Who, if anyone, is really Reformed?

The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology: A Comparative Analysis by Guy Prentiss Waters

The Federal Vision is a movement/theological system/conversation that sparked a controversy in the United States a decade ago, and is still creating ripples here in Australia. This book offers a critique of the Federal Vision.

First of all, Waters – correctly, in my opinion – locates the heart of the Federal Vision in the idea that children of believers are members of the Covenant of Grace (p. 17).

Immediately, it can be seen how this is tapping into an issue on which there has always been a difference of opinion in Reformed circles, and inconsistency among the Reformed confessions. The Heidelberg Catechism (Q & A 74) says infants "as well as adults, are included in the covenant and church of God," while Article 34 of the Belgic Confession says "Christ has shed his blood no less for washing the little children of believers than he did for adults." The Westminster Larger Catechism, however, takes a different view, and says (Q & A 31) that the covenant was made "with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed." The Westminster Confession is not explicit on this point.

Waters takes issue with this central thesis of the Federal Vision position, but he does so mainly on the basis of its contravention of the Westminster Standards, and of "Reformed tradition". Waters objects to the Federal Vision using different language, having a different emphasis, and going beyond, not just the Westminster Standards, but Reformed theology.

The reader may well be wondering, however, where is the biblical rebuttal? Waters does refer to two passages (p. 19)  that, he says, speak of "the covenantally unfaithful as those who were never truly members of the covenant of grace in the first place": 1 John 2:19-20 ("They went out from us, but they were not of us") and Matthew 7:22-23 ("Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name’... And I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you’...")

One example of a comparison with the Westminster Standards involves justification. Waters says, "Whereas our Standards speak of justification as an 'act', we have observed formulations that render justification a process" (p. 95). The Larger Catechism (but not the Confession) speaks in this way – "Justification is an act of God’s free grace unto sinners, in which he pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in his sight..." (Q & A 70). The Canons of Dort, however, refer to justification as a state - "But God, who is rich in mercy, according to his unchangeable purpose of election, does not wholly withdraw the Holy Spirit from his own people, even in their melancholy falls; nor suffers them to proceed so far as to lose the grace of adoption, and forfeit the state of justification..." (V.6). So, justification is not merely an act, and Waters appears to be unaware of the broader Reformed tradition at this point.

I was somewhat annoyed by Waters' constant appeal to (what he considers to be) Reformed tradition. Here are some representative quotes:

• "Lusk appears to invest much more in the connection between justification and resurrection than students of the Standards have hitherto done" (p. 80)
• "Shepherd undermines the traditional distinction between the church visible and invisible" (p. 102)
• "Wilson's argument fails to overturn conventional Reformed readings of this passage..." (p. 154)
• "This is a far stronger principle of covenantal continuity than has been admitted within the historical mainstream of Reformed interpreters" (p. 290)

Waters appeals to the Reformed tradition, but he has a skewed view of what it consists of – on some of these points there have been a rich variety of opinions within Reformed communities. And while interpretive tradition has an important place in the life of the church, Waters seems to believe that anything new in theology must necessarily be wrong.

However, quite apart from the Federal Vision-specific issues, one wonders about Waters' own qualifications to be a defender of Reformed Orthodoxy. He repeatedly talks about how the Federal Visionists reject the idea that grace is a substance (e.g. pp. 62, 171, 182, 214, 261, 295). So the reader is left wondering whether Waters himself believes that it is.

Perhaps, as a sort of thought experiment, we might turn the tables and ask whether in fact Waters is truly Reformed himself. After all, he says (pp 85-86), I have my doubts that "definitive sanctification" is a biblical teaching at all.

Of course, that would be going too far. Firstly, Waters doesn't deny definitive sanctification, he is merely questioning it here. Secondly, it could be that his reticence to use the phrase is merely a matter of terminology. Thirdly, it's not obvious that definitive sanctification is a necessary part of Reformed theology. Fourthly, as Waters indicates, the important thing is whether it is biblical – and to be biblical is to be truly Reformed.

Are the Federal Visionists any less Reformed than Waters? I don't think so. And yet Waters argues that the Federal Vision is not merely a subset of Reformed theology, but constitutes a different system altogether. For my own part, the central idea of the Federal Vision – that the Covenant of Grace is made with believers and their children – is something I've always believed.

The Bible, Part 3

Rembrandt's Jeremiah

The third instalment of The Bible series on TV was on last night. It was just a single episode (#5) and covered the fall of Jerusalem and a few stories from the life of Daniel. This time, I am happy to say, I agreed with the filmmakers' interpretation.

