Philokalia and Eastern Orthodox spirituality

In modern-day Evangelicalism, the issue of contemplative spirituality has come to the fore. People like Thomas Merton, M. Basil Pennington, Thomas Keating (Roman Catholics) and Richard Foster (Evangelical) have turned to the East in their search for spirituality. One possible stop point is that of Eastern Orthodox spirituality, with its idea of centering (contemplative) prayer and spiritual directors. Eastern Orthodox spirituality has a veneer of being Christian since it is practiced in the "Christian East," which for non-discerning Evangelicals means it is an acceptable Christian alternative.

The sourcebook for Eastern Orthodox spirituality is the Philokalia, a collection of writings from theologians and mystics in the East in the Hesychist tradition till the 18th century. Beginning with the Desert Fathers, and also the orthodox Eastern teachers like the Cappodocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzus), the evolving Eastern spirituality soon had a center at Mt. Athos, where generations of monks practiced and refined the monastics practices from its Neo-Platonic root.

Just because something has a long history and tradition does not mean that it is right. As heirs of the Reformers, we Protestants hold to the principle of Sola Scriptura. Unfortunately, I would have to post this caveat in light of the many Radical biblicists in the modern church: Sola Scriptura is a principle of appeal to authority. It is NOT an appeal to methodology. Many biblicists practice Solo Scriptura, in which there is an appeal to Scripture without the actual need to engage with what it says IN CONTEXT. They think that the mere citation of verses with some surface similarity to their position(s) is sufficient, a method used by the heretic Charles Finney for example to deny doctrine such as total depravity. My latest interaction with biblicists has shown me how terrible the situation is within the corpse of Evangelicalism.

The main issue here is that Eastern spirituality is essentially heretical. It is a Neo-Platonic scheme of ascension towards God. The only difference between that and the Neo-Platonism in Western spirituality is the distinction between God's essence (being) and His energies (works). Deification or theosis, which is the end game for Eastern spirituality, is participation in God's energies not in His essence, thus there is no ontological fusion with God's essence per se, although it is to be questioned how much this distinction holds in practice.

Eastern Orthodoxy has a relatively simple story. Humanity is made after God's image and created good. However, Man chose to sin. This "ancestral sin" however is not original sin and is not transmitted to Adam's posterity as such. The faculty of beholding God is the nous, or the mind's "eye of the soul" [Allyne Smith, Philokalia, The Eastern Christian Spiritual Texts: Selections Annotated and Explained (trans. G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Bishop Kallistos Ware; Woodstock, VT: Skylight Paths, 2012), xi], which is darkened by the Fall but otherwise still functional. Salvation in Eastern Orthodoxy is not to avert God's wrath, but rather to behold God through the usage of the spiritual discipline of contemplative prayer, which would bring one to theosis.

The contrast between the Scriptures and Eastern Orthodoxy can be seen as follows:

	Eastern Orthodoxy	Biblical view
Goal of Man	Theosis: Participation in the Divine (p. xiii)	Glorification: Enjoy and worship God in our transformed yet still creaturely bodies
Nature of the Fall	Darkened mind (nous), but only impaired; sickened, not dead (pp. xi, 178)	Radically depraved sinners totally corrupt in all their faculties
Nature of Sin	Sin is only in sinful acts, alien to human nature (pp. 28, 126); moral	Fallen nature of Man; forensic
How to be saved	Grow towards theosis, through spiritual disciplines and contemplative prayer	Justification by grace alone through faith alone
Individual or Corporate	Corporate setting. Spiritual directors required for growth towards theosis (p. 21)	Individual
Nature of salvation	Synergistic (Man needs to cooperate with God) (p. 96)	Monergistic (God alone saves)
How Jesus saves	Invoking Jesus' name in the "Jesus' Prayer" results in Christ burning up the impurity within the nous of the sincere believer practicing the prayer in order to grow towards theosis. (p. 113)	Meriting the righteousness in His life and death on the Cross, so as to die as an expiation and propitiation for the sins of all who repent and have faith in Him as their Savior
Our part in salvation	Believers ought to purify the nous from sin, and keep it from sin in the future (p. 52). Also, imitating the life of Christ in this world is needed (p. 209)	Empty hand of faith, i.e. nothing

Eastern Orthodoxy is fundamentally Pelagian, and it makes little difference if they do not think in those categories. Just like sin is objective meaning sin is sin regardless of what others think about it, Eastern Orthodoxy is Pelagian even though Eastern Orthodoxy do not have the categories for thinking in that manner. In other words, it is Eastern Orthodoxy's fault for misreading the Scriptures so badly they cannot think in forensic categories.

Eastern Orthodox spirituality flows from its anti-biblical teachings. It is a fundamentally Neo-Platonic ascent towards God. The problem is impurity of the mind's eye or nous, which is not much different from the Neo-Platonic problem being that of finitude. Sin is a creaturely problem, and the solution is clothing finitude up with the divine. We see here the rather obvious difference between Eastern Orthodox view of theosis and the biblical view of glorification. In theosis, one participates in something divine, which even using the essence-energies distinction, still has the creature in some sense participating in the Creator. In the biblical view of glorification however, the glorified saint does not ever "participate" in anything divine. Rather, he is made like Christ as the perfect image (ectype) of God. Christlikeness is the eschatological telos which Adam was made for, if Adam had not fallen, he would have progressed to be the perfect image and likeness of God. In glorification, the saint is made into the perfect eschatological image of God. An image however is still an image. We are like Christ in His glorified humanity, but His divine nature is always out of bounds to us. Finitum non capax infiniti; the finite cannot contain the infinite. Even in our glorified state, we are still creatures. It is easy here to see what's wrong with theosis. Even with the qualifications made by the essence-energies distinction, there is still a disturbing idea of participating in the divine, instead of in the image of the divine in Christ's glorified humanity.

The practice of Eastern spirituality arise from their unbiblical view of sin and salvation, and thus cannot be just taken and "contextualized" for Christians. Here are some choice quotes about the nature of prayer:

"The essence of prayer, then, is the mental ascent to God from the heart." -Theophan the Recluse, The Duty Also of Those Living in the World (p. 32)

"Prayer is a great blessing, and it embraces all blessings, for it purifies the heart..." -St. Hesychios the Priest, I,On Watchfulness and Holiness, Sec. 62 (p. 41)

For through unceasing prayer and the study of the divine Scriptures the soul's noetic eyes are opened" -Abba Philemon, II, A Discourse on Abba Philemon (p. 87)

Prayer in Eastern Orthodox spirituality is a human work required for salvation, not a means of grace. The "Jesus Prayer" is normally a single phrase in which the person praying it says "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me" (p. 108) and then repeats it over and over again like a mantra (p. 107). As the chart shows, the Jesus' Prayer basically is their idea of how they can invoke Christ's name for Him to save them, a practice which totally misunderstands the idea of calling upon Jesus' name for salvation in the Scriptures.

Eastern Orthodox spirituality is integral to their unbiblical system of doctrine, and thus the practices cannot be divorced from the underlying theology. Evangelicals who think they can take those practices and use them are playing with fire. There is simply no way one can say that they trust in Christ's work alone for their salvation, and then deny it with these practices which are intended as cooperative work towards one's own salvation. There is little difference between the idea of one's "ascetic efforts in prayer" being "designed to earn merit," and "our cooperation with God in protecting the grace of prayer that God gives to us" (p. 96). Both ways, Man has to do something to be saved, and thus Eastern Orthodox spiritual disciplines are still meritorious. Anyone who borrows from those practices therefore has mocked the death of Christ, and spat on His face, and needs to repent of this grievous sin against God.

Thinking with their kidneys...

Over at a previous blog post, some guy called "Darrel" decided to take pot shots at the entire post. The fascinating thing for me in the entire exchange is how much he is trying to make it all about me, while I want to focus purely on the issues. It fascinates me that someone thinks he can claim that the entire post is "mostly useless philosophical nonsense," and then begin to whine over and over again when I actually push back and call him on the mat for such accusations. One side it seems can make ALL the accusations they want, but then of course, the same privilege is not to be extended to me. After interacting with him, and seeing how he sees the exchange as "beneficial," I wonder if I should have applied Prov. 26:4 since he is now wise in his own eyes, but then, I don't begin interacting with my critics as if they were fools from the beginning.

