The Scriptures and God, by A.W. Pink

The Supernatural Understanding of God
In the second part of Pink’s series on “Profiting from the Word”, he turns to the Scriptures and God. (Click here to read it.)  Throughout the essay, Pink emphasizes the supernatural character of Scripture and how this affects the individual.  The Scriptures is the only way that man is able to know God (I Cor. 1:21).  Knowledge of God’s Word is achieved by study and memorization, but this is far from knowing Him.  “God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” (2 Cor. 4:6).  “In thy light shall we see light” (Ps. 36:9).  The helpful analogy that Pink uses follows: “Water, of itself, never rises above its own level.  So the natural man is incapable of perceiving that which transcends nature.”  God must first reveal Himself to us for us to know Him.  “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us understanding that we may know Him that is true” (I John 5:20).  To merely know Him theoretically or intellectually would be to make the drastic mistake of the Jews.  That is, supernatural knowledge of our Holy God is necessary to have supernatural experience.  This experience, then, results in supernatural fruits, which the individual produces with the strength of the Spirit.  This experience, according to Pink, is specifically seen in the individual’s attitude toward God—that is, to love what God loves and to despise what He despises.    

Profiting from the Word
Finally, Pink’s concludes with six points which he speaks of in much greater length than I will here.  He who is spiritually profiting from the Word of God possesses:

1)  A deeper recognition of God’s claims.
2)  A greater fear of God’s majesty.
3)  A deeper reverence for God’s commands.
4)  A firmer trust in God’s sufficiency.
5)  A fuller delight in Gods perfections.
6)  A larger submission to God’s providences.

Side-note
Pink’s points are verified with scripture references and have caused me to read his writings slowly and meditate on the verse he uses when speaking of certain topics.  I would suggest anyone who reads Pink to do the same.  Particularly in these essays, Pink brings back the seriousness of the matter.  The believer’s dependence on the Word of God as his inerrant source, that is, his source for truth, is of necessity to please God.  Every believer longs to experience the supernatural knowledge of God and to move beyond the theoretical.  Crying out to God for help in our seemingly helpless state, I think, may be a good place to start.  And, of course, His Word provides us with the tools to exercise this.  But there will be marginal gain without the supernatural light God sheds upon believers.

John Murray on the Abrahamic Covenant

We now turn to the Abrahamic covenant to further explore what this biblical idea of covenant consists of. Murray notes two special features in the Abrahamic covenant that was not present in the post-diluvian Noahic covenant. These are: 1) God promises Abraham that he will inherit Canaan (Gn. 15:8-18), 2) there is reference to keeping and breaking the covenant (Gn. 17:9, 10, 14).

God’s Promise
Murray makes the following observations that are related to this particular promise, that may help define covenant.

1. Covenant is intimate. The covenant is about union and communion with God, it is relational.
2. Covenant is monergistic. Again, we see God being the initiator of the covenant and fulfiller of it as well. God is the one who passes through the divided halves of the animals. It is God who puts His name on the line.

Conditions in Covenant?
Abraham’s covenant is different than Noah’s in that Abraham’s concerns a relationship with God, whereas Noah’s is not. Thus, the keeping of the covenant is resultant from the intimacy of the Abrahmic covenant. The closer the relationship, the more obligation there is to obey the commands of God. There is an element of mutuality in the covenant because fellowship requires mutuality. Abraham’s obedience is the condition for the inheritance. However, we should not misconstrue this idea of conditionality as conditions for the initiation of covenant. Covenant is still a divine bestowal of grace, monergistic in its inherent character. The “continued enjoyment of this grace and of the relation established” is only the result of fulfilled conditions, but the conditions are not conditions of the bestowal. In other words, covenant-keeping only comes into play after the covenant is established by God’s grace.

Therefore, covenant-keeping is not failure to keep one’s side of the agreement. Covenant-keeping is in regards to being faithful to grace already bestowed. Murray writes, “by breaking the covenant what is broken is not the condition of bestowal but the condition of consummated fruition.”

