This installment is titled “My Growing Problem With Covenant Theology, Part 3.

I have been swamped the last few weeks, traveling to Nepal to preach and recovering from dear Church friends’ passing, so this post will be relatively brief.

I am currently reading two books while investigating the issue at hand, “From The Finger Of God: The Biblical and Theological Basis for the Threefold Division of the Law” by Philip S. Ross and “Identifying The Seed: An Examination and Evaluation of the Differences Between Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology” by Robert McKenzie. 

I have been a Baptist pastor long enough (46 years) to know that some in the Dispensationalist community will be suspicious of me for investigating the CT position. In contrast, some in the CT community will be suspicious of me for investigating the claims of Dispensationalism. 

Some even advocate never reading anything written except by those who embrace your already embraced position. Seriously? What an indefensibly absurd notion. 

How does one learn about the First Great Awakening or the Second Great Awakening in that way, since God did not use Baptists as leaders in either of those great revivals? The same is true of the 1905 revivals in Wales and Korea. 

Take Independent fundamental Baptists. Holding that position would mean reading nothing written before 1920 and only IFB authors. What is the notable IFB leader who has ever advocated such absurdity? Not John R. Rice. Not Lee Roberson. There’s not anyone else I can think of. 

Oh well. 

Over the years, as you pastors know, Church members go away. Sometimes, they just stop attending and fade away, ignoring the impact of their actions on those who look up to them. Others demonstrate their testosterone deficiency by letting their wives speak for them (“My husband is not being fed”). Still others seek to cover their wives’ bossiness by claiming their reason for departing is “doctrinal differences.” 

People who leave Churches rarely leave for appropriate reasons and, even more, seldom provide the real reasons for their departure. It is a risk I am willing to take. 

My interest in these two positions arises from two considerations. First, I would love for our Church to be a comfortable place for someone with John Gill’s understanding of Scripture, Adoniram Judson’s understanding of Scripture, Isaac Backus’ understanding of Scripture, Charles Spurgeon’s understanding of Scripture, W. A. Criswell’s understanding of Scripture, and Peter Masters’ understanding of Scripture, etc. 

Is that so wrong? Are not each of the men I have mentioned orthodox, Bible-believing men? 

Second, I think my attitude should not be to defend a position held by friends and old classmates but to discover and apply the truth. Hence, a willingness to investigate positions held by good and godly men. 

I covet your prayers as I read, study God’s Word, and seek to understand that I might do the truth.

My Growing Problem With Covenant Theology, Part 2

Several months ago, I uploaded “My Growing Problem With Covenant Theology, Part 1.” I promised to produce future Ministerial Musings on Covenant Theology in that blog. My schedule has been brutal, and my blog has suffered as a consequence. Recently, I received the final of a series of small books written by my prolific English friend, David H. J. Gay, New-Covenant Articles: Volume Fourteen, published last year by Brachus. I will have more to say about my growing problem with Covenant Theology in the future, but this present offering will bless you.

Though it is a book I heartily recommend, for David’s overall treatment of Covenant Theology-related issues and his insights related to the New Covenant, it is the last of his offerings that I want to set before you for consideration. He has written extensively on topics too few Baptists pay much attention to, sadly. This concise offering will whet your appetite. 

An Appeal to the Reformed 

I have a problem, a problem which only the Reformed can solve. I appeal to them to help me. 

During years of engaging with the works of covenant theologians over the law, I have tried time and again to get them to think about Scripture unfettered by one or another of the Reformed Confessions.[1] But I always come up against the same brick wall. Whenever I read a work on the law - or some topic connected to the law - by a covenant theologian, I always meet the same three adjectives - moral, ceremonial and judicial, or their equivalents. It seems as though covenant theologians cannot think about, read or write the word ‘law’ without calling upon these three adjectives. Do they have a box of them to hand? It reminds me of somebody curling up on the settee on a Friday night, switching on the TV, and, from time to time, while their eyes are still glued to the screen, a skilful hand instinctively dips into a box of chocolates to select a favourite - Turkish Delight, Caramel, or Brazil Nut. When the programme gets exciting, threatening or whatever, pop another chocolate in the mouth and chew the faster. 

But it isn’t funny! No, it is not! 