I liked the way that they had a relatively unknown Bible character (Zedekiah) and how they had Jeremiah in the story as well. Although he does not appear in the Book of Kings, we see from the Book of Jeremiah that he was an important figure in the last days of Jerusalem.

They included the story of Daniel interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 2), Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3), and Daniel in the lions' den (Daniel 6). I was disappointed with Nebuchadnezzar's response to Daniel's interpretation of his dream. He says something like "You're a brave man, I value that; you will serve me." In the Bible, however, it says that he "fell upon his face and paid homage to Daniel, and commanded that an offering and incense be offered up to him" (Daniel 2:46).

Donald Wiseman (1918 – 2010)

When we come to the story of Daniel in the lions' den, the TV series has Cyrus as the king, instead of Darius. This website lists this as one of the inaccuracies of the series, but in fact they are – correctly in my opinion – identifying Darius and Cyrus. This is following a suggestion first offered by Donald Wiseman in 1957, and it comes from a particular interpretation of Daniel 6:28. The Hebrew word usually translated "and" can also mean "namely" or "that is" – "So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius – that is, the reign of Cyrus the Persian." The identification of Darius and Cyrus indicates that Daniel had an important part to play in the return of the Jews to Palestine. It's great to see that this interpretation has now become somewhat mainstream.

I also appreciated how the episode was working hard to connect to the New Testament. It correctly construed Cyrus as a Messiah-figure (see Isaiah 45:1) and when he entered Babylon on a donkey, people throw palm fronds in his path, in subtle anticipating of Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. The episode emphasises Daniel 2:44, which surely is one of the most significant prophecies in the Old Testament. And the fourth beast of Daniel 7 is (correctly) interpreted as the Roman empire, which enables the series to jump forward into the New Testament era.

Finally, I was interested to note that the episode also borrowed from the "Prayer of Azariah", appearing in the Septuagint version of Daniel, and included in the Apocrypha. I guess that's better than just making up one's own dialogue in telling these stories.

Read my reviews of Part 1 and Part 2

The Bible, Part 2

My Presbytery meeting finished early last night, and I was home in time to watch the next instalment of The Bible, which consisted of episodes 3 and 4. The story covered Joshua, Rahab and Jericho, then skipped to Samson, and then skipped again to Samuel as an old man, when Israel asked him for a king. Saul was portrayed particularly well, I thought.

There is another gratuitous battle scene in Jericho – as if the Bible didn't have enough – but I suppose it helped to explain why the spies were known to be in Jericho. I was glad they had the scene with the Commander of the Armies of Yahweh, but the TV series portrays him as merely angelic, whereas the text hints that it is God himself, since the one thing he says to Joshua is "Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy."

One annoying thing about the series is that it adopts a late date for the Exodus (c. 1250 BC) which means that it is 150 years from Joshua to Saul – whereas 1 Kings 6:1 says that it was 480 years from the Exodus to Solomon. One consequence of adopting the late date is that the period of the judges needs to be squashed, and it must be concluded that the judges were ruling at the same time. This has the effect of making the judges local heroes – something the series is explicit about. But it goes against the emphasis in the text on the judges "judging Israel" – and not just particular tribes or localities.

Samson killing the Philistines, by Gustav Doré

The other thing that annoyed me was the interpretation of the word eleph. This is traditionally translated "thousand" as in "Samson found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, and with it he struck 1,000 men" (Judges 15:15). But some scholars, who find the large numbers in the Bible hard to accept, suggest that "eleph" means a military unit – something like a dozen men. The TV show follows this, and has Samson killing a dozen men with the jawbone of a donkey. Not only does this make the feat so much less spectacular, but Samson himself talks about the "heaps" of men he has killed. The strongest argument, however, against the "military unit" idea is that it means Gideon is only reducing his army from 400 to 300, instead of from 32,000 to 300. For a helpful discussion on this issue, see Barry Webb's new commentary on Judges, pages 71-74.

As for the popularity of the series, the phenomenal ratings have died down a bit – last night's episode had only 600,000 viewers. Or is that meant to be 600 × 12 = 7200?

Read my review of Part 1

So much is missing, but better than expected

Last night I watched the TV miniseries The Bible on channel Nine. This was a double episode, out of a series of ten.

Naturally, a series like this has to skip lots of stories. It starts with Noah, skips the Tower of Babel, focuses extensively on Abraham, skips Jacob and Joseph, and then focuses on Moses. Within the story of Abraham, it skips the wife-sister narratives, and focuses on the battle of Genesis 14, the destruction of Sodom, and the testing of Abraham in Genesis 22.