Murray ends this examination of the Abrahamic with a sharp observation. The discrimination involved in this covenant (unlike the Noahic covenant which blesses the entire world), not only emphasizes God’s sovereign grace, but also requires covenant-keeping. Indiscriminate covenants cannot be broken or kept, but particular ones can. So the character of the Abrahamic covenant, being particularly bestowed on Abraham, emphasizes the necessity of covenant-keeping for promise-fulfillment.

A Quick Personal Note
I find this has great bearing on the covenant we now have with God through Christ’s atonement. We do indeed have a relational covenant, one that is dispensed through God’s grace alone to the elect. And thus we seek to obey God’s commandments, not as a condition to attain entry into God’s covenant, but as a response to grace bestowed. I may be jumping the gun on this, since Murray will eventually deal with the new covenant in Christ, but I just thought it was an excellent illustration (although perhaps oversimplified) of some mechanics between law and grace.

The Scriptures and Sin, by A.W. Pink

This is the 1of 10 messages by A.W. Pink on “Profiting from the Word”.  (Read it here.)  In “Scriptures and Sin”, Pink encourages those who are reading Scripture to do so Biblically—this is actually the reason for all ten messages.  In this essay, using much Scripture, Pink shows that Scripture is not a mere intellectual pursuit, and the Bible should not be read like a textbook.  Pink lays out seven was that an individual is spiritually profited from Scripture which he explicates—something I won’t be doing here.  Here is an outline of his seven points though.

An individual is spiritually profited from Scripture when:
1)  The Scripture convicts him of his sin.
2)  He is sorrowed over sin
3)  The Word leads him to confession of sin.
4)  He produces a greater hatred for sin.
5)  It causes the him to forsake sin.
6)  The Word fortifies him against sin.
7)  The Word causes him to practice the opposite of sin.

Because, when reading Scripture, it is easy to do so for the purpose of knowledge, Pinks essay brings a helpful compilation of Scripture references to support his above seven points.

To those who may not read this article but are just browsing on this blog for some reason, Pink suggests that Christians who are reading Scripture ask themselves the following questions:
1)  “Is the reading and studying of God’s Word producing a  purging of my ways?”
2)  “Are my thoughts being formed, my heart controlled, and my ways and works regulated by God’s Word?”

“Till sin be hated, it cannot be mortified; you will never cry against it, as the Jews did against Christ, Crucify it, Crucify it, till sin be abhorred as He was.” (Thomas Manton)

John Murray on the Post-Diluvian Noahic Covenant

The first covenant that Murray specifically examines is the Noahic covenant. To recap what Murray’s aim is: he hopes to “discover what precisely constitutes a covenant and what precisely is the nature of that relation on the part of God to men which covenant constitution contemplates.” Murray lists a few features of the Noahic covenant:

1. God’s covenant. God’s covenant is established by God, not man (Gn. 9:9).
2. Universal implications. The Noahic covenant affects not only Noah and his children, but every living thing (Gn. 9:9-10). The covenant affects even those who do not have an intellectual understanding of it. However, we should note that Noah was given revelation and so he did understand the grace being bestowed on him, but it also affects those who are totally unaware of this covenant’s existence.
3. Promise is unconditional. This comes side by side with intellectual understanding not being necessary for benefits. There are no elements present that suggest human unfaithfulness resulting in covenant nullification.
4. Monergistic in nature. In other words, God is the sole initiator and actor. The sign of the covenant, the rainbow, is completely controlled by God. Furthermore, the rainbow is referenced to God, as He will see it and remember. It is God who will remain faithful and the continuation of the covenant is dependent on God.
5. Everlasting. Because it is God’s covenant, it can be eternal.

What is most significant about this covenant is that we see a rebuttal of the idea of covenant being a mutual contract. It is wholly God’s doing, wholly monergistic. There is no room for man’s agreement for men play no role in this promise and can affect them even without them knowing the covenant exists. Murray admits that this one example cannot define all aspects of covenant accurately because this covenant is indeed dealing with not only men, but also non-moral creation.

Murray also notes the pre-diluvian Noahic covenant (Gn. 6:15) and how initially it may seem to be a mutual agreement. God commands Noah to follow certain instructions, and Noah completes them as a condition for grace. Even though obedience is required here, there is no doubt that the covenant is divinely initiated and monergistic in its application. The idea of mutual agreement is not apparent here as it is not apparent in the post-diluvian covenant. Furthermore, “the commandments are added in such a way that they are just as sovereign and unilateral in prescription or dispensation as is the annunciation of the covenant itself.”