Serious issues are involved; very serious. By imposing these three adjectives on Scripture, covenant theologians bolster their theological system, and so utterly fail to see the glorious biblical doctrine of the covenants. How ironical - the biggest mistake that covenant theologians make is their complete misunderstanding of the biblical doctrine of the covenants! And the consequences of this are far-reaching - far beyond the ivory tower of the minister’s study. Because of it, the man, woman and young person in the pew - and in many cases, at the font - are loaded with immense problems and hurts. Unbelievers can be led through years of torture as they are prepared for Christ, prepared by repeated doses of the law to produce what many Reformed think of as ‘a thorough law work’. Infants can - countless numbers do - grow up thinking that because a parent was ‘in the covenant’ and had them sprinkled as babies, they, too, are ‘in the covenant’, or somesuch jargon. Because of law­ teaching, believers can spend many anxious years in lack of assurance, smarting under heavy lashes with the (to use John Calvin’s word) whip of the law, being told again and again that the height of spirituality is to know and feel that you are ‘the wretched man of Romans 7:14-25’. These consequences, and others like them, are the heavy pastoral fall-out of covenant theology. l don’t engage with the Reformed over the law as some sort of a chess match, a battle of wits over texts. Think of it as the emergency ward of a hospital. Life and death issues - spiritual life and death issues - are at stake. 

And, as I say, at the heart of this debate is this matter of the so­called threefold division of the law into moral, ceremonial and judicial. This invention is the lynchpin of covenant theology. 

Now, as I have argued time and time again,[2] this so-called threefold division of the law is unscriptural. Probably dreamed up by Thomas Aquinas, set in concrete by John Calvin, it was adopted wholesale by the Puritans, and so dominated both the Westminster Confession of Faith and the 1689 Baptist Confession, and has exercised a widespread influence over evangelicals ever since, including men like C.H.Spurgeon and D.Martyn Lloyd-Jones.[3] For all that, I, along with many others, still assert that it is unscriptural. 

Now... here’s my problem. This is where we reach the nub of it. It is always hard to prove a negative. It can be done, but proof of a negative is never - to my mind - quite as convincing as proof of the positive. In any case, the burden of proof in this case lies with the Reformed. They assert that the law is divided into three; I, as just one among many, say it is not. The ball is in their court - they make the assertion; they should prove it. 

Let me illustrate my point. All illustrations fail, but at least let me try. 

First from the field of Mathematics. Pythagorean Triples exist. Take the integers 3,4,5. We know that 3² + 4² = 5². The same goes for 5,12,13 and 7,24,25, and so on. But nobody has ever found three integers for the power three and above; that is, nobody has found three integers to satisfy a³ + b³ = c³, and so on. Until recently, however, it had to be admitted that just because nobody - so far - had come up with such a set of integers, it did not mean that somebody, tomorrow, might not find a set. A million, million failures does not prove that it is impossible. Proving - proving, I repeat - the negative can be very difficult.[4] How much easier for those who say three such integers exist! Just produce them! 

Take the legal system. Margaret Fleming was reported missing in 2016. She had not been seen by any independent witness since 1999. Her two carers had continued to claim her benefits over those years. In 2019, the carers were convicted of Margaret’s murder. But the prosecution had a very difficult task: no body was found, no body could be produced. The defence could argue that though Margaret might have been missing for those years, she might walk in tomorrow. ‘Beyond reasonable doubt’ is essential for a conviction. Who could be certain that Margaret was dead? If she was dead, where was the body, where was the D.N.A proof, where was the link to the carers? Make no mistake: if the prosecution could have produced the body, it would have done so - like a shot! If forensics could have linked the carers to the corpse, the prosecution would have produced the evidence in court. Produce the body! Give us the proof! 

The upshot? I can argue ‘til the cows come home that Scripture never uses the threefold division, that Scripture never justifies such a division. But this still leaves the ball firmly in the Reformed court. Even so, it’s a doddle for them! Just produce the proof, the evidence! They’ve had hundreds of years to come up with it. 

Let me be clear. No quotation from Aquinas, Calvin, a score of Puritans, any Confession, Spurgeon, Lloyd-Jones or Uncle Tom Coblcy is proof. Proof and justification must come from Scripture, and Scripture only. 

So I appeal to the Reformed. You can put this issue beyond doubt once and for all. Produce the proof – that’s all you have to do. Otherwise, admit the truth of what you are doing - which everybody knows you are doing - that you are breaking your own Confessions and making the inventions of men - and not Scripture - the authority for what you teach. Or ... drop your use of the threefold division of the law. 

By the way, Scripture does speak of a division in the matter - not the Reformed threefold division, of course, but a twofold division between law and grace. I restrict my extracts to where the contrast is explicit. Many more passages speak in similar terms, of course: 

The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17).

 

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it - the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall sh01i of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:20-24).