The problem with at least some if not many professing believers is that they have bought into the zeitgeist of this era. Thinking has now been replaced with feeling, of which the kidney is the organ of emotions in the OT (And for those who want to dispute that, go look at the word in Hebrew in places like Job 19:27, Ps. 7:10, 26:2). Whereas the proper way is to deal with the substance of the arguments, now all one has to do it seems is to deny the proposition(s) without putting forward a viable counter-argument, and then go immediately to accusations of "hate" etc. Am I always right in what I claim? Probably not. But that's not the point. The point is that one actually has to deal with the real issues, not passive-aggressively claim that one is teachable yet refusing to actually deal with what the text is saying. In our current real-life example, "Darrel" has refused to actually deal with the brief exegesis of Eph. 4:11, as if asserting over and over again that the text is about individual spiritual gifts is enough as long as one does it over and over again. This is the same tactic the homosexual lobby does in society, and it seems at least some professing Christians have imbibed on the very same zeitgeist.

The sad fact is that it is highly likely that such people make up a majority of professing believers. That is why the Church as a whole is in such a sorry state. People it seems can't actually deal with actual arguments. They don't know logic, and thus they can't even parse out a syllogism even if their lives depended on it. We see this very clearly in our example, that when I briefly exegeted Eph. 4:11, the argument I posted was that it speaks about God's gifts to the Church, the Body of Christ. That is the entire point I was making, and "Darrel" completely missed that point. When I speak about the distinction between "gifts" and "offices," I first used the example of women as an example, and then, when he didn't get it, I spoke of gifted men living in sin. The main point I am driving at is that the qualifications for ministers goes MORE than mere gifts, and thus there IS a distinction between "gifts" and "offices." Yet, "Darrel" continues to miss the point. Do others also see the problem here? The problem is that "Darrel" totally missed the syllogism I was constructing. This shows how strangely illogical at least some if not many people are. It seems that even if I were to lay out the syllogism in clear propositional form with premises and conclusions, those same people will still miss the force of the syllogisms. That is why I say that some if not many people can't even parse a syllogism even if their lives depended on it.

That brings us back to the sad fact that many people can't think. They think with their feelings, they confuse people with issues, and then violate Mt. 7:1 over and over again as they emote, and emote, and emote, all the while portraying their ignorance for all to see. (It is one thing to disagree with me. I do not claim to have all the answers and I may be wrong. But it is another thing when one cannot understand the points I am making, and then through irrational incomprehension misrepresent them and attack me personally.) The real question therefore is: How can ministry be done to a people like these, a people irrational and illogical? To a people thinking with their kidneys, only God can work the miracle of giving them new sight, and we must pray for that to happen.

Do not forbid speaking in tongues?

So, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. (1 Cor. 14:39)

1 Cor. 14:39 is one key text for reformed charismatics, who claim to be following the Scriptures when they promote the continuation of the charismata. Followers of the hyper-Calvinist Vincent Cheung likewise hold to this view, which is really interesting because here we have the quest for illegitimate religious experience (QIRE) meeting the quest for illegitimate religious certainty (QIRC), otherwise known as Rationalism.

The problem with the usage of verses like 1 Cor. 14:39 is that such usage of scripture texts are nothing more than mere acontextual proof-texting. There is nothing worse than trying to establish a doctrine with texts divorced from their contexts. Using the same hermeneutical principle, we could hold to the following:

1. Christians should never take oaths (c.f. Mt. 5:34)
2. Christians should not resist evil at all (c.f. Mt. 5:36-42)
3. When sacked by your boss, a believer can take revenge by changing the record books to his boss' disadvantage in order to curry favor with others (c.f. Lk. 16:1-8)
4. Believers cannot eat any food that was strangled or had even a bit of blood in it, i.e Kosher (c.f. Acts 15:20b)
5. Christians ought to greet each other with a holy kiss every service (c.f. Rom. 16:16, 1 Cor. 16:20, 2 Cor. 13:12, 1 Thess. 5:26). And I think Paul meant it literally, not figuratively.
6. Women who are believers must keep their heads covered at all times during the service, and not cut their heart short, for such is a disgrace (c.f. 1 Cor. 11: 2-16). Again, Paul meant it literally when he penned those words.
7. If a believer is sick, he ought to confess his sins and pray for others, then he will be healed (Jas. 5:16). The word ὅπως is used followed by a subjunctive indicating a purpose or result clause. That means that a person who confesses his sins and pray for others ought to be healed.

My point should be evident by now. Merely citing Scripture without accounting for its context does not prove anything at all. In the case of the holy kiss and head coverings, understanding its historical situated-ness is the key to understanding the applicability of the commands for our time.

Likewise, when we deal with the sign-gifts, it is extremely simplistic to merely quote 1 Cor. 14:39, as if Cessationists have not read that text before or noticed it was there. Repeating 1 Cor. 14: 39 as a mantra over and over again is not an argument! One has to understand the text in its historical or rather redemptive-historical context before understanding how such an imperative applies to us. If we understand the sign-gifts to be revelatory, and as revelation it must end with the close of the canonical era (c.f. Heb. 1:1-2), then we understand the imperative of 1 Cor. 14:39 to be a past tensed imperative. In other words, through the passage of time, the command is applicable now NOT as "do not forbid the present speaking in tongues," but rather "do not forbid listening to the past speech of tongues and prophecy." No Reformed Cessationist have ignored this imperative, and thus none of us have violated 1 Cor. 14:39. On the contrary, it is the Charismatics who have violated 1 Cor. 14:39 in essence, by ignoring the clear revelation of the finality of New Testament revelation (Heb. 1:1-2).

Interestingly enough, reformed charismatics (mostly baptists) hone in to 1 Cor. 14:39, yet the much clearer commands in other parts of Scripture are ignored, like the following:

1. Churches ought to have appointed (i.e. ordained) elders (c.f. Acts 14:23, Titus 1:5). The elders are appointed by someone else, not self-appointed. Neither are they merely asked to be an elder, but appointed to do so.
2. Churches ought to have fraternal relations with other churches (cf Phm 1:1, 2 Jn 1:13), especially in diaconal assistance.
3. In dealing with doctrinal controversies, it is right and proper to appeal to a church council, as we can see in Acts 15. Such a council has the authority to pass down binding decrees to the local churches.

It is surely illustrative how reformed charismatics are so enamored of the imperative of 1 Cor. 14:39, while ignoring the other clearer imperatives of Scripture on church polity. But back to the topic, do we forbid speaking in tongues? No, we do not forbid the continual validity of the past revelations (which included tongues) as inscribed in the Scriptures, so we have not forbidden the speech of tongues, and as such we have followed 1 Cor. 14:39.

Questions regarding ministry and education

[See also Pastors and Seminary Education].

Q: Is seminary necessary for those going into ministry?
A: A seminary education, or the equivalent, is necessary for going into ministry.

Q: Why is seminary education, or its equivalent, necessary?
A: Ministry deals with issues of spiritual life and death. Just like a doctor requires training in dealing with bodily ailments, so a minister requires training in dealing with spiritual ailments.

Q: Isn't a heart of caring for people and a life of piety towards God in prayer and reading His Word sufficient?
A: No. Just as a doctor who cares for people and who interacts with doctors still requires further education and on the job training, so likewise a person who cares for others and who is pious still requires seminary and other ministerial training.

Q: But weren't the apostles unschooled, and thus isn't a requirement of seminary education an addition to the Bible?
A: No. The apostles had personal "seminary" level training with Jesus for 3 intensive years, and even after that, their training was not complete until Pentecost. Paul too went into Arabia for 3 years after his conversion to re-study the Scriptures, and before that he had trained under Gamaliel.