These features of the covenant plainly evince that this covenant is a sovereign, divine administration, that it is such in its conception, determination, disclosure, confirmation, and fulfillment, that it is an administration or dispensation of forbearance and goodness, that it is not conditioned by or dependent upon faith or obedience on the part of men. It is an administration of grace which emanates from the sovereign good pleasure of God and continues without any modification or retraction of its benefits by the immutable promise and faithfulness of God.

Authority, Intellect, and Heart, by B.B. Warfield

Warfield, here, speaks on the relationship between religion and theology.  These three principles, authority, intellect, and heart, are spoken of in reference to how one goes about believing a system of beliefs.  Warfield speaks of an unbalanced emphasis of any of these principles as leading to traditionalism, rationalism, or mysticism.  Christianity, rather, requires, according to Warfield, an appropriate mixture of all three principles.

…the truths concerning divine things may be so comprehended that they may unite with a true system of divine truth, they must be: first, revealed in an authoritative word; second, experienced in a holy heart; and third, formulated by a sanctified intellect. Only as these three unite, then, can we have a true theology. And equally, that these same truths may be so received that they beget in us a living religion, they must be: first, revealed in an authoritative word; second, apprehended by a sound intellect; and third, experienced in an instructed heart. Only as the three unite, then, can we have a vital religion.

Click here to read Warfield’s article.

Use of Covenant in Scripture

John Murray’s aim in this next section of his essay is to investigate whether the definitions provided above of the covenant of grace as a mutual agreement is properly aligned with the teachings of Scripture. He does not deny the strong presence of God’s grace and promise. Click here, to read Murray’s essay.

Covenants Between Men
Covenants were made between Abimelech and Isaac, Labanand Jacob, Gibeonites with Joshua, David with Jonathan, David with Abner, Solomon with Hiram, all using the term ‘covenant’ or berith (Hebrew). Although in covenants between men does bear the concept of mutual agreement, this does not mean mutual agreement is central to God’s covenant with man. The idea of contracts or pacts is the central feature here between men, but instead “sworn fidelity” and “whole-souled commitment.”

Covenants Made by Man with God
Next, Murray investigates covenants initiated by men. Examples include Joshua (Jos. 14:25), Jehodia (2 Ki. 11:17), Josiah (2 Ki. 23:3), and Ezra (Ezr. 10:3). Instead of these contracts or even agreements, these are “promissory commitment[s] to faith or troth on the part of the people concerned.” These covenants are promises of unconditional devotion to God and obedience to Him. This type of covenant is much like the covenant between men, being one of commitment.

Divine Covenants
Now this seems to be the most important issue: does mutual agreement play the central mechanism for covenants which God makes? Outside of formal covenants that we seem to always recall, such as the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants, the word covenant is also used in regards to God’s creative ordinances, such as the covenant of the day and night (Je. 33:20, 25) or that the earth would continue its cycles of season, harvest and day/night (Gn. 8:22). In these creative ordinances we also see God’s faithfulness and see “covenant may be used to express divine monergism and fidelity.”

We will be continuing in the following posts to go through different covenants, namely the Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic and New Testament covenants.

But covenant theology is not just simple speculation, but should affect us somehow. Since we are in the New Testament covenant, the new covenant Christ spoke of at the last supper, how are we to respond to covenant? This is one of the main reasons why I feel it is important that we understand covenants, their progression and their fulfillment in Christ, so that we can also live lives in accordance with our membership in the covenant of grace.