 

The law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more (Rom. 5:20).

 

Sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace (Rom. 6:14).

 

I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose (Gal. 2:21).

 

You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace (Gal. 5:4).

 

Now let’s have a discussion on that basis, without any smokescreen of a so-called threefold division of the law!

---

[1] Do they read Scripture without the Confession in mind? I’ve given up trying to get them discuss Scripture unfettered. See my ‘Flogging a Dead Horse’.

[2] See above all, my Christ Is All.

[3] Both men were contradictory over the law. See my Spurgeon; ‘Lloyd­ Jones for Law Men’ in my New-Covenant Articles Volume Four.

[4] For those with a strong constitution, that very difficult proof in this case, may be found in Andrew John Wiles: ‘Modular elliptic curves and Fermat’s Last Theorem’, Annals of Mathematics, 141,1995.

Reflections On The Savior's Inauguration Of The Communion Of The Lord's Supper In The Upper Room

Preliminary questions and observations related to the institution of the communion of the Lord’s Supper: 

1A.   QUESTIONS 

1B.   Why Was His Mother, Mary, Not Invited? 

2B.   Why Were His Siblings Not Invited? 

3B.   Why Were His Hosts, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, Not Invited? 

4B.   Why Were The Seventy Not Invited? 

5B.   Why Were The 120 Not Invited? 

 

2A.   OBSERVATIONS 

1B.   When the upper room was reserved, He was exercising His sovereign rite of requisition, just as He had with the donkey colt, Matthew 21.2, 5, 7; Mark 14.12-16; Luke 22.10-13; John 12.14-15. 

2B.   When He instituted the communion of the Lord’s Supper He refrained from the fruit of the vine that He commended to the gathered celebrants, Matthew 26.29; Mark 14.26; Luke 22.18 

CONCLUSIONS: 

1.      The communion of the Lord’s Supper is not a saving ordinance, elst those not invited would have been invited to partake of it. 

2.      The communion of the Lord’s Supper is not an open communion, elst those not invited would have been invited to partake of it.

The Importance Of Reading Authors With Whom You Disagree

      I have believed in Jesus Christ for almost three weeks past fifty years. During that time, God was very gracious to me. As I reflect, God's grace was extended to me long before I came to Christ, for which I am profoundly grateful.

     One of my blessings growing up, though my parents were decidedly not believers, was exposure to their habit of reading. My parents seemed always to be reading something, with my recollections being my dad blasting through a book daily. Taught to read by an older sister when he was only four years old, reading was my dad's escape from a sharecropper's life.

     At this point, I must recollect one of Mark Twain's sayings: "A man who does not read has no advantage over a man who cannot read." How right he was. This episode of my musings is a pitch for reading, but more than that. It is a pitch for reading even what you know in advance you will not much like, mainly works related to biblical and systematic theologies written by men whose persuasions and convictions differ from yours.

     Sadly, as a Baptist pastor for more than forty-five years, I have concluded, from many conversations, that most missionaries and pastors do not read much. And if they do, they tend to read unsubstantial works written only by authors they agree with. That is both sad and mistaken.

     Pastors and missionaries need to be widely read men. And we need to read for various reasons. We should read to clarify our positions. That is the first reason for reading widely. My first pastor was a man with convictions he refused to articulate. He did not refuse to answer my questions only, but also the questions of other Church members about the Bible and other matters.

     One of my favorite teachers in Bible college, I was saddened to discover years later, was a man of strong convictions that he could not defend because he was not widely read. He was a remarkable teacher. All of his students loved him in class. But after entering the pastorate, I learned from interacting with him that he was a man of deep convictions with shallow reasons for his convictions. This was disheartening, especially in light of my agreement with him. But I am persuaded that someone right for the wrong reasons is wrong!

     Another reason for being widely read concerns your understanding of those you disagree with. It is insufficient to disagree with those who are wrong, even if you do not sufficiently grasp the intricacies of their error.

     Most Baptist pastors and missionaries do not have much track record opposing Arminianism. Why not? It may be because their grasp of Arminianism is insufficient, and they do not comprehend how man-centered Arminianism is and its proximity to Pelagianism.

     Far more Baptist pastors rail against Calvinism but do so without having read Calvinist authors. The result, of course, is childish caricatures of Calvinism that men who have investigated Calvinism easily see through.

     If you are confident your understanding of Scripture on a point of doctrine is accurate, you will profit from reading diverse positions written by thoughtful men who disagree with you. It will clarify the position you disagree with and help you articulate your position more clearly.