Q: But God works even in the ministries of those who are unlearned.
A: God also used a donkey to rebuke Balaam, but we don't go around looking for talking donkeys. God used a big fish to discipline Jonah, but we don't look for big fishes to execute church discipline. Just because God uses something does not mean that we should be content and disregard the perceptive will of God.

Q: Does that mean that someone who is not seminary trained (or the equivalent) should not go into ministry?
A: Yes. Since ministry involves issues of spiritual life and death, it is better not to go into ministry untrained for the task. God can and does use our imperfect service, but we should not be pragmatists and should follow God's perceptive will instead of presuming upon Him.

Q: Does this imply that full knowledge is required for ministry?
A: No. All Christians, including ministers, are still learning. But it's a sin to willfully neglect what has been known, the traditions of the Church, and thus ignore the collective knowledge, wisdom and insights of the saints, and attempt to minister accordingly. Just like doctors do not have full knowledge and should be ever learning, so likewise ministers should be adequately trained, and yet still continue learning.

Q: What do we say then of a church without adequately trained ministers?
A: It is a church without adequately trained shepherds, who ought to get training if and as soon as possible so as to avoid potential cases of pastoral malpractice.

Q: Are there any problems with a loving pastor who is not adequately trained?
A: Yes. Precisely because he cares for the flock and presumably the flock loves him, he has great influence over the sheep. If he unknowingly promotes error, the flock will follow him too because they trust him. There is nothing more dangerous than love (and zeal) without knowledge.

Unbelievable: Young, Restless, ... and no longer Reformed

Recently, the Unbeliever podcast by Justin Brierley hosted a discussion of Dr. James White with former New-Calvinist Austin Fisher, who wrote a book of why he has left the New Calvinist movement. The podcast can be listened to here.

The Gospel and theories of creation

The issue of the views of creation, while certainly academic, is not merely academic. Behind the various views lie major ramifications for faith and life. Here I would like to deal with the issue of history.

The Genesis accounts and the whole section normally termed "primeval history" (Gen. 1-11) are dealt with in various ways by advocates of the various creation theories. Key among many who deny 6-24 creation is relegating the creation account to some form of poetry or allegory. The best one could do was to affirm its overall historicity without at the same time holding to the necessary historicity of its parts, which is what the Framework view does with the Genesis account.

The main reason why creation is so important is because of what it does to history. If the Genesis accounts are fully historical, then what that implies for history is that world history actually begins the way the Bible says it would. Conversely, if the Genesis accounts are not in some sense historical, then that would tend to lead towards the idea that world history and redemptive history are at best parallel tracks. If we embrace the idea of two parallel histories, which are not always separate but ontologically independent of each other, then it will create problems for the universality of the Christian faith and evangelism.

The issue here is very simple: For example, I am non-white Chinese. Christianity as it comes to us is a "white-man's religion." Furthermore, Christian missionaries were often flawed and sometimes partook of the sins of the Western imperial powers in the 19th century as they bullied China into submission. The question therefore is: Why should the Chinese embrace Christianity, a religion historically (and I would certainly say wrongly) associated with imperialism and oppression?

There are various reasons that can be offered for why Chinese (for our example) should be Christians. The flimsiest reason is that it works; it provides for one's subjective spiritual and/or material needs. The "God-shaped hole" in one's heart after all *just* needs to be filled. The problem with this is that emotions are unreliable, and while I do believe that there is some sort of "God-shaped hole," in the sense that Man is made for God, people do not necessarily know or feel what they actually need, as the happy atheist will testify. The one who bases his faith on feelings of spirituality is like the shallow soil. When the plant grows up and unfavorable conditions come (which can be more than just persecution and also include one's emotional states), the plant of the Gospel will die in his heart and he will certainly fall away.

The second reason given for embracing Christianity, despite its alien origins, is that it speaks to the sin condition that I see in myself. Correlative with that is the evidentialist apologetic methodology proving the existence of Jesus, His death and His resurrection. The reasons here are better as it focuses on Jesus and the Cross, and such is the focus of Evangelicalism as a whole. The main problem here is that the sin condition is in some sense subjective. It depends on the person being convicted of sin based upon a rather subjective Christian realization of sin. The second reason suffers from the similar problem of subjectivity, and gives Christianity the impression of a crutch for weaklings — only for those who feel their sin in the Christian way. Now of course, some sense of sin is unavoidable, but falling short of the ideal can be construed in other fashions as it is done in other religions like Buddhism, where "sin" is impersonal and can be outweighed by good works. And the proofs concerning Jesus and His death and resurrection, while powerful in their own right, can be twisted to support pantheistic notions of Christ and Man, something which was seen in early Gnostism and now in the New [Age] Spirituality.

The third reason for embracing Christianity is through an appeal to its intellectual prowess and consistency, or Christianity as a philosophy and worldview. Such would appeal to intellectuals and philosophers. With their sophisticated arguments, they are convinced that Christianity provides the best answers to the ultimate questions. Be they Alvin Plantinga or William Lane Craig, they are intellectually convinced of Christianity and its universality, arguing for Christian theism against unbelief. Now this has much more virtue than the previous two since it appeals to more objective issues, and the use of evidentialist claims about Jesus here are more objective because they are not left drifting but correlated to a bunch of other philosophical and theological arguments for the Christian faith. Yet, the weakness here comes from its strength, its intellectual rigor, as it almost made Christianity the religion of Christian intellectuals and philosophers, or at the very least split Christians into two camps: the uninitiated, and the intellectuals. Lastly, the methodology itself has a flaw in the following: What happens if one day some philosopher suddenly proves (at least for a time) that Christianity is not the best and most rational system? Are we rationalists that only follow Christ to the extent that Christianity makes sense to us?

If we hold to the parallel tracks of history, it is not much of a surprise if non-Christians see the other track as irrelevant to "normal life." From a non-Christian non-white point of view, the claims of Christianity are merely just that, claims. Even if true, they have no relation to him and his history. After all, in the prevailing secular metanarrative, life evolved from non-life, humans evolved from primeval apes, and cultures and civilization develop naturally. Eastern non-materialists could conceivably accept supernatural occurrences in the history of Israel for example, but what has that got to do with *MY* country and culture? The history of China goes back 4000 years, so why should we listen to the "white men" who were living in caves while we were building great cities?

That is why the whole issue of creation is so important, because it attacks the supposed autonomous histories of cultures, even those as ancient as China's (or Egypt's). Primeval history especially in the table of nations of Genesis 10 established the historical basis for all of Christianity's claims of universality. It is because there is a real objective historical basis for sin that sin is sin and deserves damnation. It matters not whether someone is happier after he has jettisoned his faith, for feelings often deceive. It matters not whether one feels sinful, it matters not whether one feels that Christianity is meeting his need, it matters not whether he feels a "God-sized hole" in his heart. All these don't matter! It is because Christianity is historically objectively true on the origins of Man, that it is objectively true regarding everything else it teaches. No one for example dispute the fact of gravity (except theoretically). In the same way, Christian history should be claiming that level of truth.

Only a proper grasp of the historicity of the Genesis account will avoid a parallel track system of two histories, and only that can solve the problem of the universal claim of Christianity (not its universal appeal). If one holds to some version of the dual system of histories, then why would anyone be interested in hearing just another "abstract theory," especially during the times when they feel self=fulfilled?

It is because of this that I find holding to 6-24 creation necessary. The other views, while held to sincerely, do not seem capable of adequately answering the problem of universality. Why should a particular faith be universally applicable? Experience, guilt, miraculous evidences of the 1st century AD, and rationality all bypass the history of other cultures and peoples, and thus cut redemptive history from other cultures and people God did not work with in the Bible..

Reductio Ad Absurdum and Common Sense

[Previous post here]

The issue of "common sense" and "properly basic beliefs" is surely astonishing in light of the post-modern revolution. It seems that a more sophisticated natural theology and philosophy of sorts for some people is preferable to staring down the abyss of the failure of human philosophy of any kind. The failure of postmoderneity to construct a positive system does not imply that their negative critiques can be discarded. One cannot discount skeptical arguments just because skepticism fails to form a coherent philosophy (and it can't).

