Herman Bavinck “Common Grace” (1909) Part 1

06 Wednesday Nov 2024

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Bavinick’s 1909 essay in the Princeton Theological Review “Common Grace” (translated by RAYMOND C. V A N LEEUWEN) begins with an outline of the whole:

Permit me then, to present to you the Reformed doctrine of common grace. I would like to show (1) how it is based upon the Scriptures, (2) that the Roman Catholic system has no place for it, (3) that this principle was discovered in the Reformation, notably by Calvin, and finally (4) that it remains of the greatest significance for us today.

(39)

Creation is a revelation of God. It is the “foundation and beginning of every subsequent revelation.” Before the Fall, the relationship with God was deeply “personal”. God spoke and provided information which could not possibily know without verbal, hence special, revelation from God. (39) Adams refers to this as God giving “counsel”:

Indeed, it is the very reason why remedial counseling exists (remember, man was made as a creature whose welfare was dependent—even before Adam’s sin—on God’s directive, guiding and preventive counsel. He received such counsel in the garden and benefited from it by the fellowship and communication that it established with God. Human life depends upon God’s Word). Counsel per se was always needed.

Jay Edward Adams, A Theology of Christian Counseling: Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling (Grand Rapids, MI: Ministry Resource Library, 1986), 139.

This relationship instituted by the revelation of God continues after the Fall, the new elements of “compassion and mercy”. God continues to care for humanity, but now God’s care takes on this new aspect.

“ Life, work, food, clothing come to him no longer on the basis of an agreement or right granted in the covenant of works but through grace alone. Grace has become the source and fountainhead of all life and every blessing for mankind. It is the overflowing spring of all good (Gen. 3:8-24).” (40) It is interesting that Bavinck sees the grace of God shown in the litany of judgment brought upon the pair. In this he must be correct. For if God had merely pronounced death had been threatened before sin, there would be no need to announce subsidiary judgments dealing with child birth or gaining food from toil in the ground. The judgment has built into the details a delay but not a reprieve. Death is still pronounced.

And in this Bavinck see the first point of common grace. For this is certainly the work of grace, to not bring damnation and judgment in one moment. But it is not saving grace. Here at the foundation of history grace turns into two streams, special and common grace.

Common grace preserves Cain despite the murder of his brother. And Cain’s descendants demonstrate the effect fo common grace in their knowledge of manipulation of the natural environment (an aspect of common grace made plain by Kuyper). Seth’s line do not show the same elements of physical knowledge but rather demonstrate the other strand of common grace (as specified by Kuyper), that of civil knowledge.

Like Kuyper, Bavinck lays the cause for the flood upon the intermingling of Cain’s and Seth’s descendants. I must admit I do not find that argument persuasive. Were it not for the fact that it prevents the text from seeming too strange, I do not imagine it would be advanced or held; if for no other reason than the children of such people would not be “giants” or peculiar, or whatever “Nephilim” otherwise means.

God having preserved humanity through the flood again is beholden to grace. Bavinck considers the descendants after the flood to be perhaps a diminished people, “born, milder in nature, less in might, and of shorter life.” Bavinck who did not know WWI and WWII and the horror’s since would not have been so sanguine about a “milder nature”. He missed the total war of Napolean and came before Europe plunging the globe into darkness and war.

This new mankind also exists and lives only by the grace of God, which now takes the form of a covenant. In opposition to the unrighteousness that had of the creation in a covenant with all of nature and with every living being. This life and being are no longer “natural.” Rather, they are the fruit of a supernatural grace to which man no longer has a self-evident claim (Gen. 8:21, 22; 9:1-17) (40)

The phrase supernatural grace is difficult to place. All grace is supernatural if it comes from God. It is not special grace. And all life following Adam has been gifted. What right would we have even before the Flood? God extended yet another measure of grace, but he had done so before the flood.

Now it is true as Bavinck notes the covenant of God after the Flood extends to natura and animals. God certainly show forbearance after the Flood, but such was shown to Adam and Eve and Cain. The nations do develop as separate matters after the Tower of Babel.

At this point Bavinck attributes the abilities and actions of humanity to a new act of God:

There is thus a rich revelation of God even among the heathen—not only in nature but also in their heart and conscience, in their life and history, among their statesmen and artists, their philosophers and reformers. There exists no reason at all to denigrate or diminish this divine revelation. Nor is it to be limited to a so-called natural revelation. The traditions of paradise, the life of Cain and his descendants, and the covenant with Noah have a special, supernatural origin. The working of supernatural forces in the world of the heathen is neither impossible nor improbable. Furthermore, the revelation of God in nature and history is never a mere passive pouring forth of God’s virtues but is always a positive act on the part of God. The Father of Jesus works always (John 5:17). His providence is a divine, eternal, omnipresent power. (41)

Bavinck raises distinct issues in this paragraph: (1) non-salvific revelation of God to the nations, namely, (a) in conscience, and (b) and nature – which revelation is seen in civic matters, namely to politicians, philosophers/artists, and “reformers” (whatever that may mean in this place). Being revelation he calls it divine. Then in a further qualification which he will need to support rather than assert, “Nor is it to be limited to a so-called natural revelation.” What he means by this is unclear in this place.

A further issue (2) “The traditions of paradise.” This would be present in corrupted form in various myths. This does not mean that all such things lack all basis; but it also means that one cannot necessary ferret out the truth from the corruption of time and sin.

A third issue is (3) the covenant with Noah following the Flood.

While not necessarily a new category of information, he does raise a distinct theological issue, “The working of supernatural forces in the world of the heathen is neither impossible nor improbable.” Again, making such an argument requires qualification and support. We have the instance of Abimelech’s dream in Genesis 20:3. That does raise the potential for more, but what could we suspect? I recall a story that Genghis Kahn claimed to have been sent by God. While the judgment of Genghis would certainly have I basis in God’s providence (as does all things), did he receive a supernatural revelation? Freud certainly has had a history bending effect upon the world (a point which will be relevant in a full discussion of Common Grace). Was that a revelation of God?

Bavinck ends with the matter of Providence, which all must agree. But in what way, if any, does Bavinck seek Common Grace as a matter related to Providence? Is it merely that God superintends all, or does he posit some peculiar influence and special giving ability? Is it ability from Creation which God permits to flower by tapping down on sin’s effects?

Common Grace and the Man of Sin, Part 1

30 Wednesday Oct 2024

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Abraham Kuyper Common Grace

At the end of his first volume of Common Grace, Kuyper makes an extended consideration of a passage which seems to bear no relevance to the question of common grace:

⁷For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. ⁸And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. ⁹The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, ¹⁰and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

2 Thessalonians 2:7–10. He ties this passage to an event of Genesis 4:

⁶The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? ⁷If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”

⁸Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

Genesis 4:6–8. He ties these two events from the beginning and the end of history together with a chain of common grace.

When sin came upon mankind, God pronounced death and a series of related sorrows set forth in Genesis 3. The objective troubles of sin set forth in Genesis 3 fail to exhaust the effects of sin. In Romans 1 we find the noetic effects of sin set forth:

¹⁸For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. ¹⁹For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

²⁰For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. ²¹For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²²Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

²⁴Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Romans 1:19–25 First, there is loss of objective knowledge:

Suppress the truth

Knowledge of God is plain

Became futile in their thinking

They are without excuse

Exchanged the truth about God

Second, spiritual knowledge rejected:

The wrath of God

Suppress the truth in unrighteousness

God’s invisible attributes suppressed

They knew God

The glory of the immortal God

Third, disordered thinking:

By their unrighteousness they suppressed the truth

Foolish hearts were darkened

They did not honor God

They exchanged the glory of God

Exchanged the truth about God for a lie

Worship of the creature

Fourth, disordered desires:

Gave up to the lusts of their heart

Fifth, disordered behavior:

Dishonoring of their bodies

Worship and serve the creature

Thus, common grace may work beyond merely a limitation on death itself; although it may. It also may work upon the cognitive injury of sin and upon the disorder of desires and behavior, and so intellectually and morally.