It raises the question, are we allowed to "fill in the gaps" – in imagination, teaching, or, in this case, on screen – when the Bible is silent? For example, I thought Lot's wife was really well portrayed. The Bible tells us almost nothing about her, and she does not speak at all, but from what we do know about her, (and how she is turned into a pillar of salt), we can build up an impression. Her portrayal in this series (with lines like "The future is in the city") was extremely plausible.

I thought the episode had a good introduction. It starts with Noah in the ark. What were the people doing all that time? The Bible doesn't say. The TV series has Noah telling the story of creation to his family. I see that this aspect has been criticised on the basis that the the creation account was not written until much later. However, I think it very likely that there was a strong oral tradition (particularly along the covenant line) of the creation story being passed down.

It is important to point out that this series is not particularly Christian. There is very little here with which a non-Christian Jew, for example, would disagree. There was, for example, no reference to the protoevangelium – the promise of the Messiah given in Genesis 3. However, when the three figures appear to Abraham, the scene is done very well – two show their faces, while one stays hidden. The hidden one would be the one who, according to the biblical text, is the LORD himself.

Tempesta's depiction of the battle is more faithful to the text.

I found the Battle of Siddim disappointing. According to the Bible, Abraham has an army of 318 men, and seems to fight a pitched battle. In this series, it's a stealth attack with a mere handful of men. (Was this due to a low budget?) The mysterious but important figure of Melchizedek is dropped altogether. And there is nothing here about about Abraham winning a battle on behalf of the kings of the land (even the king of Sodom!) In fact, the promise of Abraham being a blessing is missing, though offspring and land are emphasised. So "I will make you a father of many nations" becomes "I will make you a father of God's nation". If I can put it like this, the series is too Jewish. It doesn't have the universal scope of the promises that the biblical text exhibits.

The story of Sodom is toned down a bit, kind of the way you might tell it to children. But it means we have Sodom without the sodomy. There is no hint of homosexual rape, and Lot doesn't offer his daughters to the mob. (The daughters look very young anyway.)  The series has been criticised for its ninja angels, and although I like the idea of depicting angels as warriors, I would have though the Bible had enough action without needing to introduce more.

The depiction of Abraham's faith is rather disappointing. When God speaks to him, it is inaudible (unlike with Moses and the burning bush) and as a result Abraham seems somewhat mad. When Abraham is tested in the TV series, he says to Isaac, "The Lord will provide a sacrifice, my son." That is a significant departure from the biblical text of Genesis 22, which has "a lamb for the sacrifice". This change makes the viewer think that Abraham doesn't really believe God will rescue Isaac.

Of course, we need the New Testament to fully understand this story. Hebrews 11 says that Abraham "considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back." B. B. Warfield says that the Old Testament is like a richly furnished but dimly lit room – we need the light of the New Testament to illuminate it.

In this picture Pharaoh is drowned, but the Bible doesn't say that.

Even I learned something knew while watching it. I have to admit that it only occurred to me while watching the show that the (non-)sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis is a prefigurement of the Death of the Firstborn in Exodus. And I was surprised to see that, in the series, Pharaoh survived the crossing of the Red Sea, only to discover that the Bible is not totally clear on this point. It says that "Pharaoh drew near" (Exodus 14:10) that God "will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen" (v. 17), that "the Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen" (v. 23), and that "of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained" (v. 28). Similarly, Exodus 15:4 says "Pharaoh's chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea." This does rather make it seem that Pharaoh sent his army into the sea rather than going in himself. Psalm 136:15 says God "overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea", but that could refer to the military defeat rather than actual drowning.

This post obviously doesn't exhaust the possibilities of what can be said about this series. There are a few more inaccuracies that I haven't mentioned here. For a couple of other interesting blog posts on the series, see here and here.

Exploding the myths about the Crusades

God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades by Rodney Stark

Taking the subtitle into account, this is the most provocatively titled book I've read since Peter Leithart's Against Christianity.

Actually, Stark is just telling the story of the Crusades - and what a fascinating story it is. He is not justifying them, but explaining them, and exploding some of the myths behind them.

Stark's points include:

• The Crusades did not occur in a vacuum, but were a response to centuries of Muslim conquest and violence.
• The Crusades were not driven by greed, but were recognized from the very beginning to be an excessively expensive exercise.
• The crusaders were not more violent or barbaric than the Muslims.
• The Muslim world has not held a 900-year grudge concerning the Crusades - Muslim antagonism about the Crusades did not appear until about 1900.

