Saving Faith as Paradox

According to the Westminster Confession, by Saving Faith,

“a Christian believes to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God Himself speaking therein; and acts differently upon that which each particular passage thereof contains; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come.” WCF XIV.II

So, if our faith is to be saving faith, we must at once tremble at God’s threats and believe God’s promises.

But one will say, “If you have faith, you have nothing to fear. God’s promise of eternal life is yours.” This is the first step toward apostasy: “It can’t happen to me. I am immune to temptation, sin, or the ultimate sin of falling away.”

But God says,

“If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but then he trusts in his righteousness and does evil, none of the righteous things he has done will be remembered; he will die for the evil he has done.”  Ezekiel 33:13

And yet another will say, “If you believe with certainty that God’s promises are directed toward you, and even teach your children to believe that God’s promises are directed toward them, you are presuming upon God’s grace. No one can know with any certainty that he or his children are elect.” This is the first step toward apostasy: “What if I am not elect? What if I am only part of the visible covenant? My father cannot even tell me for sure if I am in a real relationship with Jesus. If I am not, then what I am doing here?”

But God says,

“If I say to the wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right … he will surely live; he will not die. None of the sins he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he will surely live.” Ezekiel 33:14-16

Saving faith comes when both promises and warnings are embraced. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God (Romans 11:22).

Martin Luther’s Definition of Faith

According to Luther, it is a foolish thing to try to define faith and works separately:

Here is an excerpt from “An Introduction to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” Luther’s German Bible of 1522 by Martin Luther, 1483-1546 Translated by Rev. Robert E. Smith

“Faith is not what some people think it is. Their human dream is a delusion. Because they observe that faith is not followed by good works or a better life, they fall into error, even though they speak and hear much about faith. “Faith is not enough,” they say, “You must do good works, you must be pious to be saved.” They think that, when you hear the gospel, you start working, creating by your own strength a thankful heart which says, “I believe.” That is what they think true faith is. But, because this is a human idea, a dream, the heart never learns anything from it, so it does nothing and reform doesn’t come from this “faith,” either.

Instead, faith is God’s work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God. (John 1:13). It kills the Old Adam and makes us completely different people. It changes our hearts, our spirits, our thoughts and all our powers. It brings the Holy Spirit with it. Yes, it is a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn’t stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing.  Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever.  He stumbles around and looks for faith and good works, even though he does not know what faith or good works are. Yet he gossips and chatters about faith and good works with many words.

Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it. Such confidence and knowledge of God’s grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures. The Holy Spirit makes this happen through faith. Because of it, you freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace. Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire! Therefore, watch out for your own false ideas and guard against good-for-nothing gossips, who think they’re smart enough to define faith and works, but really are the greatest of fools. Ask God to work faith in you, or you will remain forever without faith, no matter what you wish, say or can do.“

For further reading on Luther’s definition of faith, here is an article by an RC brother by the name of Peter Kreeft who states that when Luther used the word “faith”, “Luther used it in the broad sense of the person’s acceptance of God’s offer of salvation. It included repentance, faith, hope, and charity.”  If this is true, and I think the quote above lends itself to that conclusion, then Luther’s Sola Fide was over and against extra-biblical works (like indulgences) devised and demanded by a corrupt priesthood, rather than over and against repentance and a living faith working in love.

Paradox In Christian Theology

Paul Manata of Triablogue has written an excellent and thorough review of James Anderson’s Paradox In Christian Theology.

Read the review here, and buy the book here.

How many theological controversies could be avoided if we would simply rest in the understanding that we can’t understand everything?

Where did the Resurrection go?

“The sole ground of justification is the fulfillment of the condition of the covenant of works by Christ in his active and passive obedience.”
Dr. R. Scott Clark ~ THESES ON COVENANT THEOLOGY

Just a few questions. Does the Resurrection fit into either the category of Jesus’ active or passive obedience? Does the resurrection have anything to do with our justification? If not, then what did Paul mean here?

Romans 4:25
He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

And can anyone tell me where the idea comes from that Jesus fulfilled the Covenant of Works? When I read the Reformed confessions, I see Jesus fulfilling His obligations under the Covenant of Grace, but I see nothing referencing His undertaking in the Covenant of Works.

Are Children Assumed to be Saved? « Green Baggins

The TR answer to this question appears to be “No.”

Are Children Assumed to be Saved? « Green Baggins

I believe The Canons of Dordt answer this question in the affirmative, only it does not use the word “assume”, but rather it says that parents “ought not doubt.”

Article 17: The Salvation of the Infants of Believers
Since we must make judgments about God’s will from his Word, which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature but by virtue of the gracious covenant in which they together with their parents are included, godly parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children whom God calls out of this life in infancy.