Common Grace and Alienation

22 Tuesday Oct 2024

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Kuyper reads Romans 1:18 et seq. as the withdraw of common grace. There are a number of ways in which one may categorize the material. Writing at the end of the 19^th Century, he picks up a theme which will be worked out in literature (and philosophy) as “alienation”. Eliot’s lines from The Waste Land^[1] put it:

Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.

Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,

And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

The people still involved in some act, but each one alienated from one another, alienated from God, alienated from life, alienated from oneself.

The theme of alien and alienation is worked out in the Bible from the primal sin (which Adam and Eve) find themselves alienated from God, from one another, from the world about them. The themes of alien and alienation are in Scripture from beginning to end.^[2] The commands of Israel respecting the alien; the commands of widows and orphans; the admonition of Jesus to care for brothers in poverty or prison; Peter addressing the “stranger and alien” churches make for an intriguing reworking of the theme that the alien is being welcomed into a new fellowship.^[3]

Kuyper draws a line through these elements in Romans 1, how one sin leads to another. Rather than using the word “alienation,” he writes of “falsifying”. We become false to God, then to one-another, and to ourselves. Redemption is love, a joining of those things separated. And, as Kuyper would say, our current debasement of “love” to perversion and fornication, with the claim to not praise such things is a betrayal of love and is itself “hate” is itself an inversion of reality and proof of the debased heart.

Explaining the fall of Romans 1 in terms of sin, he places the Ur-fault at a breach of the First Commandment,, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. It is by displacing God for gods that we displace all other things in the order of creation. By the sin of idolatry, we drag along the remaining nine violations. As these sins are added, they rot the whole of society and self.

Kuyper writing at a very different time and different world (for the world was largely broken in a number of ways by WWI, among other troubles), puts this observation at the head of human destruction recorded by Romans 1, the breach (falsification) of “the gender distinction.” Aside from God is God, the next worse trouble for society is the rejection of the distinction of “man and woman”. He calls this distinction “foundational” to human life.

While I cannot imagine he would have dreamed of our current confusion such a supreme court justice cannot identify a woman and all must subscribe to anyone’s else description of sex or species, he does note this alienation as standing at the head of the human-to-human falsehoods listed by Paul. When we cannot relate rightly to God, we cannot relate rightly to one-another. The trouble here hinging upon the distinction and thereafter relationship of male and female.

For the self-turned lied, he points to conscience, the approval of another’s sin (as well as one’s one). Rom. 1:31: “But in all of this what is being stated is nothing else than that the fabric of society is necessarily wrenched loose from all its moorings once the foundation of the sexual life is falsified^[4]”

A point which he does elaborate as much as I would be interested, he sees the “Son of Perdition” as the result when the last brick of common grace is removed.

An emphasis is here of note, common grace in one area often does not give any strength to the proposition that common grace is evident in another. In fact, skill in arts and technology often comes at the expense of development in good morals. This raises an interesting question for a current debate over common grace and psychology: since psychology is a profoundly moral undertaking (speaking of “therapeutic” care), can we assume that a developed technique is a moral good?

^[1] A clear example is found in T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” When Eliot published this in 1922, he became a hero to the modern poets, because for the first time he dared to make the form of his poetry fit the nature of the world as he saw it—namely, broken, unrelated, ruptured. What was that form? A collection of shattered fragments of language and images, and allusions drawn seemingly haphazardly from all manner of literature, philosophy and religious writings from the ancients to the present. But modern poets were pleased, for they now had a poetic form to fit the modern world-view of unrelatedness.

Francis A. Schaeffer, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, vol. 2 (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1982), 402–403.

^[2] alienation

A state of being separate or apart from something or someone, often accompanied by an awareness of the separation. Human beings are alienated from God on account of sin. Alienation is also encountered in other areas of life, including relations between believers, and between believers and secular society.

Alienation from God because of sin

Sin causes separation from God Gal 5:4 Those seeking to justify themselves cut themselves off from Jesus Christ’s saving work; Col 1:21 See also Isa 59:1-2; Eze 39:23-24

Martin H. Manser, Dictionary of Bible Themes: The Accessible and Comprehensive Tool for Topical Studies (London: Martin Manser, 2009).

^[3] This is an important understanding of the rescue brought about by Christ:

In the midst of our own alienation and abandonment we come to the Lord’s table. And there, despite the brokenness and the pain which exist in our lives, we find community and acceptance. We point ourselves toward a future love-feast in a day when we will not be tempted to abandon each other. In the meantime, we draw strength from other people of faith, for their lives, like ours, are filled with betrayals

Review and Expositor 89, no. 3 (1992): 401.

^[4] Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace: God’s Gifts for a Fallen World: The Historical Section, ed. Jordan J. Ballor, Melvin Flikkema, and Stephen J. Grabill, trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman and Ed M. van der Maas, vol. 1, Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press; Acton Institute, 2015), 504.

“Segmented” Common Grace

20 Sunday Oct 2024

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An interesting aspect of common grace is that its extent and function are read off the history of the world as well as from the text of Scripture. It is an inference derived from the unmistakable advances of sin, with the attendant penalty; when held in tension with paradoxical human achievement.

The restraint of sin, while in part seen in Scripture is also known from what human beings do and do not do. Material advance and human prosperity may be an aspect of sin. The advance of science and technology are evidence of common grace. Modern medical care would be common grace. Evidence of invention may be common grace. Art may be common grace, Moral restraint, punishment of criminals, rejection of bestial vice when seen generally in a culture another evidence of common grace.

If common grace was seen solely as a boon and restraint of sin, we could speak of common grace as wholly an advance and benefit to humanity. But it is a mixed matter as will be seen in three ways. First, common grace does not run along every axis at the same time and in the same degree. For instance, the Greece of Socrates on one axis demonstrated philosophy, poetry, and even the start of science. And yet, at the same time, it exhibited gross vice.

Rome provided material prosperity, government administration, a level of social organization which made it possible for a man such a Paul to move and communicate from Gibraltar to Arabia. Rome permitted the existence of great art and architecture, while harboring degradation and exploitation of many.

Common grace alone is not protection for all times and all people. God bestows and withdraws common grace. Kuyper reads Romans 1 as demonstrating the results of common grace being withdrawn. The moral degradation is not “hardening.” It is the natural flow of sin.

When the first table of the law is neglected, the terror of the second table being neglected will result. When God is neglected, the people will suffer.

Kuyper here raises again a proposition which I am not certain can be upheld on historical grounds. He takes it since the pre-flood world is not mentioned to have plunged into idolatry, we cannot conclude idolatry existed at that time (at least not as a culture wide curse).

Yet, we must take seriously the fact that the world had plunged into such wickedness that God undertook to destroy the world. If idolatry is a first step for utter degradation and destruction, then what turned the world such that it must be destroyed? What was the root of violence killed the world?

He also contends that Romans 1 has no applicability until after the Flood. Rather than a general statement of human moral degradation, he understands this as a particular failure of a particular people at a particular time. Yet, much like his reading of the pre-Flood world, I am not certain history supports this application of the text.

While it is true that any culture at any time can plunge into a greater pit of degradation that the general tenor of mankind (there is always a De Sade ready to lead the way to Hell), the course of Romans 1 is arguably the contour of all sinful falling (suppression of the knowledge of God down to disobedient to parents and slander).

Kuyper pairs this observation that Romans 1 applies to the world after the Flood to the assertion that God undertakes the rule of the nations after the Flood. It is on this pair of ideas that Kuyper (inconsistently) puts common grace as a post-Flood control. (Inconsistently in that the initial restraint of sin and death were present at the announcement of judgment in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve did not die in an instant.)

