher and more large regards by which alone men come to be affected, as with their own concern, in the prosperity of a kingdom so extensive as that of France. In that general territory itself, as in the old name of Provinces, the citizens are interested from old prejudices and unreasoned habits, and not on account of the geometric properties of its figure. The power and preëminence of Paris does certainly press down and hold these republics together as long as it lasts: but, for the reasons I have already given you, I think it can not last very long.
Later, Burke charges that the revolutionaries have replaced an appropriate respect due to place and persons with a mere “respect due to laws.”
Elsewhere, Burke chides this regard to abstract law and policy: “Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.”
Discern
I heartily hold that the common understanding of Paul’s use of examine and discern and body in 1 Cor 11 is both misguided and even harmful to our little ones. I’ve argued for this at several times.
But let’s assume for a moment that Calvin is right. Consider the words of Jesus:
At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” (Matthew 11)
In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” (Luke 10)
Upon examination, little ones discern Jesus.
Not rejecting our Lord’s great kindness
What we have said is sufficient, as one can see, to show how unreasonably and thoughtlessly these people trouble the Lord’s church. They arouse questions and debates in order to censure the holy observance which has always, since the time of the apostles, been carefully kept by the faithful. It is sufficient because we have clearly proved that the baptism of children has certain and assured foundation in the holy scripture, and on the contrary we have abundantly refuted all the objections which they are accustomed to make against it. So we do not doubt that all good servants of God, after having read this treatise, may be clearly satisfied and perceive with their eyes that all the attacks which are made to overturn and abolish this holy ordinance are deceitful machinations of the devil, in order to diminish the comfort that the Lord wanted to give us by His promise, and by so much to obscure the glory of His name—which is the more exalted the more the generosity of His mercy is fully poured out on people. For when the Lord visibly testifies to us by the sign of baptism that for love of us He wants to pay attention to our posterity and to be the God of our children, do we not have good grounds to rejoice as David did, when we consider that the Lord takes the role of a good father of a family for us, extending His providence not only over us but over those who are ours after our death? In that rejoicing God is particularly glorified.
This is why Satan strives to deprive our children of the communication of baptism—so that when this testimony that the Lord ordained in order to confirm for us the graces which He wants to give our children has been erased from before our eye, we might likewise little by little forget the promise which He has given us for them. From that would follow not only ingratitude and lack of recognition of the Lord’s mercy toward us but a negligence in instructing our children in the fear and discipline of His law and in the knowledge of His gospel. For it is a significant goad to incite us to nourish them in true piety and obedience to God when we hear that from their birth the Lord has received them among His people, as members of His church. That is why, not rejecting our Lord’s great kindness, let us boldly present to Him our children, to whom He has given entrance by His promise into the company of those whom He avows for household members of His house, which is the Christian church. (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1541 French edition, trans. by Elsie Anne McKee, chapter 11, “Of Baptism”)
Conquest
The death of a high priest is significant.
Sometimes it is significant because it is a sign of judgment: “Then she named the child Ichabod, saying, ‘The glory has departed from Israel!’” (1 Sam 4:21) But it is always significant in that it releases those who are in prison into a new situation, for better or worse: “After the death of the high priest the manslayer may return to the land of his possession.” (Num 35:28) This is true in the greatest sense in Jesus; his death inaugurates a new epoch where those who are slaves of sin are given freedom and a future. You can see a more ordinary example of this in the death of Aaron; in a sense his death sets Israel free from the wilderness and makes it possible for them to conquer the promised land (Num 33).
There is a way in which this is true of all men, whether they be fathers or teachers or pastors; and even if they have planned for their succession with the utmost wisdom and faithfulness. The death of such a man releases a community from an obligation into a kind of freedom, but it also creates a new obligation and responsibility for that community to wrestle with the new future that is facing them. When you suffer the death of such a man, consider what old obligation you are released from, and what new opportunity you must give thanks for; and set your energies toward it.
Weary
“But you profane it,
In that you say,
‘The table of Yahweh is defiled;
And its fruit, its food, is contemptible.’
You also say,
‘Oh, what a weariness!’
And you sneer at it,”
Says the Yahweh of hosts.
“And you bring the stolen, the lame, and the sick;
Thus you bring an offering!
Should I accept this from your hand?”
Says Yahweh. (Malachi 1:12-13)
Peter Leithart writes of this passage:
Contempt for the Lord’s table is contempt for the Lord of the table, and this is as true for the church as it was for ancient Israel. Matthew Henry wisely applied these verses of Malachi to “those who live in a careless neglect of holy ordinances.” If this is the case, many churches today live in open contempt of their Lord. The Lord has provided a generous meal for His people; we have a sacrifice from which even those who served in the temple had no right to eat. Yet we complain that it makes the service too long and it is inconvenient and it is repetitive and it is boring and maybe the roast in the oven will burn. “My, how tiresome it is,” we sniff (Mal. 1:13), and thereby prove ourselves sons of Esau.
