My, my. See, this is the sort of thing I find so disconcerting in so many ways that I am not even sure where to begin. I am reminded of Elaine Benes’ words to the short, bearded guy who worked in television. Not having the discernment to lay off, he kept hounding her for another date, moreover trying to “wow” her with his job as an executive in television broadcasting. Referring to his work in the TV industry and her activistic-moralism, she finally had to get a bit brutal and said, “I don’t see this working; you’re part of the problem.” He decided to quit his job and go save the whales in order to appeal to her sensibilities.
It would be a relief if, like Elaine, I could get the good Reverend McAtee and those like him to join up with the proverbial GreenPeace and do some actual good instead of “perpetuating the problem.” Americans religionists, especially those of the Christian variety, and especially those of the broad Evangelical and Reformed theonomic persuasion, seem to think they have the ideological corner on, well, you-name-it. There is something resident within their line of thought that tells them that just because they discern eternity in a superior way that they must also necessarily discern that which is temporal in kind. What is that?
If nothing else it seems to be the religio-statecraft equivalent of the obnoxious office know-it-all who spouts off about anything anyone dares to bring up just because it’s there and because he thinks he knows all there is to know and that he is more than likely correct. Now, I will resist the temptation to appeal to some ill-fated notion that Christians ought to behave better than the rest of the world just because they are Christians. Many of us fall into that trap in various ways, and it really takes away any larger argument against our maintaining that heaven does not imply earth, and moreover, that the best of Calvinism actually renders us quite hesitant about our temporal abilities. So maybe I should put it like this: we should work harder to be consistent with our Calvinism and make room for believers to be just as prone to failure as unbelievers. I wonder if it occurs to Bret if he might get some of this wrong? I don’t know about anyone else, but in my own day-to-day operations I sure get as at least much wrong as I get right.
In other words, though one may not know it by reading “Bret McAtee on everything,” we are us all, believer and non-, a part of the problem. That’s the point.
The Confessional Outhouse 
Wow…
A whole entry devoted to me…
What a honor.
Me thinketh the lady doth protest to much
First, it is not a ideological corner. It is a simply a theological corner derivative of God’s word. Now, naturally, you would turn it into a ideological ego trip since you don’t believe that God has made his mind known not only on those truths pertaining to Christ’s High Priestly work but also to His work as the Great King. You accuse me of being a know it all, but all I can see in you is somebody who sees ignorance as a virtue.
What does God say about education?
We don’t know but we will pretend that natural law teaches us.
What does God say about families?
We don’t know but we will pretend that natural law teaches us.
What does God say about Law?
We don’t know but we will pretend that natural law teaches us.
It gets to be a tired song after awhile.
I beg your pardon. I am a very likable office know it all.
Still, compared to the ignorance of modern Americans I suppose it might seem like I am a know it all. Yet, I constantly lament the huge queue of books that are waiting on my shelf in order for me to get through.
It is difficult when people think you a ‘know it all’ due to their oppressive ignorance when you know about yourself that there are galaxies of areas that you need to probe and that you will die uninformed when compared to what might be known.
Umm … Zrim….
Unbelievers are unredeemed. Dead in their trespasses and sins. Without God and without hope. They walk in the futility of their minds with understanding being darkened. They are alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.
Now, I quite agree that believers are at the same time sinner and saint and that they have miles to go before they sleep in terms of sanctification but NOWHERE in Scripture does it speak of the renewed mind in the same dismal fashion as it speaks about the unrenewed mind.
In short, we should have higher expectation of sinners that are Redeemed then sinners who are not Redeemed. Sure, we will be disappointed but I want to believe about you better then I believe about the crack addict down on Burton Street.
I live with my failures every day Z. Makes me glad that even my works are only accepted for the sake of the imputed righteousness of Christ.
Sure, but unbelievers, unlike believers, are not part of the solution.
Thanks for the publicity. You know what they say….
There is no such thing as bad publicity.
Umm, maybe I should keep up with the daily postings. “What ZRIM said”
LOL
Bret,
You’re welcome.
“In short, we should have higher expectation of sinners that are Redeemed then sinners who are not Redeemed. Sure, we will be disappointed but I want to believe about you better then I believe about the crack addict down on Burton Street.”
Me, too. It’s just that my nasty (nasty!) Calvinism just keeps getting in the way. I think you are winking at sin, Bret. Is that higher expectation based upon our inward ability or on our outward calling, dependent upon the One who calls? You may be tempted to say both and make sanctification more magical than it really is. As high a view as I have for the Holy Spirit resident within me, I still really have a low view of myself. Really, I do.
What about believers who are addicted to substances? Or, does your system have no category for that, is it really just those icky unbelievers who are the dregs of society?
For my part, when I read the following, it sure seems like we are to have a more realistic view of ourselves.
BC Article 24
“In the meantime, we do not deny that God rewards our good works, but it is through his grace that he crowns his gifts. Moreover, though we do good works, we do not found our salvation upon them; for we do no work but what is polluted by our flesh, and also punishable; and although we could perform such works, still the remembrance of one sin is sufficient to make God reject them.”