A final mitigation of common grace is that an increase in human achievement is not unmixed with sin. Greater ability, which could overcome the immediate consequence of sin such as greater medical knowledge could prevent disease has also been harnessed for evil. The various abilities which could advance health can advance sin. The curiosity which brings about discovery can be the discovery of the temperature at which man will freeze to death when stranded in water.

History proves that great artists can be wicked human beings. In fact, it seems that the catastrophe of a personal life can make a ground for the sublime.

Common Grace and Idolatry

17 Thursday Oct 2024

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What darkness came with the Fall, and what light is yet present? Kuyper reads John 1:1-10 in reference to Romans 1:18, et seq. in working this problem. Briefly, he holds some light yet exists which enables humanity to see the fact of God much like an old man might make out a ten gilder gold coin. That light in the world, not overcome by the darkness of sin is common grace. We still retain something of light in our “intellectual and deliberative existence.”

It had been the attempt of the serpent that humanity would be plunged in darkness, without some remaining light.

Here, come to the question which dogs common grace debates even now. What is this light? On what does it shine? What is this thing common grace?

Kuyper does not posit it as something new, some superadded quality. Common grace is the perpetuation of some quality inherent in creation which has not been extinguished. Since this is a critical element in the discussion I will have him speak for himself: “exclusively in the continuation of something that lay at the foundation of our creation. The light that shines now shone equally before the fall.” (485)

Particular grace, salvation, rests upon this floor of common grace.

However, we misuse our “light” retained from creation. As we develop those capacities with which we were formed, we do not move uniformly toward godliness. Rather idolatry and immorality themselves develop as we develop our inherent gifts. We can map the globe and use it for to further our abilities to kill one another.

And yet it is not instant depravity of the greatest extent. It does result a world of concentration camps alone. We have the peculiar fact that Hitler wanted to be an artist. Had Vienna admitted him, perhaps the 20^th Century would have proceeded differently.

Kuyper here makes common grace in its effect God shining into the darkness; a poorly seen truth and restraint. Daniel Strange notes the “inconsistency” which common grace leaves humanity:

If the imago Dei serves as a metaphysical ‘check’ to the reality of the antithesis, the restraint of sin by the Holy Spirit in common grace serves as an ethical ‘check’: ‘Common grace is the means by which God keeps man from expressing the principle of hostility to its full extent . . . The very real accomplishments of unbelievers are not their own and cannot be accounted for apart from the grace of God.’126 Given the unbelievers’ worldview, which is constructed from the ‘root’ of a ‘ground religious motive’ or presupposition of a heart in rebellion against God, common grace does not imply a ‘religious’ neutrality but rather must be seen as a God-given ‘inconsistency’ or, to use Van Til’s famous phrase, must be shown to be the ‘stolen capital’ of the Christian worldview.

Strange, Daniel. Their Rock Is Not Like Our Rock: A Theology of Religions (p. 94). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.

An interesting evidence of common grace is in idolatry. The move to worship is the grace. The misdirection of that worship to idols is sin. This perverted but persistent knowledge of God is common grace and sin intertwined. We cannot deny the fact of God even as we seek God in that which is not God.

Kuyper gives this paradox an interesting resolution. In rebellion the idolator is seeking God in the idol. It seems to have made up a background for the odd well-known quote various attributed, but seems to come form Bruce Marshall in The World, The Flesh, and Father Smith, “the young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.“ I have not read the novel so I presented cannot confirm the source. But the idea is generally present. I cannot help but worship, no matter my conduct. It is an inescapable conclusion of humanity.

To prove this point, Kuyper cites Paul:

²¹For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²²Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Romans 1:21–23 (ESV)

The progression of Paul’s argument supports Kuyper’s point. I know God. That knowledge continued is common grace. But I do not give the God the worship due. That is sin. The impulse to worship mischanneled by sin leads me to the idol. Calvin writing of verse 21 writes:

He plainly testifies here, that God has presented to the minds of all the means of knowing him, having so manifested himself by his works, that they must necessarily see what of themselves they seek not to know — that there is some God; for the world does not by chance exist, nor could it have proceeded from itself. But we must ever bear in mind the degree of knowledge in which they continued; and this appears from what follows.^[1]

Thought of this way, the confusion of sin makes an interesting appearance. There is some good which persists from creation, but it cannot do a good work. Perhaps this would be pictured such as pure water flowing through a filthy tube and thus unusable through no fault of the water at its source.

This is not the only way to conceive of common grace. Dr. Chou in a recent essay writes,

Common grace does not inherently deal with the category of knowledge. In Scripture, common grace pertains to the restraint of sin and judgment in physical creation (cf. Genesis 8:20-22; 9:8-19). This may allow for a world of discovery but cannot be equated with the discoveries themselves.

Abner Chou, “Common Grace and the Sufficiency of Scripture” Journal of Biblical Soul Care SPRING, VOL. 8, (1:2024) 7-23. It is a restraint but not a sort of knowledge.

^[1] John Calvin, Romans, electronic ed., Calvin’s Commentaries (Albany, OR: Ages Software, 1998), Ro 1:21.

Common Grace and General Revelation

16 Wednesday Oct 2024

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(53)

Kuyper next looks to John 1 for further biblical data on the matter of common grace. I will ignore the first part of this chapter to consider the discussion of common grace which reappears in the book after a long excursus on the relation of Israel to the economy of God (which includes a discussion of the Baptist). Kuyper’s argument first works upon a position which contends has been misinterpretation of John’s prologue:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ⁴In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. ⁸He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

⁹The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. ¹⁰He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

John 1:1–10 (ESV) Of interest is John 1:4-5 which he relies upon to make a contention about common grace which involves without name general revelation. He focuses upon light as something generally disbursed to all humanity, and hence a common grace.

Kuyper takes the light to not be Christ in the world but rather a light which predates and exceeds the incarnation. Christ did not go into the whole world, for instance. Hence this light must be common. However, being common it cannot be salvific. It is enough to merit condemnation but salvation. A look at commentators may help buy Kuyper’s reading into context.

Calvin being of particular importance to Kuyper reads as follows:

And the light shineth in darkness. It might be objected, that the passages of Scripture in which men are called blind are so numerous, and that the blindness for which they are condemned is but too well known. For in all their reasoning faculties they miserably fail. How comes it that there are so many labyrinths of errors in the world, but because men, by their own guidance, are led only to vanity and lies? But if no light appears in men, that testimony of the divinity of Christ, which the Evangelist lately mentioned, is destroyed; for that is the third step, as I have said, that in the life of men there is something more excellent than motion and breathing. The Evangelist anticipates this question, and first of all lays down this caution, that the light which was originally bestowed on men must not be estimated by their present condition; because in this corrupted and degenerate nature light has been turned into darkness. And yet he affirms that the light of understanding is not wholly extinguished; for, amidst the thick darkness of the human mind, some remaining sparks of the brightness still shine^[1]

The light referenced by Calvin is a more general understanding than merely those who interacted with Jesus during this sojourn among us. We must have sufficient reason to warrant our condemnation by God just. To expect humanity to fly and to be culpable since we cannot, would make God malicious. But that we can but will not believe makes us culpable.