The problem with "common sense" is not that "common sense" is at some times useful, or that it should be discounted altogether. To discount "common sense" in toto is self-refuting. The question is not whether "common sense" is valid in some instances, but whether it can be used in reasoning about the grounds of knowledge and of knowing. In other words, to deny the validity of "common sense" for all instances is not self-contradictory.

The problems with appeal to "properly basic beliefs" is that it eliminates questions concerning these beliefs. Such beliefs, being "properly basic," cannot be questioned. However, upon what basis can we not question such beliefs? This is where some appeal to "common sense" is brought in. But as I have repeatedly pointed out, "common sense" is no proof for anything. To extrapolate from the usefulness of "common sense" in some instances to its usefulness in others is unwarranted. This is not to mention that "common sense" changes depending on one's expectations. Before the advent of quantum physics, what is "common-sensical" in science is different from what is "common-sensical" now. Nobody now bats an eyelid in speaking about photons or matter waves, but it was almost inconceivable for those reared in the Newtonian mechanical paradigm. So what exactly is "common-sensical"?

Speaking about "properly basic beliefs," it borrows a lot from Christianity and the Christian-influenced Western zeitgeist. None of this talk about "properly basic beliefs" will make sense in a non-Western culture, where for example a denial of the reality of the external world is considered "common-sensical." In this light, it should be interesting for "Reformed Epistemology" if they would get out of its cultural zone and actually engage (not just discount) Eastern philosophers, NOT Western-influenced Eastern philosophers. Such an engagement should prove that "properly basic beliefs" don't exist as such.

Even more homosexual bigotry!

Over in England, it seems some homosexuals have nothing better to do with their time. The homosexual "couple" Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow is suing the British government in an attempt to force churches to host homosexual "weddings." According to them, they sue because they want Christians to "recognize them" and this is what they want. Excuse me?! Since when do they have the right to force people to "recognize" their union as legitimate, and force people to give them what they want?

The problem with some homosexuals and especially the activists is that they think they deserve super rights. They are asking for rights that no one else has. They want the right to redefine marriage, the right to force people to celebrate their "union," the right to punish anyone who speaks out against them, and the list goes on. All the while, they are denying the rights of everyone else to hold to and act on their beliefs concerning the definition of marriage; they are denying the right of people to believe that homosexuality is sinful, they are denying the right of others to disagree with their promotion of wickedness, or even call it "wicked." In the name of "rights," they trample on the rights of everyone else.

This "couple" claim that they want to have a church wedding, and therefore they have a right to it. This is about the most narcissistic statement ever. All of us have many things we want. I want homosexual unions to be outlawed, so why aren't they promoting my right to have that want fulfilled?

As Dr. James White says, the homosexual agenda is not for equal rights, but for über rights. As a group, homosexual activists are duplicitous, vicious and hypocritical, and this alone should discredit their cause in society.

On Pietism: Why I am not enamored of the Korean Church

“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.

“‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’(Rev. 3:1-6)

Korean Christianity is often trumpeted as a model for world Evangelical Christianity. Korean Christians typically wake up early in the morning to pray for about 2 hours, and are devout Christians fervent for evangelism and missions, sending many missionaries around the world. Some of them even do missions where they emulate the 72 disciples of Jesus (Lk. 10:1-12), going from town to town witnessing about Christ while bringing no money and no food, relying on the people that they meet to give them shelter and food.

Nevertheless, I am not enamored of Korean Christianity. Korean Christianity in my opinion in general partakes of the same weakness of the Church of Sardis, and serious fault lines lie just beneath its surface. This is not to discount the good that Korean Christianity has done in the world, but to what extent such is beneficial to Christianity in the long term is questionable.

I am sure there will be many who would be horrified by my claim, and I fully understand that. Such comes from hearts that have been leavened by pietism, which had infected all of world Christianity through the Evangelical missions of the 18th-20th centuries. Piety, or outward godliness, has been elevated to a measure of prominence. From Philipp Jakob Spener, the founder of the Pietist movement within Lutheranism, to John Wesley, who brought pietism into Evangelicalism, to Charles Finney all the way to Rick Warren, with his "deeds, not creeds" mantra, pietism has infected much of world Christianity to the extent that to deny Pietism seems to be denying Christianity itself. It is so ingrained into the Christian consciousness that it takes radical surgery of the heart to remove it.

We would look at the practice of Korean Christianity, and then examine its flaws.

Prayer

The first issue we want to examine is the idea of prayer. The problem with prayer is not that prayer is bad, but that prayer is meant to function as a means of grace. In other words, prayer is the place where we meet God through His Word. In other words, it is a confession of weaknesses not of strength. Thus the whole idea of spending 2 hours in prayer could be confused with godliness, as if spending 2 hours daily in prayer is more godly than another person who spends 15 minutes in prayer! Don't get me wrong. Spending extended time in prayer before God is great. I loved the times when I have more than 1 hour in communion with God. All Christians should be encouraged to pray more often. But that is not the issue. The issue is when we use the time we have in prayer as a yardstick for measuring godliness. Suddenly, prayer becomes a measure of how godly one is. That is the whole point of portraying Korean Christians who spend 2 hours daily in prayer as a godly example. If the amount of time spent in prayer IS definitive of godliness, then the Pharisees ought to be considered very godly indeed. But we know they were whitewashed tombstones, clean only on the outside. So why are we putting people who spend hours in prayer up on a pedestal, as if those who spend the most hours in prayer are necessarily the godliest? The heretic Pelagius, who denied original sin, was probably one of the holiest monk in the early church. His denial of original sin was in the interest of motivating men to be godly, as he was trying to be. But, unless one is a Pelagian, anyone who claims to follow the historic Christian creeds must say that Pelagius is a heretic who is now in hellfire.

In the medieval era, medieval monks and nuns spent almost all the day in prayer and meditation, even confessing their sins to the extent that some of them flogged themselves. Prayer was regarded as a spiritual discipline then, as it is now in Evangelical pietism, and they were considered the epitome of godliness. Yet the most wicked sinners came from the monastic orders, like Johannes Tetzel and the many "holy" priests and cardinals who took part in the Inquisition, persecuting Christians who believed in the Gospel. Closer to the modern times, German Liberals like Friedrich Schleiermacher, Adolf von Harnack and Wilhelm Hermann were extremely devout Christians, at least externally. Besides Schleiermacher's questionable relationship with the married Eleonore Grunow, many German liberals were externally very devout. John G. Machen while he was studying for his doctorate was nearly taken in by the devout prayers of Wilhelm Hermann for example. So what do all these say about the idea of correlating godliness with prayer?

Speaking from experience, this promotion of prayer within the context of Evangelical pietism is probably the worst impediment to spiritual growth. Spending more time in prayer ironically creates spiritual pride, not necessarily because I was looking down on others who spent less time in prayer, but because I thought I was being more pleasing to God and knowing Him more. This "high" only lasted until the "crash" which came shortly afterwards. The more I strove in prayer, the worse off I was. While I was the youth Prayer IC in my first church I grew up in, I strove to grow deeper in prayer and tried implementing many programs for the youth to grow in prayer. I always felt that I was missing something, and was thus attracted to the growing "prayer warfare" stuff in the Third Wave Charismatic movement. As I was looking into those, my interest in prayer gradually disappeared, and the second year I was Prayer IC much less was done. Looking back, I saw my entrapment within the Pietism I grew up in, and how deadly it was for my spiritual walk in Christ. Ironically, the more one focuses on prayer, the less one would actually commune with God.

All of these just show how foolish we are to correlate prayer with godliness. Prayer is a sign of weakness, and we are all weak. It is never a sign of strength. Spending 2 hours in prayer is not more godly than spending 15 minutes in prayer. High-sounding words and elaborate phrases are no guarantee of closeness to God. Evangelicals might very well want to read some of the written prayers of the Roman liturgy, or even the Anglican liturgy. They are generally beautiful, regal in tone, mostly orthodox in theology, and would put many an Evangelical to shame for the comparative poverty of their own prayers. That does not imply that the ones penning them were actually godly though, although certainly some of them were.