     I believe it helps to know what you are talking about, and strongly held, but unsupported positions bolstered by little more than vehemence are unpersuasive. Further, I am persuaded that not only are readers leaders, but leaders are readers, and a Gospel minister who is not a devoted and prolific reader needs to find another line of work!

"Situational Awareness"

     Christians are caught up in a spiritual conflict. The battleground of the war is the believer's thought life, the mind. The enemy are resolute in their determination to persuade us of that which is impossible for them to achieve, to separate us from the love of Christ, Romans 8.35.

     Failing to do that, our spiritual enemy displays ruthlessness in their determination to discourage us by one means or another, frequently achieving this by manipulating Christians-in-name-only friends and acquaintances who betray us, accuse us, undermine us, and who knows what else?

     The goal, of course, is to disparage the cause of Christ and create division in the body of Christ, in the hope that the individual will become so despondent he will give up, quit, or leave. Most Christians have developed enough what is termed in the military 'situational awareness' that they recognize spiritual opposition for what it is and resist it. No lost individual and too many infantile believers succumb because 'situational awareness' is beyond them. They either cannot or will not look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.

     The result? Discouraged, despondent, and without hope, they make crucial decisions without seeking wise counsel (with those decisions frequently resulting in irretrievable loss of opportunity or recourse). Sometimes the counsel of friends is sought. At other times, the counsel of parents is sought. Almost never is the counsel of a seasoned spiritual leader sought ... or followed.

     How is one to be prepared for service to the Savior if those men given by the Savior are left uninformed and outside the troubled person's decision loop? After all, a good portion of equipping for the work of the ministry is showing how to deal with ongoing spiritual opposition and conflict.

     The result is discouragement and defeat resulting from a lack of awareness of how normal and usual a person's issues are (1 Cor 10.13), the forces that are in play (Eph 6.10-18), and the fatal error that is often made by granting to the enemy what they have sought all along, a break of fellowship, a departure, a cut and run decision that is the opposite of God's will and exactly in line with the demons' objective when organizing the attack against that person.

     When the apostle wrote First John 2.19 the lines were more clearly drawn than they are in our day ("They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.")

     But John's declaration was not the assertion of any new principle. A thousand years earlier Solomon, in Proverbs 21.16, wrote, "The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead."

     We who have a relationship with God do not always have a storehouse of scripture knowledge, but we more often than not have some amount of situational awareness. We know we are involved in a spiritual conflict and that we are outmatched, wholly dependent upon the grace of God and the means of grace to be equipped to resist the devil so he will flee from us. 

     The goal? To resist the enemy's push against us. To refuse to flee when we know the goal is to get us away, to separate us from, and to isolate us from those in our lives who are charged by God to minister to our most significant needs.

     Notable men are of the opinion that the departure from a congregation is evidence of a lost condition. Not all are agreed. But no would rightly disagrees with the conclusion that to flee is not helpful, to run is not healthy, to bail out is contraindicated, because there is no possible way a child of God can be faithful by being unfaithful, can stand fast by cutting and running.

     The long term remedy that should ever be employed? Seek always to maintain 'situational awareness.' Ask yourself and responsible and spiritual mature leaders who are Bible students what God wants you to do and what He would never not want you to do.

     'Situational awareness' is crucial. You must always seek to understand your situation, the goal of the enemy in your life, the desire of God for your life, so you can seek God's wisdom, God's grace, and the determination not to flee when you should stay or stay when it is God's will that you leave.

“An Important Metaphor To Understand”

 

Sometimes, God graciously reveals to you some of the lengths He has gone to teach you needful things. At this stage of my life and ministry, I am grateful to God for reminding me of His patience. This is but one example.

If my memory serves me correctly (and memory is never a catalog of events and facts in the order in which they occurred or were experienced, but a series of impressions and images), He first began to teach me about the importance of metaphors when I was a student at Madras High School in Madras, Oregon.

If memory serves me correctly, it was a speech class taught by Miss Farrar. I did not enjoy the class very much; I only remembered one classmate who is, to this day, a Facebook friend. I certainly did not learn much, overwhelmed by pride and insecurities that were the norm for most boys my age. Had I paid attention, I might have learned about figures of speech, specifically metaphors and similes. Sadly, I did not.

The next opportunity given to me to learn how to communicate more effectively was in the United States Air Force Academy and an English class using the Scribner Handbook of English, written by Albert H. Marquardt and Frederick G. Cassidy. It is a wonderful tool that is well-suited for those who must communicate effectively without much interest in the actual structure and use of the English language. Again, I learned nothing about metaphors and similes while using them in everyday conversation.