Thus, there is a connection between this light and human reason. For instance, Matthew Henry sees this light to be connected to reason:

Reasonable creatures have their light from him; that life which is the light of men comes from him. Life in man is something greater and nobler than it is in other creatures; it is rational, and not merely animal. When man became a living soul, his life was light, his capacities such as distinguished him from, and dignified him above, the beasts that perish. The spirit of a man is the candle of the Lord, and it was the eternal Word that lighted this candle. The light of reason, as well as the life of sense, is derived from him, and depends upon him. This proves him fit to undertake our salvation; for life and light, spiritual and eternal life and light, are the two great things that fallen man, who lies so much under the power of death and darkness, has need of. From whom may we better expect the light of divine revelation than from him who gave us the light of human reason? And if, when God gave us natural life, that life was in his Son, how readily should we receive the gospel-record, that he hath given us eternal life, and that life too is in his Son^[2]

While Leon Morris rejects that proposition:

What is the meaning of “that life was the light of men”?³⁰ Grimm-Thayer equates the light with “intelligence,” and explains the verse in this way: “because the life of men is self-conscious, and thus a fountain of intelligence springs up.”³¹ But this is to take the words in an unnatural way. There is no indication in the context that intelligence is in mind, and in any case there appears to be no reason for confining the words to any one part of humanity.³² It is more likely that we should think of Old Testament passages that refer to God as the source of light and life, for example: “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light” (Ps. 36:9).³³ It is this kind of thing that the writer has in mind. But he is writing about the Word, so his meaning will be that the Word, himself the life, is also “the light of men,”³⁴ John is preparing the way for the thought that he will develop throughout his Gospel, that Jesus is the life-bringer and light-bearer.^[3]

Morris’ argument in the final sentence runs contrary to Kuyper who would distinguish the light of John 1 from the work in the incarnation of Jesus. While Kuyper puts emphasis upon the universality of verses 4 & 5, one could see the “the whole” to be read as 1 John 2:2. The whole world there does not mean universal salvation (see John Owen’s discussion in the Death of Death). D.A Carson contends for the light in terms of “particular” saving grace:

The ‘darkness’ in John is not only absence of light, but positive evil (cf. 3:19; 8:12; 12:35, 46; 1 Jn. 1:5, 6; 2:8, 9, 11); the light is not only revelation bound up with creation, but with salvation. Apart from the light brought by the Messiah, the incarnate Word, people love darkness because their deeds are evil (3:19), and when the light does put in an appearance, they hate it, because they do not want their deeds to be exposed (3:20).^[4]

Kuyper distinguishes the concept of light as a common dispersal into all the world, which does not bring salvation; and a particular coming of that light which saves. This is similar to the distinction made by Calvin:

My readers now understand that this sentence contains two clauses; for he says that men are now widely distant from that perfectly holy nature with which they were originally endued; because their understanding, which ought to have shed light in every direction, has been plunged in darkness, and is wretchedly blinded; and that thus the glory of Christ may be said to be darkened amidst this corruption of nature. But, on the other hand, the Evangelist maintains that, in the midst of the darkness, there are still some remains of light, which show in some degree the divine power of Christ. The Evangelist admits, therefore, that the mind of man is blinded; so that it may justly be pronounced to be covered with darkness. For he might have used a milder term, and might have said that the light is dark or cloudy; but he chose to state more distinctly how wretched our condition has become since the fall of the first man. The statement that the light shineth in darkness is not at all intended for the commendation of depraved nature, but rather for taking away every excuse for ignorance.^[5]

As I understand him, Kuyper would define this light as common grace. In Kuyper’s words:

The first is that as Creator of that world he is its Life and its Light, and that he has remained the Light of the world even after the darkness of sin had come over that world. This is common grace^[6]

Such a light shining in the world could also be understood as a matter of general revelation as Paul explains in Romans 1:18-23. Dr. Thomas in his essay on general revelation defines common grace and general revelation as follows:

Common grace and God’s providential acts. If human discoveries in medicine, science, and the like through the centuries are not part of God’s general revelation, how does one account for them? Another look at God’s common grace and His providential acts may explain their origin. Someone might ask, “Are not these synonymous with general revelation?”24 Yes, common grace and providence do overlap with general revelation to some extent, but the latter in particular also operates beyond the boundaries of general revelation. God causes His sun to shine on the evil and the good and brings rain on the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45), but He does not do so in equal amounts at all times. Some benefit more and some less from His common grace exhibited in various places according to His providential wisdom, not as a part of general revelation. God’s providence has allowed many Americans to grow up in a land where His Word is freely proclaimed, but not so with those who grew up in the U.S.S.R. earlier in the twentieth century. God’s providence provided for the healing of Epaphroditus in Phil 2:27, 30, but it did not provide for the healing of Paul in 2 Cor 12:7-10. His providential actions are not the same toward all people at all times and in all places. Though God’s providential acts can be a part of His general revelation, they also can differ in their effects from His general revelation. God’s providential acts allow for a much larger span of interpretive variation than general revelation.^[7]

Thomas would limit general revelation to what God in fact reveals. God then as a work of providence disbursed as God determines could be defined as “common grace”:

Some benefit more and some less from His common grace exhibited in various places according to His providential wisdom, not as a part of general revelation.

Thomas would thus not contend that common grace is evenly distributed over the world, nor that all things done by human beings even as a matter of ingenuity are “common grace.” He distinguishes the USA from the USSR as displaying different degree of God’s common grace in the lives of the people even if the USSR required human ability to enforce.

As an aside here, Thomas’ use of the phrase differing from Kuyper underscores one reason for the contention over the phrase among some today, they are in fact arguing over the definition of a phrase. This is mixed in with a more general contention which makes a clear discussion problematic.

^[1] John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 32–33.

^[2] Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 1916.

³⁰ John moves easily between the thoughts of life and light; see 3:16–19; 8:12; 12:46–50, etc.

³¹ Sub ζωή.

³² Marcus Dods thinks that the words mean “that the life which appears in the variety, harmony, and progress of inanimate nature, and in the wonderfully manifold yet related forms of animate existence, appears in man as ‘light,’ intellectual and moral light, reason and conscience.”

³³ For this thought in later Judaism, cf. 1 Baruch 4:2–3: “All they that hold it (the Torah) fast are appointed to life; but such as leave it shall die. Turn thee, O Jacob, and take hold of it; walk towards her shining in the presence of the light thereof.”

³⁴ McClymont stresses the definite article before “light,” which, he thinks, “brings out its universality as it exists in the Word.” Similarly Plummer, “the one true Light.”

^[3] Leon Morris, The Gospel according to John, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), 74.

^[4] D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 119–120.

^[5] John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 33.

^[6] Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace: God’s Gifts for a Fallen World: The Historical Section, ed. Jordan J. Ballor, Melvin Flikkema, and Stephen J. Grabill, trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman and Ed M. van der Maas, vol. 1, Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press; Acton Institute, 2015), 482.

^[7] Thomas, Robert. n.d. “GENERAL REVELATION and BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS.” Accessed September 27, 2023. https://tms.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/tmsj9a.pdf.

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Faith and Glory John 5:44

09 Wednesday Oct 2024

Posted by memoirandremains in Biblical Counseling, Faith, Faith, John

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Faith, glory, John 5:44

(The following are my notes from my lecture at the ACBC 2024 Conference)

My text will be, John 5:44

44 “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the

only God?

Now let us pray that God will bless his Word and grant us wisdom to know and hearts to receive:

Father of lights

God of all glory

May we learn not to trust ourselves

But may we rather trust you

The God who raises the dead.

May our hope not be in ourselves

But in Christ raised from the dead.

May your Spirit

Fix our minds on the things above

Where Christ is, raised and seated at the right hand of God

May seek no help in ourselves

But may we seek the glory which comes from you

The only wise God.

In the name of our savior, Jesus Christ

Amen.

Summary: I am going to provide my notes, so you don’t need to worry about writing notes—assuming something here is useful.

Here is the overview. It comes directly from the text I quoted, John 5:44: faith and glory. The intersecting lines of faith and glory in this text are two themes which from through the Scripture from Creation until the Renewal.

To explain all which comes together in this seemingly simple verse would exhaust a book much less an hour of talking. So, forgive me when you realize I have left much unsaid. I recorded this lecture, and in going over my notes, I have added a bit here and there.

I tell you nothing new when I say faith has importance to our life. But glory seems like something we can ignore.

Before the Fall, glory from God was something we were gifted by grace. After the Fall, laying hold of God by faith became a need.

The ways in which faith and glory work together is question in counseling which we cannot avoid, both for ourselves and for the counselee.