Missions

Missions and evangelism are again good things that Christians ought to be engaged in. And we certainly owe Korean Christianity a debt in the amount of missionaries they send out regularly. Yet, we should realize that evangelism and missions in themselves are no guarantees of godliness. The Pharisees traversed land and sea to make one convert, and in the end made that guy twice a son of hell as he previously was (Mt. 23:15). The Counter-Reformation provoked a spate of Roman Catholic missions spearheaded by the Jesuits, and through their conversion of the natives of places like South America made those "converts" twice children of hell, and plunged the South American continent further into darkness for at least a century of two. Promising life, the Jesuits delivered death and damnation. Could one or two be saved through those missions? Perhaps, but that is in spite of the Jesuits through the scattered truths of the Gospel found in their messages or from the Scriptures themselves. Any true salvation accomplished in the Roman Catholic missions was achieved despite the Jesuits, not because of them.

Thus, we see that fervor in missions and evangelism is not correlative with true godliness. In fact, such fervor could very well be a desire to gain one's salvation, as it was in the person of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Such "missions" are a sign of wickedness not of godliness.

Flaws in Korean Christianity

How Korean Christianity has evolved the way it did might not be purely because of the Gospel. The Korean culture also must be factored in. Thus for example, the "Beggars mission" should not be seen as something truly extraordinary if one understands Korean culture with its roving Buddhist monks. If the culture was very much spiritually-minded, spending 2 hours a day early in the morning praying is less spectacular than if such were to happen in a white congregation in materialistic New York today. Now, I am not denigrating 2 hours being spent in prayer, but I am saying that culture does play a part in how one's spirituality is expressed.

Once we can see that, we can begin to see the flaws underneath the veneer of vibrancy in Korean Christianity, starting with the most obvious: toleration of heresy.

The toleration of heresy comes in the form of Word-faith preacher David Yonggi Cho, the pastor of the Yoido Full Gospel Church, supposedly the largest church in the world. Cho is a rank heretic, promoting the idea that Christians can tap into a spiritual dimension of power to actualize their prayers into existence. That third dimension is accessible to everyone who has faith, including unbelievers, which is Cho's explanation of how other religions could perform healing. That Cho is a heretic beyond the pale of orthodoxy in any sense of the term is beyond doubt. The problem is that Korean Christians will not generally speak out against Cho. In one interaction I have had with a ethnic Korean Christian, he defended Cho, saying that there are true Christians in the Yoido Full Gospel Church. That person is a Reformed Christian, which only goes to show how perversive this toleration of rank heresy is within Korean Christianity. If even supposedly orthodox Reformed Korean Christians can DEFEND an outright heretic on the totally irrelevant claim that there are possibly true believers in his church, then we can see the scale of the problem within Korean Christianity.

This ties in to the main issue with Korean Christianity: a deficient doctrine of the church and its relation to salvation. Of course, this is not the problem with just Korean Christianity, but East Asian Christianity in general and world Evangelical Christianity to a slightly lesser extent. Korean Christianity continues not to have an idea of how a local Church is to operate with respects to those who claim to be believers, and no idea of how one is to manage the church in regards to the church's role as the pillar of the truth (1 Peter 3:15). That is why East Asian churches in general descend into moralism in practice, because discipline becomes limited to moral issues and only the rankest of heresies (i.e. denial of Jesus' deity). It does not take rocket science for someone to wrongly infer that Christianity is about moral living, when the churches will discipline someone for homosexuality, while winking at someone who just taught that faith is a force that can be used to extract power from the "third dimension," as if homosexuality is a worse sin than heresy! Let me just put this plainly: I would deem a person struggling with same-sex attraction (SSA) who attends church and the means of grace regularly to be godlier than an unrepentant pastor who promotes heresy, even though the latter prays 4 hours per day and is a loving husband of one wife!

Conclusion:

As I reject the unbiblical practices of the Singapore Church, so for similar reasons I am not enamored of the Korean Church. No church can be considered to be healthy until the infestations of Pietism among others is purged from within, and confessionalism takes root in its place. All external acts of piety are irrelevant to the discussion, and those who think that they are need to repent of their pietism.

[ADD: Yonggi Cho has recently been convicted of fraud, and the silence from Korean Christianity is deafening]

Conspiracy theories, and Anti-Semitism

Recently, I had to un-friend (and block) a guy whose FB screen name is Cado Odac, from Dallas, TX. I had to do so because that guy was promoting hatred against Jews on his FB page. Together with people like Robert Fort, a whole group of his friends decided to defend racism (against black and Orientals as well), attacking all non-whites with vitriol.

As part of his campaign to demonize the Jews, Cado posted this link to an attack on the Ashkenazi Jews and their supposed Kazhar ancestry. The whole article is anti-Semite to the core, based upon all sort of conspiracy theories that would make Dan Brown appear to be a novice. Jews are demonized as part of the New World Order who are out to destroy America, as if these white supremacists have not already destroyed America!

The problem with conspiracy theories is that they have a faulty view of Man and a faulty view of God. They elevate Man, or rather a group of men, to god-like status. Such a group of people are seen as malevolent and the incarnation of the Anti-Christ himself. They also have almost god-like power, able to implement their wicked schemes with great and brutal effect. On the other hand, they demote God. God it seems has not the power to restrain evil. God sees this great malevolent scheme of the ubermensch, stares in horror at it, and wrings his hands helplessly at the destruction it caused to "Christendom." God is not sovereign in all conspiracy theories, for this "god" is powerless and has allowed a group of men to usurp the right to dictate the direction of history.

Let's look at this hack job of an article. We note at the beginning that it has NO footnotes, no references at all. Furthermore, it quotes from.... you guess it... the virulently anti-Semitic fiction titled the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Any citation from the Protocols probably has as much authority as someone citing from the Da Vinci Code, or even less. Therefore, from the start, why would anyone want to actually take this waste of web space seriously?

As to its content, the entire thesis of Kazhar ancestry is disputed by many. But let's say we grant that for the sake of argument. I can even grant the supposed schemes of the "Kazhar Jews" to rule the world. What does that actually prove? NOTHING! Nothing at all!

As I have said, conspiracy theories suffer from an unbiblical elevation of man to god-like power and Satan-like maliciousness, and a diminishing of God to a powerless deity. These come into play here. So what if some "Kazhar Jews" made statements that show they wanted to control the world? First, are these individuals omnipotent? Who's sovereign here: the rulers of the world, or God? So what if they have all their grand plans of world domination? Can anything happen without God allowing it? Secondly, are these people human beings, or demons? Do they still have a remnant of the Imago Dei, or is the Imago Dei totally destroyed in the Fall? Also, is God still restraining the wickedness of men? And finally, what have the schemes of a few men, if true, have to do with an ENTIRE ethnic group? If those white supremacists were actually consistent with such ideas of collective punishment, they should be all hung and quartered for the crimes of the Imperialist powers against the blacks and Asians! Remember the Opium War, or the invasion of Beijing by the combined 8-nation armies at the turn of the 20th century, together with the massacre and rape of Chinese women by the Western armies?! Should the crimes of a few in the past be punished on the whole today, lots of whites ought to be killed, massacred and raped now!

Conspiracy theories, of whatever kind, ought to be discarded for these two reasons. Are there conspiracies? Yes. Do they succeed? Sometimes, if God allows. Are the conspirators demonspawn? No. Can they repent of their wickedness? Yes. Do they represent their entire race? NO! We should stop all conspiracy fear-mongering, and stop demonizing entire groups of people. Such a behavior is contrary to Christianity. And anti-Semitism is extremely wicked, for it is a travesty for someone to claim to follow Jesus the King of the Jews who is a Jew, and then turn around and hate the Jews.