One example of the way the Crusades have been dealt with by historians concerns the Fall of Antioch in 1268, when a Muslim army took back Antioch, and slaughtered tens of thousands of its residents. Stark notes that whereas Christopher Tyerman (in his 2006 book God's War: A New History of the Crusades) devotes several pages to the massacre of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, he dismisses the massacre of Antioch in four words. Most histories of the Crusades, it would seem, have a sharp anti-Western bias.

This is an eminently readable, gripping introduction to a fascinating period of history - and one which has enormous relevance for the present day.

A published author

I'm excited to announce that John has just had an article published by Tyndale Bulletin! It's called 'May the Lord Make the Woman like Rachel': Comparing Michal and Rachel. Tyndale Bulletin happens to be one of Galilee's favourite reads--at least, she's always taking our old copies from the shelf! Once the new issue arrives, I can tell her "your daddy wrote this".

Here's the abstract:
"The portrayal of Michal in the book of Samuel is similar to that of Rachel in the book of Genesis. Both have an older sister who is their rival for the affections of their husband. Both have an erratic father who pursues their husband. Both possess household idols called teraphim, which feature in the story of their deceiving their father. Both have at least a period of barrenness. Yet there are also differences between the two women, which can be explained in terms of the portrayal of Michal as an even more tragic figure than Rachel. Careful consideration of the points of similarity and difference yields the conclusion that the allusions to the Rachel story in the book of Samuel are intentional."

The whole article can be read here.

A great introduction to some radical concepts

Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham, Jr.

This is a book about family discipleship. It argues that parents (and fathers in particular) can and should disciple their children. In explaining this concept, Baucham discusses family education (homeschooling), family worship, and family-integrated churches. These are closely connected, of course, and Baucham notes that "families who have decided to shoulder the responsibility for their children's education find it refreshing that a church would expect them to do the same in the area of discipleship" (p. 201).

Homeschooling would be the most familiar of these items to evangelical Christians today, and Baucham uses the usual arguments - "there is a big difference between sending fully trained disciples into enemy territory and sending recruits to our enemy's training camp" (p. 128).

Family worship is also familiar to many Presbyterians who hold the Catechisms of the Westminster Assembly in high esteem, along with its Directory for Family Worship. My own denomination holds a Catechism Exam each year, with generous prizes. Yet I suspect very few households practice regular family worship of any sort, and Baucham has put his finger on an important area of reformation.

The concept of a family-integrated church would be unfamiliar to most Australian Christians. The U.S.-based National Center for Family-Integrated Churches is, however, hosting seminars in Australia next month, so if you live in Melbourne, Sydney, or Hobart, you have a great opportunity to learn more about it. Family-integrated churches insist on children staying with their parents in worship services, and usually reject youth groups and other age-segregated activities. The former issue is often discussed by Presbyterians here in Australia, but the existence of youth groups (for churches lucky enough to have youth) is usually taken for granted.

Baucham asserts that, "Contrary to popular belief, the home, not the church, has been entrusted with the primary responsibility of teaching children the Bible" (p. 95). He notes that he has "never had a conversation with a person presenting the argument for segregated youth/children's ministry from an open Bible" (p. 185), which is rather sad. Of course, Baucham is writing from a Reformed Baptist perspective, and he and I would, I think, have different views of the status of children in the church. He notes that church leaders should equip parents to teach their kids, since "the job of the church is to equip the saints to do their jobs, not to do it for them" (p. 186). The thing is, I believe that children are also saints. Children are directly addressed in the New Testament - for example, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right" (Eph. 6:1). The fact that it says "obey", rather than simply "honour" indicates that it is not merely adult children who are being addressed. Since the NT epistles were written to be read out in churches, we can indeed conclude that children were assumed to be present in church. But the fact that they are addressed (and that it doesn't say, "Fathers, train your children to obey you") indicates that children are proper objects of the church's pastoral ministry. As a pastor, I can address children directly, and my teaching does not necessarily have to be mediated through their parents.The children of believers are, after all, full members of the church. There is no associate membership in the church of Jesus Christ.

Baucham includes an interesting list of criteria he used in choosing a church: a Southern Baptist, elder-led, family-integrated church which practiced church discipline and verse-by-verse systematic exposition, and which believed in church-planting (p. 175). It's not clear whether this is an exhaustive list, since it omits being Reformed (although Baucham is a card-carrying Calvinist) or being gospel-centred. But in seeking to promote the things he describes in this book, Baucham is advocating a return not just to the Bible, but also to Reformation teaching and practice.

Oh, and out of interest - Voddie Baucham is black. Not that he ever mentions it in the book.