As Jesus says in our verse, if you get this wrong, if you hold onto the wrong sort of glory, you exclude faith. It is a simple premise with enormous effect upon the counselor and counselee.

The words counselor and counselee bother me a bit. It makes one an expert and the other a client. It can create too great a distance between brothers and sisters who have come together. You are there to

²Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 6:2 You are there to bring your friend – and many people I have counseled have become my friends – someone in your family, for we are the family of God, someone in the same body, for we are the body of Christ, before the throne of Grace that we may find help in a time of need.

Someone has come to you for wisdom. And so, you together look for wisdom in the Scripture and to ask of Christ,

³in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Colossians 2:3

Someone has come to you confessing their sin (for we should confess our sins one to another (James 5:16)) and seeking help so they may learn more of what we must do to put our sin to death.

¹³For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Romans 8:13 (ESV)

Someone has come to for solace, knowing that we should weep with those who weep.

Someone has come to because they are sorrowful, and you are there to teach them how to say

⁵ Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation

Psalm 42:5 (ESV) Someone has come to you in fear, and with them you both must learn the lesson of Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.”

All human beings are the children of Adam and Eve, who hid in shame and fear at their sin. They lost glory, and we inherit their shame and fear. We inherit the punishment which God laid upon them, the strife and disease, the curse upon Creation, the body which will only die. We who were so glorious at creation, had dominion over the creation, perfect in body and soul, are now corrupt and weak. Adam lived for over 900 years. We are ancient at 90 and rarer still at 100.

There was the Fall, then the Flood, when our forebears again failed. And after the Flood? Again, the people are quite certain God is not one to be trusted. Not really. So, they come up with their own plan:

Genesis 11:4 (NASB95)

4 They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

God is not to be trusted. We will need to trust ourselves. There is faith. We need to make a name for ourselves. There is glory of men.

We were created to be glorious. You and I were made to be glorious. Yes, we have fallen, but our desire is to be glorious. We have pathetic rituals to substitute for real glory:

²⁵Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

1 Corinthians 9:25 (ESV) Who were the men who ran in the games which Paul had seen? Who won the World Series in 1908? Who was President of Yale in 1956? Who was the general at the battle of Carchemish? Do you even know that battle which changed the course of history? What was your great grandmother’s greatest joy? How quickly even the greatest human achievements become lost to time.

Ever since we fell, two troubles have haunted human beings. We do not quite trust God –there is the failure of faith. We desperately need glory, there is the price of sin.

Peter wrote we will receive praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ—as the end of faith which remains steady through trial and shame.

Here is a theme we could trace through Scripture had we time. It also an axis about which the troubles of life revolve. We know shame when we sin. We know shame when we are sinned against.

This leaves us a choice. We can reach for the glory of men. Or we exercise faith and so seek the glory of God. All our good, all real good, eternal good comes from God:

¹⁷For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, ¹⁸as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:17–18 (ESV) We cannot take hold of the unseen with hands. We take hold of God by faith. If all the good we need comes from God, then we need faith to take hold of it. William Gurnall a pastor from 400 years ago wrote:

All the Christian’s strength and comfort is fetched without doors, and he hath none to send on his errand but faith: this goes to heaven and knocks God up; as he in the parable, his neighbour at midnight for bread. ^[1]

All the good we need is with God. As we sing

Ponder anew what the Almighty can do

If with his love, he befriends thee.

A hundred hymns come to mind. But we are in a hurry, and I must press on to the goal.

I have a very simple goal, to encourage you to not trust yourself, to not seek adulation, to not seek any human glory. Human glory may be adulation of others. It may be power over others. It may be fame or reputation. It may be nothing more than fitting in.

Human glory, human power, human adoration, are light, momentary things, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanities.” (Eccl. 1:1:3)

When we need wisdom,

when we have sorrow,

when we repent,

when we fear,

when we are weak,

When the foundations are destroyed,

What can the righteous do?

Ps. 11:3 What can we do? By faith lay hold of God for

A weak faith can lay hold on a strong Christ.^[2]

If your hope is not securely fastened to Christ, you will be casting around to find some other technique to add to your counseling. You will be digging out your half remembered mention of aversion training from a college psychology class and watching videos on EMDR. You will follow the psychotherapist and lay hold of Maslow.

The door of doubt opens easily. Human glory always beckons.

Look with me at John 5. Jesus comes to a pool in Jerusalem. The sick and blind and lame lay about the deck of the pool. Jesus comes to one man who had been sick for 38 years. Jesus asks the man if he wants to be healed.

The man apparently believed that getting to the water soon enough would heal his body. I have often wondered what the man must have thought when Jesus asked him the question.

The man was not thinking of Jesus, “Who is this guy?” He does not think, “I bet he will heal me?”

So what he says is, “I cannot get in the water fast enough.”

Jesus interrupts reality, what always happens, what we expect to happen with the instruction that the man should pick up his bed and go home.

This sets up the conflict with the authorities. The set up for the text in verse 44 has its start with the man walking with his mat. There are a series of things the authorities cannot believe.

They see the man walking. What are you doing? they demand. Why are you carrying your bed?

If you read the commentators, you will likely find a discussion at this point about whether this was actually a rule somewhere written down that one was not permitted to carry their mat on the Sabbath. But it is no matter whether it was a written rule or not. There were things that were done and not done. Is there a written rule to not sing at the top of your voice in a crowded elevator? Does the absence of a written rule matter?

The authorities wanted the man to get in line, to fall in, to be a good Jew on the Sabbath. So, they had to stop him.

No one denies that the man was healed. When the man tells them it was Jesus, no one denies that Jesus was the man who gave the command to take the bed and go home.

Jesus has done something which makes no sense. Couldn’t he have healed the man on Monday or Friday? Why the Sabbath? Why tell the man to take his mat home?

This story will end with Jesus telling the authorities they cannot believe. Believe what? They believe he healed the man. They believe he gave the command.

What sort of belief does Jesus talk about?

Belief, faith is a key theme to the book of John. From beginning to end it is about belief. The most famous verse in the Bible makes this point:

¹⁶“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16 (ESV) The Jews would have welcomed a prophet who fit into their expectations. But Jesus upset all. He healed and gave this command on the Sabbath, and this could not be. What are you doing, they in effect demand. He answers,

My Father is working until now, and I myself am working. John 5:17.

Jesus has upset their expectations. And so rather than adjust their expectations, they seek to remove the real problem:

¹⁸This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

John 5:18 (ESV) These men knew what God should be like. They knew what a prophet should do. But Jesus altogether challenges their expectation.

It is interesting that no one of them has a name, not the man, not the authorities. They are a mass, self-serving, self-approving, self-glorifying.

The man is not even recorded thanking Jesus.

No one has the faith to trust Jesus against the crowd.

Jesus does not seek to coax faith. He does not plead, he proclaims.

Jesus claims more. He gives life to the dead. He will judge all.

25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

John 5:25 (NASB95)

See this from the place of the authorities. At each step Jesus has raised the bar. At each step what he has said has become more seemingly impossible.

We are looking after 2000 years. We have the testimony of the Scripture. We have the life of the Church.

When we read this, we read the words of Jesus in the Bible. We are not hearing the words in the Temple being spoken by one who seems to be a mere man.

Imagine yourself standing there with the authorities. A man stands before who is claiming to be equal with God. He will later tell Phillip, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” John 14:9 There is God standing before Phillip speaking to Phillip. So Phillip trying to make sense looks around Jesus to see God. He is trying to fit Jesus into what he could expect.

But there is no other. As TF Torrance said, “There is no God hiding behind Jesus’ back.”

Jesus is being hard on their expectations. He healed a man, on the wrong day.

But we still have not reached the real problem. I want you to see this clearly, because this discloses one of the great problems in counseling. The difficulty is not Jesus’ claim. The trouble lies with us.

We too often bracket faith into something one does once and then it is finished. We can treat faith as if it were necessary for salvation and then could be put away.