John MacArthur, justification and sanctification

The Lordship Salvation controversy in the 1990s happened quite some time ago. In that controversy, Pastor John MacArthur wrote a book The Gospel According to Jesus against the growing antinomianism in Dispensational Fundamentalism, notably against Dispensationalists like Charles Ryrie and Zane Hodges. MacArthur's target was the idea that a person can just have Jesus as Savior while denying Him as Lord. In other words, American revivalism, combined with a bastardized version of the doctrines of Assurance of salvation and of the Perseverance of the Saints in Dispensationalism, resulted in the production of a mangled doctrine often termed "Once Saved, Always Saved" (OSAS) or "Eternal Security." In this doctrine, once someone professed to have faith, as indicated by a tick in the response slip at a revival meeting or going up for an altar call, that person is saved for certain. In its most extreme version, OSAS teaches that a person after he prayed the Sinners' Prayer can apostatize later and even deny Christ, but he is still saved regardless of what he does afterwards, since he at ONE time in his life indicated faith in Christ. This "carnal Christian" however loses out on his reward, and, according to Charles Stanley, they will be in the "outer darkness" in the suburbs of heaven, a lesser hell situated within the vicinity of heaven itself.

This background is crucial to understand the context in which MacArthur was in when he wrote The Gospel According to Jesus. Some time later as the Lordship Salvation Controversy was still raging, a group of Reformed theologians like Dr. Michael Horton decided to write a response in the book Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation. In that book, the Reformed theologians faulted both camps of the debate. The error of the non-Lordship camp was their reduction of faith to one of mere assent, while the fault of the Lordship camp was a subtle confusion of justification and sanctification. They acknowledged at that time that MacArthur did listen to some of their concerns.

In 2008, Zondervan put out a revised and expanded anniversary edition of MacArthur's book The Gospel According to Jesus. That book puts forwards his more advanced understanding of the issue, and corrected various errant phrases in his earlier editions. MacArthur it seemed has corrected whatever errors and loose phrases there were in the book when it was initially published, and it is this version that should be examined as to what MacArthur now believes to be the truth.

The question now is this: Does MacArthur still confuse justification and sanctification? I do not think so, and I will look at one section to show why this is the case. We must remember that we are to understand a person's position in the context in which he is writing it in, and not impute our meanings of what we thinks he says into his text, and thus misrepresent his position.

One section in which MacArthur deals with the demands of Christ is seen in his exposition of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19. He is accused of stating that the rich young ruler could earn salvation by actually doing good works. In the revised and expanded anniversary edition, here are some relevant excerpts in which MacArthur expounded the passage:

Many readers of Matthew 19 have taken the young man to task for his question. They say his mistake was in asking, "What good thing shall I do?" In other works, he has a works-oriented mind-set. And of course, it is true he was attuned to a religion based on works. He had been raise in a Pharisaic system of tradition. He was trained to think of religion as a system to earn divine favor. But with all that in his background, he asked a fair question. ...

After all, there is something we have to do to inherit eternal life: we have to believe. This man's question was not much different from the question of the multitudes in John 6:28: "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?" Jesus answered these people with a simple and straightforward reply: "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him who He has sent" (v. 29).

But this is where the story takes an extraordinary turn. Jesus' answer to this young man seems preposterous: ...

Strictly speaking, Jesus' answer was correct. If a person could keep the law all his life and never violate a single jot or tittle, he would be perfect, sinless (cf. James 2:10). But no one except the Savior alone is like that; we are born in sin (Ps. 51:5). To suggest that the law is a means to eternal life clouds the issue of faith. ... (p. 94)

Finally, Jesus gave him the ultimate test: "If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me" (Matt. 19:21). This challenged his claim to having kept the law. ...

The ultimate test was whether this man would obey the Lord. Jesus was not teaching salvation by philanthropy. He was not saying it is possible to buy eternal life with charity. ... The Lord was putting His finer on the very nerve of this man's existence. Knowing where his heart was, He said, "Unless I can be the highest authority in your life, there is no salvation for you." By placing Himself alongside the man's wealth and demanding that he made the choice, our Lord revealed the true state of the young man's heart.

...

The rich young ruler failed the rest. He was not willing to acknowledge Jesus as sovereign Lord over his life... It seems he really did want eternal life, but he was unwilling to come the way Jesus specified — the way of confessing his sin and surrendering to Jesus' lordship. In other words, he remained in unbelief. (pp. 97-8)

Salvation is by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8). This is the consistent and unambiguous teaching of Scripture. But people with genuine faith do not refuse to acknowledge their sinfulness. They sense that they have offended the holiness of God. They do not reject the lordship of Christ. They desire Him more than the things of this world. Real faith lacks none of these attributes. Saving faith does not recoil from the demand to forsake sin and self and follow Jesus Christ at all costs. Those who find His terms unacceptable cannot come at all. He will not barter away His right to be Lord.

...

If we learn anything from the account of the rich young ruler, it is the truth that although salvation is a blessed gift from God, Christ will not give it to one whose hands are filled with other things. Those who are not willing to turn from sin, possessions, false religion, or selfishness will find they cannot turn to Christ in faith. (p. 99)

When we look at the excerpts, we note here that MacArthur is not saying that people have to do something to be saved, or that the rich young ruler needs to do something to merit salvation. Rather, the request is to expose the failure of the rich young ruler to keep the Law, as he had claimed to do. That MacArthur is not teaching justification by faithfulness can be seen in the phrase he used that "our Lord revealed the true state of the young man's heart" (p. 98). Any work done in repentance is evidentiary of the state of the man's heart, not part of what contributes to their justification. That such is the correct interpretation is seen in the slightly later phrase that the rich young ruler "remained in unbelief" (p. 98).

Faith is normally described as consisting of cognition, assent and trust. Interpreting MacArthur's exposition using this three-fold description of faith shows us that MacArthur exposited the rich young ruler as not trusting in Christ. He did not trust in Christ, depicted by MacArthur as not "confessing his sins and surrendering to Jesus' lordship" (p. 98). It is not that the act of repentance or selling all he had will contribute to his justification, but rather that the failure to do that shows he has not the true faith that will evidence itself in works of repentance.

MacArthur probably did use language that confuses justification and sanctification in his earlier editions. The issue to be addressed now is whether he seems to have realized his mistakes in expression and made the necessary corrections, which he seems to have since there is nothing wrong with the exposition in this edition. This should make us see that MacArthur did not confuse justification and sanctification. Furthermore, the errors previously made were not intentional but a result of the polemics he was using against the Dispensational antinomians. That MacArthur responded positively and changed the questionable phrases shows us that any errors made were unintentional. Seeing the book in the context of the controversy it had both spawned and addressed, it should be clear that MacArthur did not confuse justification and sanctification in substance, and in his latest revised edition he also did not confuse justification and sanctification in form.

Anti-Semitism is real...

Here is a snapshot of an interaction on Facebook:

Covenant Theology, Israel, and Supersessionism

Christianity is concerned mainly about Christ and the redemption He purchased of His people. The focus of Christianity is on redemptive history (which occurred in real history) and its implications for not only us, but the whole world (cosmos). Those of us who are called to the ministry should focus on these issues, and try not get involved with issues we have no expertise in since it is highly likely we will make a mess. Now of course if a pastor has for example also a PhD in a certain field, he could write about that field with some degree of expertise, yet that should be done with an understanding that whatever he writes about that subject does not have the same authority as when he deals with God's Word.

Nevertheless, once in a while, a seeing secular issue or two may crop up which has implications for one's view of redemptive-history. Such an issue deals with complicated matters and fields. The issue of modern-day Israel is one such issue. Emotions run high on this issue on both sides. Generally, those who are "pro-Israel" are correlated to the "Christian Zionist" movement and linked with Dispensationalism. Those on the other side are correlated to most of the mainstream European churches, and some factions within Reformed circles. The correlation is so strong that it is normally assumed that anyone supporting Israel as a nation are "Zionists" and Dispensationalists who reject traditional orthodoxy on the covenants (as if the "anti-Zionists" have a correct doctrine of the covenants!). Those in the Reformed churches typically focus on the errors of Dispensationalism and the rejection of national Israel as the people of God, showing how the Church is spiritual Israel (cf Rom. 9:6, Gal. 6:16). While that is true, it does not help us to understand how we are to understand modern Israel, and give rise to the specter that an embrace of Reformed Covenant Theology (CT) must necessitate a rejection of modern Israel, whereas that is not a necessary inference from Reformed CT. In the midst of this confusion, we have terms like "supersessionism" and "replacement theology" being thrown around, muddying the waters even further.

