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1.25.2011

WWJD - What Would Jesus Do?

WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) has always been mocked by Reformed Christians (that I've seen anyway).

Personally I've never found anything wrong with it. We are to emulate Jesus. And what Jesus experienced we will experience. To imagine how Jesus would act or speak or think in any given situation and emulating it seems like a very practical and biblical exercise to me.

So I was somewhat surprised to find this passage in a Reformed book. Joel Beeke, though, is somewhat of an outsider among Reformed types. (He advocates using the King James Version for one thing.) He wrote this:

"John Calvin taught that you should set Christ before you as the mirror of sanctification and seek grace to mirror Him. Ask in each situation you encounter, 'What would Christ think, say, or do?' Then trust Him for holiness. He will not disappoint you (James 1:2-7)." - Joel Beeke, Living for God's Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism, chp. 15

1.22.2011

Some atheist on a video site being atheistic 2

>Juvenile Rebellion? Come on ****, don't tell me you are one of those Christians who actually believes that deep down inside I believe in JC.

God has put in your stony heart that God exists, and He has also put in your stony heart His law. When you deny Him or His law you are in active rebellion to Him. Jesus and His work as Mediator, on the other hand, is revealed to us in special revelation called the Word of God.

>Roll, I have travelled all over the world and I have seen religion in action. Ive met gentlemen in Romania who are Orthodox and about 1000% more religious than you. In fact they live their whole lives in an abbey basically praying to god. So if you want to "Preach" you are preaching to the wrong fellow.

Your understanding of 'religious' is shallow. Regeneration (being quickened and born again) is by the Word and the Spirit, and is God's work alone. Works are the fruit of regeneration and faith in Jesus Christ, not the cause, and living in some unique type of building is neither here nor there regarding good works or the fruit of the Spirit.

>Jesus was created just like every other god throughout creation by humans.

Christianity is a historical religion. Jesus existed in historical time. You have a little problem with something called history. Once you start trying to explain away the history of Jesus Christ, His acts, and His followers, and the effect of His acts on His followers, you get into the same territory as people who try to explain away the airliners that flew into the Twin Towers. You in fact have to explain away the very culture and civilization you live in and are currently a very ungrateful parasite in. But you can come out of that. If you can get out from under the bondage that the devil has you under the control of. Your vanity, worldly pride, and rebellious will.

1.18.2011

Some atheist on a video site being atheistic

>The Bible is a made up book of fairy tales, written by men to serve an agenda.

You sound like a real scholar. I suspect you know little of fairy tales as well.

>Funny how The Bible, The Qu'ran and The Torah don't mention any place on this planet other than the Middle East. Just one of many inconsistencies in those works of fiction.

I guess the epistle of Paul written to the Christians in Rome was torn out of your edition. Or maybe you think Italy is the 'middle east'.

>The absolute arrogant assumption that y'all have the market cornered on goodness and morality is one of the most amusing things about you and your type. That alone is worth the price of admission.

Christianity is not about being 'good' (your definition, the world's definition) it's about making contact. It's about the grace of God giving us the Holy Spirit. Even then our fallen nature fights us and the battle continues until death and glorification. Neither is Christianity - biblical Christianity - about moralism. Atheists are moralists. People who don't know their own smell are moralists. Christianity doesn't even start until you know you are a sinner.

Then you reference Christopher Hitchens. A sad, silly little man currently dying a lingering death, all the while pretending he is significant while maintaining his juvenile revelation that he will enter into nothingness at death.

Now it is high time to awake out of sleep. (Romans - that book again - 13:11). That is not head-on-pillow sleep, pilgrim.

1.02.2011

Bavinck on the republication of the Covenant of Works on Sinai

Wondering what Herman Bavinck said about the Mosaic Covenant with regards to it being a republication of the Covenant of Works I looked into his section on the Mosaic Covenant in his four volume Reformed Dogmatics, and I found nothing on the subject. So... Since the subject regarding the republication of the Covenant of Works at Sinai is really the subject of the active obedience of Jesus, and what he is being obedient to (his active obedience now, his passive obedience was his voluntary death on the cross) I went to that section of his great Reformed Dogmatics, and...a direct hit! Here it is:

"Even more, as a human being Christ was certainly subject to the law of God [i.e. the laws given on Sinai to Moses, which is the context of the passage] as the rule of life; even believers are never exempted from the law in that sense. But Christ related himself to the law in still a very different way, namely, as the law of the covenant of works. [...] He submitted himself to the law of the covenant of works as the way to eternal life for himself and his own." Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume Three, page 379


I.e. as the Second Adam. Jesus came to fulfill what the first Adam failed to fulfill. So, was Jesus then supposed to come and 'not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil'? Well, yes, in this way: that command not to eat of that tree was part of the Covenant of Works in the Garden. And that covenant, the Covenant of Works in the Garden, was *republished* (not 'reestablished' but *republished*) on Sinai in elaborated form. Jesus also had to be born under the law, and so that law was *republished* on Sinai so that the world throughout historical time would know he had been born under the law and fulfilled all of that law to a 't'.

Bavinck assumes all this in the statement above. And guess what? Bavinck didn't think fallen man could save himself by his works. Bavinck was kind of 'onto that.' As was Thomas Boston, and Witsius, and Brakel, et al.

There is *one way* to be saved: works. Either your own (good luck with that) or Jesus Christ's appropriated by faith. Jesus fulfilled the Covenant of Works (what Adam knew as the command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which he failed to follow, and what Jesus knew as the laws given to Moses on Sinai [that Jesus! gave to Moses on Sinai], which were a republication of the Covenant of Works given to Adam in the Garden yet given in much elaborated form for their typology to teach individual Israelites and all gentiles that only faith in the promise [looking forward to the Incarnation and cross] or faith in the fulfillment [looking backwards to the Incarnation and cross] of Christ's work saves).

National Israel (the entity, not individual Israelites) which was a prototype of Jesus Christ was the object of the contemporary works elements of the laws given on Sinai (do this and stay in the land, don't do this and get booted out of the land). National Israel was a unique player in God's plan of redemption. As unique a player as pre-fall Adam and Jesus Christ Himself. National Israel's history itself was the substance of the revealed Word of God. National Israel had the task not only to conceive and protect the oracles of God but to keep the royal bloodline pure from Adam to Christ (the harsh laws are for this). National Israel was a unique player in God's plan of redemption. Individual Israelites were saved by faith in the coming Messiah just as we are saved by faith in the already come Messiah, but National Israel the entity was a different thing, a unique player with unique tasks given them by God to fulfill in God's plan of redemption. This is why Paul struggles in Romans to articulate just why his people are both unique and yet the same as everyone else when it comes to salvation.

Enough said. Bavinck clearly assumes the republication of the Covenant of Works on Sinai in the passage above.