It is like an umbrella which should be used in the rain, but no one would keep it open indoors.

We know that we must first ask about salvation when counseling. It is wise to cover salvation at length when we begin counseling.

Jay Adams explained:

It is, therefore, only redeemed human nature that (like Adam’s nature before the fall) is capable of assuming moral obligations to God. That is why Christian counseling is for believers alone, and evangelism (precounseling, if you prefer) is for unbelievers (who come for counseling). ^[3]

Until salvation, until union with Christ, the words of the Bible are a moral code. They are sublime philosophy and psychology, explaining in poems and stories the secrets of the human heart. But without the Holy Spirit within the counselee, the words will not transform.

HALFWAY

There are so many places I wish I could slow and explain more, and here is one: to explain how what seem to be mere words will remake the human heart. Take that as homework for later. How does union with Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit within the heart, the words of Scripture, how do these things transform?

So yes, we must confirm salvation before we can counsel. And we must believe to be saved. But you must do more than ask, “Did you pray the sinner’s prayer?” It is not an action, it is faith. It takes belief.

What then is belief? What is faith?

The word belief can mean either a weak opinion or unquestioned knowledge. You could believe your team will win the World Series that would be an opinion., You could also say you believe that all human beings around are real—not your imagination. That would be unquestioned knowledge.

There are many people who say they believe Jesus, but then when Jesus presses them their faith fails, because it was more an opinion than a settled fact.

It is just that quavering sort of opinion so called belief which causes the real problem here. Jesus has healed. The miracle is unquestioned, but they cannot bring themselves to be certain. Is this man God?

You can imagine, the people in the crowd, looking at one another and confirming to each other that Jesus has gone mad. Who can believe such a crazy thing? And so, they rely upon one-another to test their belief and exclude Jesus as the source of true knowledge.

True faith is actual knowledge. It is not a bare idea. It is the sort of knowledge which settles upon an object and then does not move. It has an object, Christ himself. Theologian Van Mastricht wrote in his Theology that true faith involves the intellect. It involves the will. It involves our affections. It is an act of receiving

Several acts coincide in saving faith—knowledge, assent, consent, trust, trust, and so forth—we must observe that one particular act is predominate among them—the act that when present, salvation is present, and when absent, salvation is absent thus the act that is called Saving. What act is it then? … Receiving.

Vol. 2, p. 8. It is a belief which grounds all knowledge. It is knowledge which grounds all action. It is knowing the sun in the sky will not fall to the ground, that the sunwill go behind the horizon, and reappear tomorrow.

If you want to exhaust this topic, then the 577 pages of John Owen’s Justification by Faith will answer your questions. Faith has more facets than you may realize.

If you were to stand there, having seen Jesus heal a man, what would you believe? Could you believe? Do you see what a supernatural sight is here? To see this man speaking and know there was a miracle. You would know the world was far more strange than you had considered. But could you believe this was God?

Will this person who has called upon you believe? Do see how great a thing is here?

Do not hurry past this point. Do not think faith is a box to check so that we can move on to the serious matter of counseling. Faith is far more than the right answer to get a salvation you can put in your pocket, like a ticket.

Do not think that you have such great wisdom and skill that counseling will depend upon you. The strength in counseling is not that you have imbibed Erich Fromm or have mastered some technique.

When someone is broken with shame of what they have done or what has been done to them, is it your skill which will give them hope? When someone is fearful because of the past or the future, you will put them at ease?

But since you are listening to this, you will think, it is Jesus. “I know the answer, Jesus.”

Fair enough. Jesus, the king upon the Throne of Grace. How then will bring the counselee to the Throne of Grace? You can read Hebrews 4 or Psalm 18. But how do those words work? How do the words in the book connect with the work in the heart? There is strength there, to be sure. But that strength is often little more than words when we treat them as just words. What moves us from just sounds to ideas, from bare ideas to life-changing ideas?

What connects words to God?

It is faith which lays hold of God.

How many people must have wanted a miracle from Jesus. But we read that only one man received a healing that day. Jesus did not plead with them to come. He seemed to push them away. He made the cost of faith greater and greater at each phrase.

He tells them plainly, Do not marvel at this. But how could they not? This man will call the dead to life? Who has seen anything like this? Yes, there will be a resurrection at the end of time, but that will be God calling the dead to life. How can this man say such a thing?

The faith which we need is not an opinion which rests upon the consensus of the crowd.

True faith, the faith we need, does not tap a neighbor on the shoulder and looks for confirmation. True faith does not rest upon the glory of men.

True faith in God rests upon God. It seeks the glory of God and seeks glory from God. (And there are another two ideas I will not explore.)

Look at how Jesus speaks to Martha at the tomb of Lazarus. She believes her brother will rise on the day of resurrection. Then Jesus presses her, he says, I am the resurrection and the life. He says plainly, Do you believe this? Do you Martha, here and now, receive this as true? Do you consent and stake your hope upon this? That is what we are called to do.

Think of a simple matter. You tell your friend some truth, something about your past. You want to share your life and so tell your life. But your friend looks at you confused and does not believe you. No life has been shared even though the words have been said. A young man proposes marriage and the girl laughs. The words have been said, but if she does not believe no life has been shared.

Why would we be surprised that it would be different with God? God is personal, God is tripersonal. When you believe in Christ, you believe in a person. When the Spirit opens your eyes, your eyes are opened by a person who gives and receives love and friendship by faith.

Faith is not an abstract opinion. Faith is the way persons related to open another. Anger, hatred, wrath do not require faith to give or receive. Another person could simply hurt you. You don’t have to cooperate. But true friendship, true marriage requires faith between the persons.

God has been giving offers of love and friendship. In Christ, God has come as a man like you and me. And it was precisely God at his most obvious, that we balked. The authorities, and think of yourself as one of the authorities, perplexed and looking at Jesus.

The authorities there looking at Jesus, thinking to themselves, You are just a man, like us. And Jesus would say, I am. I am God tabernacled among you. But rather than simply receive the friendship he offered, they disbelieved. They refused to believe.

Everyone looks at his neighbor, seeking confirmation and support. Everyone wants to be approved and accepted by the crowd—whatever that crowd may be. We want to rest our opinions upon the most, the agreed, the accepted by others. We want to rest in the wisdom of crowds, when God says to us alone to rest on him alone.

Yes, we are brought into a family, a body, a nation, a people of God. But we are brought through a narrow door which fits us each alone with faith in God in Jesus Christ alone. We are brought from one world to another, but we come in through a narrow gate. (And there is another idea which I must hurry past.)

It is not uncommon for us biblical counselors to think that the university professor or the clinical psychologies or the expert psychiatrist has delved into the very heart of human beings and knows the secret workings of the mind. Freud more or less started that myth, that he could look into the deep well of the unconscious mind and bring up secrets.

If we took the time, we would learn the Scripture has been there first. God knows the secrets of the heart (Ps 44:21) And in the Scripture we can often find matters disclosed which explain the working of the heart. Jesus in this place what hinders their belief, what keeps them from faith:

⁴⁴How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

John 5:44 (ESV)

Let me rephrase what is being said as if-then statements.

If you seek glory from men, then you cannot believe.

Glory from other men makes it impossible to believe. Here is a matter which we must seriously consider when giving counsel. We must both believe, we must both have faith, because faith obtains for us the good which we need to counsel.

But seeking glory from, seeking the glory of, other human beings hinder faith. So, seeking glory and faith are connected. But how?

We have these same themes joined in John 12, at the end of Jesus’ public ministry.

37 But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him.

Ask this of yourself. What hinders your faith? Why do you trust Jesus, but only so far? Sure, he will raise the dead – but does he really care about me, today, as I am?

Why does our faith go to a certain point, and then seem to fail?