If you fear that serving the Lord’s Supper weekly might result in its becoming routine; or if you despair at the challenge of fitting it in regularly along with the rest of worship; then you should consider the possibility your love is growing cold.
Thus, weekly communion: do not grow weary in doing good.
Everyone is a preterist
Everyone is a preterist:
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Mt. 12:40)
In fact, everyone is a preterist when it comes to worldwide events:
Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. (Acts 11:28)
As I wrote previously,
The preterist recognizes that once–fulfilled scripture is not useless to us; rather, it gives us powerful assurance of God’s faithfulness to his promises, and insight into his ways with his people and in his world. It will be many times fulfilled. For example, Revelation shows us how “things fall apart” when the gospel shines into any new situation.
Hagar part 3
But as God has distributed to each one, as the Lord has called each one, so let him walk. And so I ordain in all the churches. Was anyone called while circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Was anyone called while uncircumcised? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters. Let each one remain in the same calling in which he was called. Were you called while a slave? Do not be concerned about it; but if you can be made free, rather use it. For he who is called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord’s freedman. Likewise he who is called while free is Christ’s slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men. Brethren, let each one remain with God in that state in which he was called. (1 Cor. 7)
For those who are called, circumcision thus dies out in a generation.
Hagar redux
(Building on my Hagar bricolage.)
The weaving together of Israel and the nations is one of the central themes of the New Testament.
For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. (Eph. 2:14-18)
Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things.” (Luke 24:46-48)
This is in fact what it means for Israel to be redeemed. As we see time and time again, the older brother is saved by his incorporation into the younger:
“But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened.” . . . Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:21, 25)
There is no such thing as a promise that does not actually accomplish adoption:
For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, . . . and the promises. . . . [T]hose who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God . . . (Romans 9)
The New Testament has a name for someone who wishes to preserve the old man: Judaizer. And as we see with Peter and the great sheet, to preserve the old man is to despise the new man.
All prophesy
Paul speaks of all prophesying in 1 Cor 14:
But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is convicted by all. (1 Cor 14:24)
It seems common to take the idea of “all” prophesying as hyperbolic. But I recently suggested that one possible way to read this is “all worship” or especially “all worship in the vernacular.”
James Rogers suggests the same:
Paul, for example, observes that when “the whole church assembles together” and “all prophesy”—in this context “prophecy” almost certainly means “to speak God’s word” (1 Cor 14:26, cf. Heb 4:12) . . . . (Hell Shall Not Prevail, 5)
A Hagar bricolage
I listened to Wilson’s American Milk and Honey recently. Parts of it are great, but parts of it not so great. Following are some thoughts on Romans 11, in no particular order.
Wilson’s strongest point, I think, is to wonder how the fullness of the Gentiles could possibly be said to have arrived in the first century. I don’t think his concern holds up on reflection; it seems that the semantic scope of “come in” readily includes “entered” or “come into life,” or inaugurated. This inauguration is completed and sealed in AD 70, when the old man and the new man are fully united in the church. Gentiles are now a part of the priestly people, fully initiated as heirs to every single promise as those promises are magnified and transfigured in Jesus.
James Jordan makes an interesting point about the promises attached to the covenant name of Yahweh:
For I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (Exodus 20)
Jordan’s point is that the visitation of iniquity is simultaneously both a threat and an act of mercy. Ever since the garden, and in spite of outward appearances from time to time, God has not allowed wickedness to outgrow and outpace his kingdom, but rather brings it to an end. The fourth generation is a limit on his vengeance and a means of bringing wickedness to a complete end. If it were the case that Romans 11 was still waiting for a future fulfillment, then we would have to deny that God’s mercy outran his judgment in this way. We would have to say that God was, strangely, preserving wickedness just as scrupulously and carefully as he preserves righteousness.
Imagine the prophet Nathan writing the following in David’s day. Israel converted from king Saul to king David in seven years. I believe that it is no strange thing to say that they converted to king Jesus in forty:
I say then, have Benjamin and Israel stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to Judah. Now if their fall is riches for the land, and their failure riches for Judah, how much more their fullness!
For I speak to you Judah; inasmuch as I am an apostle to Judah, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the land, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Benjamin and Israel until the fullness of Judah has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”Concerning David they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.
The latter Saul of the tribe of Benjamin understood this principle so well because he had lived all his life in the good of this great conversion to king David.
I gotta have my orange juice. 