In an attempt to add some clarity to the subject, I would first clarify what Reformed CT teaches concerning Israel, then deal with some necessary historical matters, and finally posts some thoughts towards a theology of ethnic Israel. The second part is an historical interpretation not Scripture, and is my attempt to bring some resolution to the issue.

What Reformed CT teaches

Traditional Reformed CT teaches one Covenant of Grace throughout redemptive history. The Covenant of Grace was initiated in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve violated the primeval Covenant of Works. God then initiated the Covenant of Grace, as the Westminster Confession states:

Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein He freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in Him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life His Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe. (WCF 7.3)

and

This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the Gospel: under the law it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all foresignifying Christ to come; which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation; and is called the Old Testament. (WCF 7.5)

The Covenant of Grace was administered through the various historical covenants (Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, New). Its aim was the redemption of God's people the Elect. In the Abrahamic Covenant, the Covenant of Grace was expressed to Abraham and his seed, and that through his seed all the nations will be blessed. Thus, it was to ethnic Israel through which salvation came, and this promise of the seed finally coalesced in the person of Jesus Christ, the true Israel, the Israelite of the Israelites. It was to this seed who is Christ that the Abrahamic Covenant came to fruition for the salvation of the nations (Gal. 3:16). As expressed in apocalyptic terms, the woman in labor has given birth to the child with an iron rod to rule the nations (Rev. 12:1-6). Christ came from ethnic and national Israel, the people of God.

The Mosaic Covenant advances God's covenant administration through the addition of a works principle to function as a pedagogue. National theocratic Israel was the people of God, the theocracy functioned as the crucible for the enactment of the New Covenant. On the one hand, the Mosaic Covenant is an advancement of the Abrahamic Covenant, as it fulfilled in typological form some of the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant. The typological fulfillments were to signify the realities that would come in the New Covenant, either in its inauguration and/or its consummation at the end of time. Such typological fulfillment include the land promise. For example, the land promise was fulfilled as the promise land of Canaan was conquered for God's people in the Mosaic economy, but such was meant to be a picture of the new heavens and new earth which would come when Christ comes again, not a permanent ownership of the land of Canaan.

The New Covenant is "new" as it is contrasted with the Mosaic (the "Old") Covenant, which is how the books of Galatians and Hebrews contrast the historical covenants. The typological elements of the Mosaic Covenant, which include the land of Canaan, are fulfilled in the realities they signify. Canaan is no more the "Holy Land," except in a historical sense. No more is national Israel the treasured possession of God, but all who are spiritual descendants of Abraham, BOTH Jews and Gentiles, are now the treasured possession of God, the "Israel of God." In Christ, there is no more two but ONE people.

Reformed CT therefore teaches ONE people of God. Contrary to Dispensationalism, we do not believe that there are two peoples of God, as if God has two brides. We similarly do not believe that the land of Canaan is holy in any but the historical sense. Since the theocracy is abrogated, we do not see anything special about the current nation of Israel, again contra Dispensationalism.

That being said, we should not embrace the cause of supersessionism, otherwise known as "replacement theology." Supersessionism teaches that the Church has superceded Israel, or rather that the Church has taken the place of Israel. In supersessionism, Israel has rejected Christ especially when they called down curses upon their own heads and that of their children (cf the "infamous" verse of Mt. 27:25). God has thus rejected Israel altogether for the (Gentile) Church. The Jews must thus cease being Jews and become Christians, otherwise they retained their "blood guilt" and God's wrath remains forever on them. If that sounds Anti-Semitic, that is because it is. Regardless of its social ramifications, it should be easily seen that supersessionism is not what Reformed CT teaches. Reformed CT teaches an expansion of God's Covenant of Grace. Whereas previously it is limited to ethnic and national Israel, now it is open to both (ethnic) Jews and Gentiles. The Church does not replace Israel, for Jews do not need to cease being Jews in order to be saved. Jewish Christians do not need to repudiate their ethnicity, just as Gentile Christians do not need to repudiate their ethnicities either.

We also want to note here what Reformed CT does not teaches. It does not teach that Christians should either embrace or reject Zionism. It does not teach that we should either accept or reject the modern state of Israel. It most certainly does not say that we should hate the Jews. Just because Dispensationalism is for the modern state of Israel does not mean that Reformed CT is necessarily against the modern state of Israel. Reformed CT rightly construed does not take a stand either on Zionism or the modern state of Israel, and such needs to be made clear in any discussion concerning Israel. The only thing Reformed CT is concerned with is that the modern state of Israel is not some special fulfillment of biblical prophecy as a special people of God.

Historical issues

Here we turn to the issues concerning the modern state of Israel. It is here that geopolitics are very much involved, and lots of spin and propaganda is produced mainly by the pro-Palestinian side. I would like to offer just some observations pertinent to the issue which the other side has ignored or spun.

Following Jesus' time, the Jewish rebellions like the Bar-Kochba revolt has resulted in the slaughtering of many Jews and the famous prohibition of Jews from Jerusalem. The area called Palestine was depleted of much of its Jewish population, and there was never to be a nation in that area until the 20th century. The Roman Empire was succeeded by the Byzantine Empire. With the rise of Islam, Palestine was conquered by the Caliphs and the various Caliphates administered the region of Palestine, excepting the minor historical phenomena known as the short-lived Crusaders States. The last Caliphate was the Ottoman Empire. After its defeat in World War I, the European victors divided up its territories into somewhat artificial plots of lands to be administered by the various European powers. The area of Palestine was administered by the British together with the Transjordan region. Back in Europe, Zionism began to take shape and immigration of Jews back to Palestine began in earnest, a process accelerated with the rise of Nazi Germany. In the meantime, pan-Arabism also began to take shape, as the residents of the former Ottoman Empire began to identify themselves as Arabs and desired independence. The non-Jewish natives in Palestine began to identify with this pan-Arab cause, and thus the first stirrings of "Palestinian nationalism" began to take shape. It must be noted here that what was beginning to take shape back then wasn't a Palestinian independence movement; that would come later. The non-Jews in Palestine identified themselves not as Palestinians, but as Arabs.

After the 1967 six-day war and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel emerged victorious and took over most of the other regions of Palestine, which were formerly part of Egypt (Gaza Strip) and Jordan (West Bank). These became known as "occupied territories." It was only then that a Palestinian identity and cause was formed, as separate from an Arab identity. Whatever the reason(s), the Arabic states refused to assimilate the people feeling from Palestine, instead putting them into permanent refugee camps. This is in sharp contrast to the Jews fleeing the opposite direction from pogroms launched by the Arab states against their native Jewish populations, who were assimilated into Israeli society (instead of being placed into refugee camps and then stating that they should have a "right to return").

This short history of the region of Palestine is necessary in order to give a better understanding of the issue of modern national Israel. As I have said, Reformed CT does not take a position on modern national Israel. That is why it is unfortunate that people think that to be Reformed is to be against modern national Israel. A right understanding of history should help us see through a lot of the propaganda out there. One does not have to be a Dispensationalist to see that national Israel has a right to exist. One does not have to believe that Israel continues to be a special people of God in order to believe that Jews are not children of the Devil. None of us should think that modern Israel is blameless on all matters. But that is different from blaming Israel as if it were demonspawn and the mother of all evil. And lastly, it is a total travesty to attempt to disguise one's Anti-Semitism as being driven by theology. It might be driven by theology, or rather one's perversion of sound orthodoxy, but it is certainly not driven by Reformed CT.