John gives two reasons the people cannot bring themselves to truly believe this is the Son of God. First, he notes the punishment of God in bringing judgment upon the people. We will pass by this for now. We are still trying to understand what was in John 5, the connection between faith and seeking glory.

John then explains why they cannot believe:

42 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.)

John 12:42-43. It is glory from men and glory from God, it is how one sort of glory keeps us from faith.

Think about this for a moment. Exercising faith is changed into a new register. Faith is trusting in another. Faith is a dependence upon another. It is belief in another. It is receiving from another.

But there is another reaching out, another desire which is parallel. The desire for glory, the love of glory. We cannot trust God but love glory from men. We cannot be asleep and awake, alive and dead, here and there at the same time.

Someone who hears this will think, “Ya, but that is no temptation for me. I am not tempted by glory. I am not interested in being praised. I don’t need everyone to say my name or cheer me on. I have not really seen counselees who conceited and who need to be constantly praised. At least no one who would ever admit to such things.

“I can trust Jesus. This really is not a problem in my counseling.”

It is precisely such a one who is in danger. I spoke about this at the beginning of this talk: glory is not just praise. It is being approved and it is also not standing out. It is having a place. It is trusting in yourself. It is trusting in others.

It is the fact that we do not really trust Jesus as much as we should. A trouble that our counselees will have and a trouble we will have, is that we hold back sone small part of our life. We fear to give God control.

The Israelites were told, every seventh year leave the land fallow. Trust me, God tells them, I will provide. But they could not trust him. As for 70 years they were sent into exile, so that God’s land would have its 70 Sabbath years. They could not trust God that far.

When things are far too much for us to bear, we call on Jesus. When our lives are in danger, when we have cancer. When there is no hope in medicine, then we trust Jesus.

When a counselee has been found out, when a marriage is coming to an end, when a scheme at work has been discovered, if there is an arrest or shame, then we call upon Jesus.

But, whenever we see some way to handle the problem on our own, we will trust ourselves. I don’t need Jesus to commute to work. I can trust myself.

It is when we realize that we cannot, do some-thing, then we will exercise faith. As long as we can trust in ourselves, or trust in other creatures, we do not feel the need to trouble Jesus with this moment. Until God strikes us, we are with Nebuchadnezzar boasting in Babylon, then we are found grazing like a cow until God removes the burden.

If I may quote William Gurnall once more

Indeed, all the saints are taught the same lesson, to renounce their own strength and to rely on the power of God. (The Christian in Complete Armor, p.30)

The knowledge of faith allows us to know all other things. God gives us trouble, so that we will learn to trust him and to exercise faith. You cannot learn swimming from a book alone. You can read the theory, but into your body must work to keep you afloat, then you learn to swim. It is the same with faith. You can read about faith, you can hear about faith, but until you are fearful, and there is no escape, you will not exercise faith:

³ When I am afraid,

I put my trust in you.

⁴ In God, whose word I praise,

in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.

What can flesh do to me?

Psalm 56:3–4 (ESV)

When we learn we cannot, then we learn that Christ can.

But these are not things we can bark at a counselee and expect them to change. No one throws a child into the middle of the Pacific Ocean from a freighter to teach the child to swim. There is a shallow end of the pool and an instructor who guides. No one expects a lamb to battle wolves.

You are seeking to shepherd another’s soul, as your soul has been shepherded by others. That is discipleship. A shepherd does not drive sheep on. A shepherd leads. A shepherd guides and protects. You will walk with another and before another and slowly walk them to the throne of grace.

As Sibbes wrote:

What should we learn from hence, but ‘to come boldly to the throne of grace,’ Heb. 4:16, in all our grievances? Shall our sinsdiscourage us, when he appears there only for sinners? Art thou bruised? Be of good comfort, he calleth thee; conceal not thy wounds, open all before him, keep not Satan’s counsel. Go to Christ though trembling; as the poor woman, if we can but ‘touch the hem of his garment,’ Matt. 9:20, we shall be healed and have a gracious answer. Go boldly to God in our flesh; for this end that we might go boldly to him, he is flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone. Never fear to go to God, since we have such a Mediator with him, that is not only our friend, but our brother and husband. Well might the angels proclaim from heaven, ‘Behold, we bring you tidings of joy,’ Luke 2:10. Well might the apostle stir us up to ‘rejoice in the Lord again and again,’ Phil. 4:4: he was well advised upon what grounds he did it. Peace and joy are two main fruits of his kingdom.^[4]

You are to walk with and to show another the way to this Throne. But you will not know this way, until you have come yourself. Your sorrow, and sin, and fear, and failure, have been schools for you to learn prayer, and repentance, and hope. Nothing is lost to the design of Christ and the work of the Spirit.

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, ⁴who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

2 Corinthians 1:3–4. What you have received, you pay out. You give what you have been given. You learn to put no trust in the creature, to not make flesh your strength (Jer. 17:5), to seek no the glory from men. All these things will fail. The heavenly bodies will be burnt up and dissolved. (2 Pet. 3:10). But the Word of the Lord will not fail.

Persevere in faith. Faith, faith, a thousand times faith we need.

Faith hath two hands, and with both she lays earnest and fast hold on King Jesus. Christ’s beauty and glory is very taking and drawing; faith cannot see it, but it will lay hold on it.^[5]

There is an inheritance for faith, incorruptible, undefiled, which will not fade away. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory.

^[1] William Gurnall and John Campbell, The Christian in Complete Armour (London: Thomas Tegg, 1845), 13.

^[2] Thomas Watson, A Divine Cordial; The Saint’s Spiritual Delight; The Holy Eucharist; and Other Treatises, The Writings of the Doctrinal Puritans and Divines of the Seventeenth Century (The Religious Tract Society, 1846), 49.

^[3] Jay Edward Adams, A Theology of Christian Counseling: Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling (Grand Rapids, MI: Ministry Resource Library, 1986), 121.

^[4] Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1862), 46.

^[5] Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 446.

The End of the Digression

03 Thursday Oct 2024

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Abraham Kuyper Common Grace

in the next chapter Kuyper finally moves on from a tedious digression concerning Israel. He could have made his point in few words, there are some who have inverted Israel’s relationship to the world. The world was not created for Israel. If anything, God has given Israel for the world. It culminated in the Messiah. However, at the death of Christ, Israel abdicated its position. (He will address Israel’s redemption in this chapter). God’s intention was always to redeem the world, not a single nation. That can be seen in the history of Israel before Christ and is even more apparent after Christ. Unfortunately some have weighed Israel as of more importance than all the rest of humanity. They are wrong. Let us now return to the doctrine of common grace, which is indeed common to creation.

I found this portion of book largely unhelpful and inexplicably prolonged. It ends with these thoughts

Israel again. Kuyper returns yet again to Israel and perhaps even more to his concern of some within the Christian Church who hold to a false view. His language at this point is sufficiently pointed that it is difficult to summarize, “And thus in a noticeable way, within our circles the false particularism, the false exclusivism, the spirit of conceit and of self-elevation and bigotry—in short, the sectarian demon—has crept in.”

The overall contention is fair enough. God restrains the effects of sin generally at the fall. God gives primary attention to the family Abraham, which leads to the Christ. The family of Abraham do not see the Christ as he is, the Savior of the world but except their own position to be made paramount.

Christ dies, Ascends, and rules over-all. The Spirit is gives voice to the languages of the various nations. Israel continues to exist miraculously and will eventually be redeemed en mass.

Why then Kuyper’s seemingly unnecessary digression as to Israel and the “particularistic” Christians who give an unwarranted emphasis to Israel? The tide of such opinion has been “beaten back.” Had it not been for the efforts of some, the extent of common grace would not be apparent nor known.

The reason for such “leaven” being a temptation is the “evil” in our hearts.

And so Kuyper sees his contention as an issue which runs to the heart of the Gospel.