Jonathan Edwards’ “The Peace Which Christ Gives His True Followers”

 Edwards preaches on John 14:27; “Peace I leave with you, my peace give unto you: not as  the world gives, give I unto you.”  From the phrase “My peace I give unto you.” Edwards  deducts two significant points:
 1) Christ had this one things and this was of His possession
 2) This peace is the peace He Himself enjoyed and which true believers in Christ  experience (John 15:11; 17:13)
 
As his usual emphasis is the futility of the temporal, Edwards compares worldly peace to “the ease and pleasure that a drunkard may have in a house on fire over his head, or the joy of a distracted man in thinking that he is a king, though a miserable wretch confined in bedlam.”  Meanwhile, heavenly peace, which God gives to his true followers, “is the light of life, something of the tranquility of heaven, the peace of the celestial paradise, that has the glory of God to lighten it.”
Click HERE to read it! 

The Kingdom of God is not in Words, by A.W. Tozer

The sound quality is awful but the message was great, I think. Tozer speaks on I Cor. 4:20 on the point that Paul puts forth: the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power. In the church “we must demand more than correct doctrine, though we must not have less than correct doctrine; more than right living, though we dare not have less than right living; more than a friendly atmosphere, though we dare not have less than a friendly atmosphere; we must demand that the Word of God be preached in power and that we hear it in power.” Specifically significant to me was the point Tozer makes about how it is no wonder that children who are drilled with catechisms from childhood often stray away from the faith. Mere words do not suffice, for it is not the words, but by the power of God and the meaning behind the words that we see and better understand our Father.

Defining “Covenant”

I’ve never actually considered learning more about covenant theology until I read Robert Leetham’s “The Work of Christ” and his consistent references to Christ’s fulfillment of the Old Testament covenants. For the next several days, hopefully by the time we reach GW for early move-in, I will be posting on John Murray’s essay titled “The Covenant of Grace: A Biblico-Theological Study”. Click here, to read it.

Defining “Covenant”
What does the word “covenant” mean? Murray provides us a list of different influential scholars who have answered the question in varying ways.

Henry Bullinger describes the covenant of grace as unity through agreement between God and men involving God’s promise and man’s condition of keeping the covenant through obedience.

Ursinus describes it in similar terms, as a mutual pact between God and men, where God promises to be favorable and gracious and the men are faithful and repentant. The covenant of grace has its outward expression in the sacraments.

Francis Turretin defines the covenant grace:

a gratuitous pact between God offended and man the offender, entered into in Christ, in which God promises to man freely on account of Christ remission of sins and salvation, and man relying on the same grace promises faith and obedience. Or it is a gratuitous agreement between God the offended one and man the offender concerning grace and glory in Christ to be conferred upon man the sinner on the condition of faith.

Turretin’s definition contains the elements of: 1) author, 2) parties contracting, 3) Mediator

A bit short today, but hopefully good starts for our brief look at covenant theology. Sammy should also begin posting again.

J.I. Packer on Discerning God’s Will: God’s Plan

I may or may not be posting on Saturday and Sunday. I am going to be at A.J.’s house in Ohio for the weekend, so will be taking a brief hiatus. If I can find time to post though, I will.

Packer fleshes out a common misconception about God’s plan. God’s purpose in world history is always carried out, world events are under his control, from world-changing incidents to small details of daily life. The common misconception is that God has an itinerary for people and if they do not do the right things at the right time (fail in their discernment), they somehow become second-rate and lose a lot of their usefulness to God. Packer lists three errors in this idea:

1. It is speculation, there is no scriptural support.
2. Means that God is not wise enough, good enough, or powerful enough to cause our failures to turn out for the good or put us back on the right path when we fail. It is true that bad choices usually have bad consequences. It also assumes that God cannot/will not forgive our sins if we repent.
3. Ignores Biblical narratives of when several people like Moses, David and Peter all failed to discern the will of God yet had been restored.

This idea is rooted in a form of legalism and linked to classic dispensational theology. This dispensational theology entered evangelical teaching around the early 1800s and created a rank of occupations (i.e. top ranked was overseas missionaries, second ordained pastor, third, etc.)

Closing Remarks
God wants every Christian, in their progressive sanctification, to grow into the image of Christ. As the Holy Spirit gives us wisdom for discerning God’s will, He is pushing us along in the process of sanctification. Sanctification entails that we not only constantly receive discernments from God on particular issues, but we actually become discerning people as Christ was discerning in himself. In both the Old and New Testaments, wisdom is a character trait. Wisdom comes by knowing Christ (Col. 3:16; 2:6-7).