Towards a theology of ethnic Israel

So 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. Now 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! (Rom. 11:11-12)

In my opinion, Rom. 11: 1-32 provides a key to understanding how we should look at the Jews, who had in large measure rejected God's promises. Yet the Abrahamic promises are primarily for the seed of Abraham and through them to all nations (Gen. 12:1-3). It is most certainly true that the promise is fulfilled in Christ as Abraham's seed, but does that mean that the physical descendants of Jacob (Israel) are thus excluded from the picture?

In Scripture, promises and prophecies may have dual fulfillments, and seeing this text in line with Rom. 11:1-32 hints at a promise for the salvation of ethnic Israel. Just as salvation in Christ does not eradicate all ethnic boundaries but only render them secondary to the union we have in Christ, so likewise Jews as an ethnic group remain distinct from Gentiles, although those in Christ are indeed one people with us in the Church. While this is not the place to go into detailed exegesis of the Romans 11 passage, yet on the surface it seems to teach a future ingathering of the Jews, so that "all Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:26). In light of what we have seen of CT, this final conversion of the Jews will be the final fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant, which deals with ethnic Israel, the physical covenant family of Abraham, as opposed to national Israel which is the creation of the Mosaic Covenant.

It does seem therefore that while we should oppose Dispensationalism and most definitely its religious form "Christian Zionism," yet in light of the blessing we have from the Jews, we should love the Jews and seek their salvation, so as to complete the circle of redemption. This seems to necessitate some weak version of secular "Zionism" in that we should desire to love and bless the Jews and not regurgitate lies about them.

Conclusion:

Reformed Covenant Theology, rightly understood, is not supersessionism. We believe in expansion theology, not replacement theology. Nowhere is this more practical than in the way we deal with ethnic Jews and the modern state of Israel. We should not excuse their rebellion and unbelief, or their sins, and we should not glorify them either. Rather, we should seek to love the Jews and tell the truth about both the Jews and the modern state of Israel, while seeking their salvation. In God's plan and timing, He will bring about many of them to salvation, and thus God's salvific purposes will be fulfilled in time, to the praise of His glory and grace.

Charity, mercy and social justice

[Previous post here]

That charity must not be justice in order to be charity is something sadly controverted in our day. From within supposed Reformed and Evangelical circles, we have Tim Keller who has muddied the waters and attempted to steer people towards embracing the Leftist notion of "social justice," which has nothing to do with real justice at all.

The main focus of "justice" is basically giving people what they deserve. Someone breaks the law, they are punished for doing so. Especially in Christian theology, the notion of justice is tied in with notions of works and merit. God exercises His justice when He punishes sinners, because sinners sin and their sins deserved to be punished. Justice is purely an external of giving another his due.

Charity on the other hand as it is used is often linked with mercy. Mercy by definition must be unequal. A judge who acquits the innocent is NOT being merciful to the acquitted. Mercy is always to the undeserving, either in withholding punishment or in giving undeserved aid. To speak of "merited" mercy is an oxymoron. God in His grace in His mercy withholds the punishment due to sinners who turn in faith to Christ. Those sinners do not deserve the mercy; it is purely unmerited. Mercy and charity is thus antithetical to justice and law, the former pair being unmerited and the latter pair merited.

It is with this understanding that we see how terrible Keller's leftist socialist idea of "social justice" is. By calling charity and mercy "justice," Keller has turned something unmerited into something merited. In other words, whereas in the older understanding charity is something given by people out of their care and concern, charity in Keller's leftist system is an entitlement for the poor. The poor could demand charity, as is the case in socialist states. When charity is seen as an entitlement, then what we have as an example today are the socialist countries of Europe, where people give much to charity involuntarily through the State.

So, when Keller tried to equate "justice" and "righteousness," he commits many fallacies in his eisegesis of Job 29:12-17. No one controverts the fact that "justice" and "righteousness" are very similar and could function as synonyms. But synonyms may not necessarily have the same meaning all the time, and when we go into the details, then the differences between similar words can be seen. "Justice" is focused on the external, while "righteousness" is an internal quality. Righteousness does manifests itself in justice, and thus the two can and are often used interchangeably. But just because righteousness does manifests itself in justice does not mean that it cannot consists of other things like love. When the focus is on obligations of people, then the differences between the two terms appear. It is one thing to say it is righteous to aid the poor, and another thing to say that aiding the poor is justice, as what Keller has done. Keller, and those who follow him, have committed logical and etymological fallacies in equating righteousness with justice. While the two terms can be used as synonyms, they are not always the same thing.

The concept therefore of "social justice" is nonsensical. What it leads to logically are socialist states and economies. Instead of spreading the wealth, socialism only spreads the poverty around, being based upon faulty economics.

p = "righteous," q = "just, justice," r = "love, charity, mercy"

If p, then q; If p, then r
Keller's claim: If q, then r; q = r (Both invalid)

Truth table:

			1	2		Conclusion:
p	q	r	If p, then q	If p, then r	1 & 2	If q, then r	q = r
T	T	T	T	T	T	T	T
T	T	F	T	F	F	F	F
T	F	T	F	T	F	T	F
T	F	F	F	F	F	T	T
F	T	T	T	T	T	T	T
F	T	F	T	T	T	F	F
F	F	T	T	T	T	T	F
F	F	F	T	T	T	T	T

Philosophy , common sense and reality

In an informal philosophical discussion I had joined, the issue of consciousness was raised in the context of some apologetic argument of which I have forgotten. The only thing I remembered was my contention that that particular argument could not work on a die-hard materialist, who could just claim that the "self" did not really continues through time, but that it changes every second according to the changes in the states of the mind. The response to that was that such is true, but that anyone holding on to this consistent materialist view of consciousness would automatically lose the argument because it is so absurd and so much against common sense it would be rejected in an instance.

The problem I see in such a reasoning is that "common sense" seems to be a major criterion for determining truth, but why should that be the case? Yes, "common sense" is good for many things, but it is one thing to claim that "common sense" is good for much of life, and another to say it is normative for everything.

Consider the scientific discipline of quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics, the orbitals of electrons are quantitized in specific quanta, thus producing spectral lines of [visible] light (and other radiation in the other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum) when electrons lose energy. The whole idea of quantitized radiation does not make sense in a classical physical setting, which would anticipate a spectrum or smear of light instead of specific spectral lines. Yet this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Quantum mechanics also postulated the idea of electrons being both particles and waves, and not just electrons but all matter, which all have a de Broglie wavelength. Likewise, light, long considered a wave, is found to be made up of particles called photons. Photons are then stated to be massless particles, which is also counter-intuitive.

Even stranger in quantum mechanics is that stated in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which states that is is impossible to know both the position and the velocity of particles like electrons. Whereas electrons were formerly thought of as like planets orbiting the nucleus, electrons are now thought of as probabilistic matter-wave functions found in specific orbitals. That means that in the area of those orbitals, the probability of detecting the electron increases, and that the very act of detecting it fixed either the position or the velocity of the electron. In other words, it is not just a measurement of quantum phenomena, but rather the act of measurement itself creates the result in interaction with the sample. Lastly, the quantum phenomenon of entanglement, or "spooky action at a distance," has entangled particles influencing each other even across vast distances with no communication between them. In other words, if one of the entangled pair is placed on the moon, while the other entangled particle is placed in a submarine 1 km under the sea, altering one particle (in the submarine) would also alter the other particle (on the moon), despite the vast distances between them and the impossibility of any material communication between them.

Quantum mechanics therefore functions antithetical to common sense. This shows that in understanding certain aspects of reality, "common sense" breaks down. Philosophical issues, dealing with things behind "normal life" could also be other aspects of reality in which "common sense" does not apply. If such were the case, then rejecting any philosophical position merely because it is against "common sense" is not exactly a good argument. Furthermore, in the Neo-Darwinian scheme, "common sense" is merely the cognitive habits suited for Man in the natural world, and as such they may not be suited for discourse on anything other than "normal life."

Flowing from what we have seen in quantum mechanics, the whole notion of "common sense" therefore should not be used in arguments. For if "common sense" does not work in some parts of the physical realm, why should we think that it is necessarily a useful thing in philosophical or religious questions? "Common sense" does not work in some aspects of reality, and thus we should not use it in philosophy or theology either.