Special Providence and Common Grace

03 Thursday Oct 2024

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Abraham Kuyper Common Grace, Common Grace, General Providence, Special Providence

Kuyper continues with his analysis of the issue to what extent is God peculiarly concerned with Israel? In this chapter he changes the focus somewhat from concerns to purpose and providence.

As to purpose, he emphasizes the fact that the Lord, God incarnate, is Jesus a Jew, a descendent of David. Israel then has fulfilled a remarkable place:

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, ²which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, ³concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh ⁴and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, ⁵through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, ⁶including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,

⁷To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 1:1–7 (ESV) The phrase at the end of verse 3, according to the flesh, is uncontested. And Jesus upon his return will be according to the flesh still a descendent of David.

From this he concludes, Israel was given for the nations. In this I can concur (as if my concurrence would affect Kuyper’s value), Kuyper’s point here is clear. He also clarifies an emphasis from earlier chapters which were puzzling upon close inspection: what dragon is he seeking to slay? A belief that the nations and indeed the world and history were given for the purpose of supporting Israel is rejected.

To prove this point, Kuyper relies upon the many references in the OT to the “world,” the “earth.” As Paul writes in Romans:

²⁷Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. ²⁸For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. ²⁹Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, ³⁰since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. ³¹Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Romans 3:27–31 (ESV) God is the God of all. God cares for Israel and for not Israel.

This leads us to general and special providence. God for the time held Israel under his special providence. God cares for the death of a sparrow and the function of stars on the far side of the universe. Nothing escapes the concern and sovereignty of God. All such concern is the general providence of God.

God’s concerns for the nations under the Mosaic Covenant granted general providence to Syria and Nineveh. God’s special providence was reserved for Israel. We read about Babylon, but primarily as it concerns Israel. This was necessary such that Israel could be continued as the cradle of the Lord.

Prophets are sent to Nineveh: Jonah. Prophets pronounce doom over Nineveh: Nahum. Then once the Lord has come, Israel’s place of special providence has past.

Here then is a matter which he assumes an understanding. The manner in which special and general are distinguished is never quite clarified. Looking further afield I find this discussion:

If all men were, and had always been, alike trustful and loving children of the heavenly Father, there would perhaps never have been any occasion for making a distinction between the general and the special providence of God. The only distinction we should have needed to recognize in that case would have been as to the varieties of Divine providence, in view of the fact that the all-loving Father would cause widely different events to happen to His different children. If anyone, therefore, is inclined to deny the distinction which we have here made between general and special providence, and prefers to affirm that there is but one general providential order over mankind in the world, that the distinction is in man and not in God’s providence, his position cannot be seriously objected to, provided he does not thereby mean that the world is governed by impersonal and immutable laws, but will affirm with clearness and confidence that the world is governed by the all-loving, all-wise, omnipresent, and everywhere-active God. For, indeed, the only thing that is really “special” and out of order is the limitation which sin imposes upon the workings of Divine providence in so far as the self-will and opposition of men prevent the realization of the providential purposes of God concerning them^[1]

The degree of sovereignty is over all. It is the nature of the relationship which varies. Gerald Bray contends that God’s love is all God’s creation, even Satan (I don’t have the reference available). In that manner, the distinction is in the creature not the Creator. The distinction then is in the creature’s rejection of the love of God.

As such, we do not see God rejecting Israel and moving on to the nations. Rather, we see Israel having rejected God. This then makes sense of Paul’s observation that nations are brought in for Israel’s provocation to jealousy:

¹¹So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. ¹²Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

Romans 11:11–12 (ESV) Now Kuyper’s point is not the exegesis of such texts. And if his point is that God’s concern is far beyond Israel, I joyfully agree. What I do think is that Kuyper has a better argument which avoids the knots he ties for himself here.

I know that he hopes to return to common grace, which is common to creation. I do not think his argument was strengthened by this digression. But perhaps I was not troubled by his then environment. He also provides a good caution and example to not read the Bible through present circumstances.

^[1] Wilbur F. Tillett, “Providence,” ed. James Orr et al., The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia(Chicago: The Howard-Severance Company, 1915), 2483.

The Cul de Sac

27 Friday Sep 2024

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This is yet another instance of Kuyper confusing two points. The confusion becomes clearer (to my mind) as I continue to work through this section of his argument.

His conception of “chiliasm” seems to be structured as follows:

Before Christ, God had acted to keep Israel a segregated and separated people. They clung onto God and God cared for them with a degree which was exclusive to Israel alone.

Christians today are concerned with this segregated Israel.

Because God cared for Israel as a segregated people, in the future millennium, God will restore Israel and the interim time is solely for Israel’s interest. The nations existed to save Israel.

Having made this argument, Kuyper counters as follows:

Rather than being a segregated people wholly devoted to the Lord, Israel was stationed an international crossroads. It was under constant temptation from the nations. Only one King even tried to eradicate idolatry.

Israel rejected Christ and God no longer has any particular interest in Israel. The descendants of Abraham are just another group but there I no nation (unstated but plainly present), there never will be. God has ended with Israel.

Now, I fail to see the connection between these ideas. Israel never was the nation God called it to be a true kingdom of priests. How thinks otherwise? Israel was not even in national existence when Kuyper wrote.

Therefore – and here is where I fail to see the logic of transition – therefore, God will not have something to do with Israel later. Israel performed a momentary function, but now God cares for all.

Yes, of course, God cares for all human beings. This was a live issue in the First Century, must one become a Jew to be saved? The answer was unquestionably no.

That fact contains no necessary entailment of God will do later. The first covenant was abrogated. However, Kuyper wants to press the issue further: “Jerusalem is laid waste, and Israel’s national state is abrogated forever. Israel exists for the sake of the nations, it lives with the nations, and it disappears for the sake of the nations.”

If God wanted to make Israel a matter international importance, God would have to reconstruct an Israel in the middle of Europe. That dusty patch of the Ottoman Empire was a nowhere. Yet, as I write this today, Israel is a matter of far more importance to world politics than any other small stretch of land. There are violent protests in the United States over that backwater.

To quote Kuyper on this narrow point, “you will be able to understand how absurd it is, how contrary to all reason and all historical sense, to keep dreaming of Palestine as if today it could still be the heart, the center, the world market of the nations.”

Arguing from present political circumstances to what God is going to do is absurd. It is just as absurd to argue that the rebuilding of Israel means that God is instituting a millennial kingdom. Too many times Christians have read the Bible with a newspaper in one hand. Jesus did not return in 1988. https://ia601206.us.archive.org/14/items/ReasonsWhyTheRaptureWillBeIn1988PDF/14080011-88-Reasons-Why-The-Rapture-Will-Be-in-1988.pdf

Kuyper is not merely certain that he is correct, but goes as far to say that we obstruct the salvation of Jews and foolishly encourage any nascent Zionism, “Chiliasm, more than anything else, obstructs the true conversion of the Jews to the extent thatcit disproportionally stimulates their national sentiment and prevents converted Jews among us from reaching full conversion.” How this would interfere with the work of God is unclear.

I agree the work of God is across all humanity. I am not a descendant by blood from Abraham. But per Paul, Abraham is my father (if you will): “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.” (Galatians 3:7 (ESV) )

Moreover, what in the New Covenant prevents Jesus from ruling as David’s Son in Jerusalem? Now, I understand that Kuyper reads Jerusalem as a the Church. That is a possible reading. Eschatology is a debated matter which I do not need to resolve. And that debate will be resolved when Christ returns.

Kuyper’s insistence upon this point will be leveraged to prove there is a common grace to the world which extends beyond a narrow concern for Israel. I agree. Indeed, the premillennial reading assumes the breadth of God’s concern extends beyond Israel.

I have not studied Darby and perhaps there was such a Dispensational reading as narrow as Kuyper contends.

What Kuyper fails to prove is the connection between Israel before Christ and what God could do at the return of Christ. More to the point, I do not understand why Kuyper concludes he must fight this dragon before he continues his argument as to common grace.