Now, taking into account the “P” in TULIP (I argue as a TR), if we can have faith that had our infants died in their infancy, their election would be sure, why then can Christian parents not hold that same faith in regard to their children who live past infancy?

See Also On Faith and Presumption for an explanation of the difference between faith in God’s promises and “assumption”.

Can a man be profitable to God?

Westminster Confession of Faith Shorter Catechism
Q. 12 What special act of providence did God exercise towards man, in the estate wherein he was created?
A. When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of perfect obedience; forbidding him to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, upon the pain of death.

The following notes to the Westminster Confession of Faith Shorter Catechism in the form of Q & A were written by Puritans Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine in 1765 in part 1 of the Fishers Catechism on the Shorter Catechism (I guess 107 questions were not enough for Puritan children). It is clear that they rejected the alleged meritorious nature of the pre-fall covenant. All emphases are mine.

Q. 30. Was there any proportion between Adam’s obedience, though sinless, and the life that was promised?
A. There can be no proportion between the obedience of a finite creature, however perfect, and the enjoyment of the infinite God, Job 22:2, 3 — “Can a man be profitable to God? Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that thou art righteous? or, is it gain to him, that thou makest thy way perfect?”

Q. 31. Why could not Adam’s perfect obedience be meritorious of eternal life?
A. Because perfect obedience was no more than what he was bound to, by virtue of his natural dependence on God, as a reasonable creature made after his image.

Q. 32. Could he have claimed the reward as a debt, in case he had continued in his obedience?
A.He could have claimed it only as a pactional debt, in virtue of the covenant promise, by which God became debtor to his own faithfulness, but not in virtue of any intrinsic merit of his obedience, Luke 17:10.

Q. 33. What then was the grace and condescension of God that shined in the covenant of works?
A. In that he entered into a covenant, at all, with his own creature; and promised eternal life as a reward of his work, though he had nothing to work with, but what he received from God, 1 Cor. 4:7.

Q. 34. Did the covenant of works oblige man to seek life upon the account of his obedience?
A. It left man to expect it upon his obedience, but did not oblige him to seek it on that score; but only on account of the faithfulness of God in his promise, graciously annexing life to man’s sinless obedience, Matt. 19:16.

Stranger that Fiction

A friend of a friend took this pic at an airport:

EDIT: I found the original photographer’s blog: Joel Osteen Fiction Writer?! « Faith and Inches

Props, bro. Great pic.

The Job Market

I thank God for blessing me with gainful employment.

Is the CREC analogous to Islam?

It appears for R. Scott Clark, Westminster Seminary California Professor and United Reformed Church Minister, the answer is “Yes”.

Find the comment here: Compromising Positions « The Confessional Outhouse

Is this too far? Is The Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches so far gone in their various theological positions that cannot even seen as part of the Christian Church, but rather on par with Islam?

On Faith and Presumption

“Paganism declared that virtue was in a balance; Christianity declared it was in a conflict: the collision of two passions apparently opposite. Of course they were not really inconsistent; but they were such that it was hard to hold simultaneously. Let us follow for a moment the clue of the martyr and the suicide; and take the case of courage. No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,” is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice.

He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity, and I certainly have not done so. But Christianity has done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying. And it has held up ever since above the European lances the banner of the mystery of chivalry: the Christian courage, which is a disdain of death; not the Chinese courage, which is a disdain of life.”GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Chapter VI. THE PARADOXES OF CHRISTIANITY

Upon reading this, my mind immediately went to the paradox of fear and faith.

We must always have faith in God’s promises and never doubt them, for this sin angers Him (Psalm 78:21-22). But we must also fear Him and not presume on our covenant standing that we do not have to work out our salvation (Philippians 2:12). There seems to be a need for balance here. There are those who have an unhealthy amount of fear and little faith. This is doubt. But there is also a sort of faith that has no fear. This is the presumptuous sort of faith Paul rebukes in Romans 11

17 If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, 18 do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. 19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” 20 Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. 22 Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.

I was recently warned on this thread over at Green Baggins that I was teaching my children to “presume” upon God’s grace. My answer to that is simply that there is no room for presumption where there is fear. Faith without fear is presumption or arrogance, as the apostle put it.

So the remedy for presumption in our children is a healthy dose of warning and fear. But if there is too much of that, they begin to doubt. The way we cure doubt is by declaring to them God’s promises and assuring them that those promises are theirs as God’s children in Christ. They need to be taught both to have faith and to fear. Saving faith both trembles at the threatenings, and embraces the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come. (WCF XIV.II)