The 3^rd and 4^th opportunities given to me were while enrolled in hearing school at Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon. Not much appreciated by engineering students, it is crucial for those enrolled in STEM courses to learn how to communicate effectively to a broader audience of non-technical people. The two English courses I was required to take were taught by men who did not take their topic seriously. Both courses were tragically missed opportunities; the professors told us during the initial class session that attendance was not required until the day of the final exam. Since attendance was not required, I attended no classes and learned nothing. For both courses, I showed up on the day of the final exam to inform the professor what grade I wanted them to give me, with one professor demanding a reason why he should give me an A for the course. “Because my parents pressure me to get good grades,” I told him. “That’s good enough for me,” he said, and I received an A in the course for doing nothing.

The 5^th opportunity given to me occurred after I had come to Christ and was enrolled in Bible college, taking a course from a missionary named Rosalie Hooge. She was a brilliant communicator, a well-prepared teacher, and a gracious Christian woman with much to offer. In retrospect, I deeply regret not seizing upon the opportunity afforded by such an excellent instructor.

I am an inveterate reader, which enabled me to gain valuable insight into the usefulness of similes and metaphors when communicating. I all my appetite for reading to growing up in the home of a mother and father who were readers, with my dad having a voracious appetite for books. His example was more caught by me than taught to me.

I wonder what might have been had I any appreciation for God’s plan for my life, to be called into the Gospel ministry, to spend a half-century declaring the unsearchable riches of Christ, to writing books, tracts, and brochures. How many wasted opportunities do you have to become a more effective and practical Christian?

Not that I have no appreciation for metaphors and similes, but that my facility with them might have been far more well-developed, and I seized upon the many opportunities God gave me. So, what is a metaphor? The Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines metaphor as “a transferring to one-word the sins of another. A figure of speech in which one thing is likened to another, different thing by being spoken of as if it were that other; implied comparison, in which a word or phrase ordinarily and primarily used of one thing is applied to another.”[1]

Not that I did not appreciate the significance of metaphors in New Testament interpretation. But there are times when someone who has been as neglectful as I was fails to appreciate the importance and relevance of language tools God gave us to help us understand significant truths. Such is the case with the body metaphor used by the apostle Paul in the New Testament.

I write all this to impress upon you what has been impressed upon me. There are certain truths found in God’s Word that will not be adequately understood or appreciated apart from recognizing and applying an understanding of figures of speech. We claim to speak and interpret the Bible literally, but we know that the literal sense makes nonsense, so we should seek another sense.

I close with a recommendation that I urge you to obtain from me at no cost and read carefully. It is a carefully researched and expertly crafted brochure by a pastor friend I have never met face-to-face. Charles L. Hunt has written The Body of Christ: Separating Myth From Metaphor.

Author Hunt correctly asserts, in my opinion, that a failure to recognize and understand the body of Christ metaphor used by the apostle Paul makes it almost impossible to grasp God’s truth about the church of Jesus Christ. After reading his book, I agree with him.

If you would like me to mail you a copy, email me, and I will get it to you as quickly as possible. May God richly bless you in your ministry of studying the Bible, applying the Bible, and declaring the unsearchable riches of Christ.

---

[1] Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1996), page 1132.

My Growing Problem With Covenant Theology, Part 1

      Over the course of my fifty years of Christian life and experience I have noticed two main approaches to eschatology, the Covenant Theology position and the Dispensational position. I recognize those two positions are generally held views, but in the main they circumscribe most eschatologies.

     Setting aside the fact that no manmade system can completely or precisely circumscribe a sophisticated Bible doctrine, let me for now focus my attention on one aspect of Covenant Theology that speaks to the very nature of God as true, as immutable, and as reliable.

     My friend, W. R. Downing, has recently written a wonderful work pastors would do well to recommend to their Church members, Introduction to Theology, published through FirstLove Publications (www.firstloveministries.org). On page 96 he writes, "A Theology with its corresponding Hermeneutic that structures the Scriptures from a covenantal perspective rather than Dispensational. It presupposes that God has always dealt with man in a covenant relationship through representation and imputation in either Adam or Christ."

     Am I to understand that Covenant Theology embraces the notion that the Abrahamic Covenant has been abrogated because of the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ by the Jewish people, and that a replacement has occurred whereby the Church is now the recipient of the promises God made to Abraham? Am I correct in understanding this to be the essence of so-called Replacement Theology?

     Feedback and recommended reading advice is solicited.