HBC
“Question 62. But why cannot our good works be the whole, or part of our righteousness before God?
Answer. Because, that the righteousness, which can be approved of before the tribunal of God, must be absolutely perfect, and in all respects conformable to the divine law; and also, that our best works in this life are all imperfect and defiled with sin.”
WCF, XIII (Of Sanctification)
“II. This sanctification is throughout, in the whole man; yet imperfect in this life, there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part; whence arises a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.
III. In which war, although the remaining corruption, for a time, may much prevail; yet, through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part does overcome; and so, the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
Zrim,
Forgive me, I don’t understand what the Confession means when it says:
“yet, through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part does overcome; and so, the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
So since you quoted it, could you explain it to me, exegetically, so to speak? Because you quoted it to make your point, and I don’t understand how this phrase makes your point. So if you could explain it to me step by step, I’d really appreciate it.
E
Good question, Echo (or shall I call you Mister Eko?).
Zrim, I think your view of sanctification betrays an under-realized eschatology that does not take into account the passage Echo quoted above, and a good handful of NT passages as well.
Horton made the point in Lord and Servant, which is spot on, that we mustn’t disassociate the second and third Persons under the guise of a “theology of the cross” (especially since the cross was followed by an empty tomb a few days later).
The fact is that we, unlike those under the OC, are not bound by the dominion of sin. This not only means that we are distinct from OC Jews, but arguing from the greater to the lesser, it also means that we are distinct from the world.
Echo,
You’re right, it doesn’t make my immediate point. (I think it means what it says. I think it means we are being sanctified and growing in grace and are being perfected. It’s just that, in light of what is being said just above about “corruption in every part,” etc. being sanctified isn’t what we tend to think it means. Think of how often we hear of our “being transformed” versus our being “sanctified.” One is sexy to the sarx, the other not-so-much)
So while it doesn’t make my immediate point about being more sinful than not, it does tangentially seem to address any inferring that we have “no category for sanctification,” etc. I included it to be proactive against being called a Lutheran, which happens a lot. The charge seems to swirl around other accusations of being a “relativist” or an “antinomian” or some other such silliness.
Jason,
“The fact is that we, unlike those under the OC, are not bound by the dominion of sin. This not only means that we are distinct from OC Jews, but arguing from the greater to the lesser, it also means that we are distinct from the world.”
I don’t disagree with you. It’s how these things get worked out, I think, which may make the difference. Yes, we are “distinct from the world,” but I don’t know that we actually speak or understand what that means as well as we ought.
I am not quite as sure as you to say that I have an under-realized eschatology. But maybe that’s only because I am not transformed enough to see my errors.
Yeah, I remember when I first received my beatific vision that provided me with archtypal knowledge (sigh)…. It really does help in pointing out other people’s faults. Someday you’ll understand.
Seriously, though, Paul does say that we are being “transformed,” though I’m not sure how “sexy” he thought he was being when he said it.
I think the key is recognizing the distinction between what is happening in us, and what is happening in the culture. WE have the indwelling Spirit and thus are being conformed to the age to come, while THE COSMOS is still in the “not yet” stage of frustration and longing.
Transformationists lump the cosmos in with the individual, while Lutherans lump the individual in with the cosmos.
“THE COSMOS is still in the “not yet” stage of frustration and longing.”
I thought the Cosmos was passing away and we were getting a new one.
Romans 8 says that the cosmos itself is groaning, being burdened by its bondage to decay, earnestly longing for the redemption of the sons of God.
That’s what I was referring to there.
Not my idea, but something to chew on;
“Meredith G. Kline has argued that the corruption to which the creation is enslaved, and from which it is “eagerly longing” to be delivered, is the earth’s present service as the mass “graveyard” of dead human beings. [3] Kline suggests that Paul has in mind an important passage in Isaiah 24-26 which presents this picture of the earth as a graveyard, as the context for an apocalyptic vision of the future resurrection of the dead. Here are the main selections:
Isaiah 24:4 The earth mourns and withers, the world fades and withers, the exalted of the people of the earth fade away. 5 The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant. 6 Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left… 26:19 Your dead will live; their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, for your dew is as the dew of the dawn, and the earth will give birth to the departed spirits … 21 For behold, the LORD is about to come out from His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; and the earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer cover her slain.
Paul’s vivid metaphor of the creation’s groaning as it waits expectantly for the resurrection of the righteous seems to have been drawn from this passage. Isaiah says that “the earth mourns,” because it has been made to “cover her slain.” This then sets the stage for Isaiah’s prophecy of the resurrection of the dead. Indeed, it is precisely the resurrection of the dead that will be the deliverance of creation from its conscripted service as the graveyard of humanity. The creation will then become the renewed dwelling place of the glorified saints.”
Again, Jason, I don’t disagree (that’s why you are hung on the wall as a saint around here). That’s why I am not Lutheran.
I think the believer/cosmos distinction is right on. It’s just that when we talk about what it means to have the KoG break into the individual I think we understand that with more Gnostic lenses than Pauline. We live in an age of triumphalism, the therapeutic and self-help (“moralistic, therapeutic deism”). So when we hear “sanctified” we think super-saintly. I think that institutional transformationalism very often morphs into organic transformationalism the way hard law morphs into soft law (if we are going to use Hortonisms here). But I would still contend that sanctification of the individual is not the same as transformation.
If Kline is right and I think he is, we’re not talking about gradual sanctifying transformation but apocalyptic re-birth.
Sean,
I never said anything about “gradual sanctifying transformation.” But either way, the creation is longing for something it has not yet tasted, which was my only point.
So do we all! Next time give us a courtesy flush, won’t you Z?
Good thing you moved to WA then, eh?
Sean,
Points for giving us something better than transformation (!).
When I read Isaiah, via Kline (Paul) I sure get a whole different sense of what the in-breaking is from what our modern ways seem to be about. It’s very hard to get the victorious Christian life or the doctrines of Transformationalism (organic or institutional) or post-mill/theonomic dreams or any other form of prosperity gospel from them. In a word, something entirely different is going on.
Rube,
No soup for you!
Zrim,
You said: “I think it means what it says. I think it means we are being sanctified and growing in grace and are being perfected. It’s just that, in light of what is being said just above about “corruption in every part,” etc. being sanctified isn’t what we tend to think it means. Think of how often we hear of our “being transformed” versus our being “sanctified.” One is sexy to the sarx, the other not-so-much.”
Echo: so it’s true on the one hand that everything that comes out of us is tainted with sin, but that that’s not the end of the story, right? I mean, in the case of believers, there is a real, Spirit wrought righteousness that comes out of us, even though it is tainted with sin. It is righteous in part, and sinful in part.
And this is to be distinguished from unbelievers who have no righteousness at all, right? After all, Paul says that whatever is not done in faith is sin, and unbelievers have no faith, which is what makes them unbelievers. So they can only sin. However, believers can exhibit some (sin-tainted) righteousness as a result of the Spirit’s work of sanctification.
Is that right? Is that what you’re saying? Is there such a thing as sin-tainted righteousness?
E
Echo,
Sounds all right to me. “Sin-tainted righteousness” sounds an awful lot like simul iustus et peccator.
My main point in all of this, though, is that we should be more conscious of our sin than we seem to be. We seem to be more ready to pull the trigger on how “Spirit-wrought” we are, and I think we should be pulling it on our sinfulness. After all, if “even the holiest amongst us can only hope but to make the slightest, perceptible gain in this life,” it sure seems like the emphasis is on our sin over against our righteousness. And, since I don’t count myself amongst even the holiest amongst us who seem to, themselves, make only slight gains, I fail to see what is gained by appealing to my sanctification to imply that I know something beyond or am more able than a fellow sinner when “doing earth.”
As a triadalist, I know that I am superior to the unbeliever when it comes to that narrow category of eternity. But when we find ourselves in that great, big, broad category called the common sphere (which is most of life in this age), we are more equally sinful than not.
Our sinfulness stays the same. The flesh remains as unredeemed as when we were born, and as any unbeliever.
The growth must happen in terms of maturity, not becoming less sinful. Maturity means taking ownership of the things God has provided (means of grace) in order to exercise authority over the sinful flesh… so that we do not do the things we desire. So that we become less interested in fulfilling sinful desires, which are as sinful as the unbelievers’ desires and will never go away this side of death.
Joe,
You make it sound like the only perceptible difference between the believer and non- is the fact that we may be found listening to a pronouncement, eating bread and drinking wine. Gasp. “Watch what you say, or they’ll be calling you a Radical.” Are you listening, Bret? Have any SuperTramp in your library?
I think what we are beginning to see here is the difference between an emphasis on the objective (means of grace) over against the subjective (looking inward to discern some sort of difference between us and the unbeliever…that gets turned outward and say, voila, see, I am “less sinful” than that guy. Meanwhile, nobody admits that they see very little difference).
Re growth, I always liked what Matzat (Lutheran) said, paraphrasing, that we actually grow by shrinking as we come to understand the gospel. He was, of course, paraphrasing Paul who desired that he might decrease and Christ increases. If understand growth in a worldy we way we see ourselves “getting better.” But the biblical way is to actually see how we are decreasing, and, in this way, we are increasing.
“think what we are beginning to see here is the difference between an emphasis on the objective (means of grace) over against the subjective (looking inward to discern some sort of difference between us and the unbeliever…that gets turned outward and say, voila, see, I am “less sinful” than that guy. Meanwhile, nobody admits that they see very little difference).”
Don’t fret Zrim, if WTS wins the day on “union” we’ll get the navel-gazing going full board. I’ve already started journaling.
I was listening to Supertramp when you were a twinkle in your Mother’s eyes.
Right…. Quite Right,
Bret
see ironink for a post today on Calvin’s not so two WSC Kingdom theology
Bret,
I don’t mind being called Lutheran. There are worse things to be called. Like I always say, of all the intended slurs, I like Lutheran best of all. It’s sort of like when the local Evangies call a confessional Reformed expression of worship (read: liturgical/dialogical/sacramental) “too Catholic.” When that happens, you know you are doing something right.