The Institutes of the Christian Religion (John Calvin)

In his prefatory address to Francis I, King of France, Calvin explains that the whole matter hinges on the Papacy's belief that the church was visible, and that the visible form was the church of Rome and its hierarchy, whereas Calvin and the reformers believed that "the church may exist without any apparent form, and, moreover, that the form is not ascertained by that external splendor which they foolishly admire, but by a very different mark, namely, by the pure preaching of the word of God, and the due administration of the sacraments" (Calvin xxix). This put Calvin in a position to present a book, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, in which he engages the norm of his day with the word of God. He argues aggressively, and each doctrine which he presents or which he challenges will be joined with a wall of well thought out Scripture, and also with a wall of quotes from church fathers. The magnitude of Calvin's knowledge and sharpness of mind makes the Institutes quite a compelling read.

The book is outlined as an exposition of the Apostles' Creed, and is organized by explanations of God the Creator, God the Redeemer, God the Sanctifier, and the Holy Catholic Church.

While there are countless subjects which he expands on, I will comment on five that really shaped me:

Idolatry

"... whenever [Scripture's] object is to discriminate between the true God and false deities, it opposes him in particular to idols; not that it approves of what is taught more elegantly and subtly by philosophers, but that it may the better expose the folly, no, madness of the world and its inquiries after God, so long as everyone clings to his own speculations. This exclusive definition, which we uniformly meet with in Scripture, annihilates every deity which men frame for themselves of their own accord-God himself being the only fit witness to himself" (Book I. Ch 11.1) .

Calvin presents an extremely holistic view of humanity through this lens of idolatry. There are those who are without the revelation of the true, living God in Jesus Christ as witnessed in Scripture and those who create their own gods. The default human position apart from this revelation is idolatry: "the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols."

Faith

His discussion on faith is the basic framework for what Edwards presents in Religious Affections, namely, that "happen what may, faith ceases not to long after God" (Book III. Ch 2.24). Just like Edwards, Calvin linked true faith to real affection for Christ as he is revealed in the word:

"There is an inseparable relation between faith and the word, and that these can no more be disconnected from each other than rays of light from the sun" (Book III. Ch 2.6).

"Faith consists in the knowledge of Christ; Christ cannot be known without the sanctification of his Spirit: therefore faith cannot possibly be disjoined from pious affection" (Book III. Ch 2.8)

Meditating on the Future Life

One smaller part of the book that is quite profound is his discourse on the future life. Humanity has become so fascinated with the temporal things around them - all of which are finite and slipping away: "... we form all our plans just as if we had fixed our immortality on the earth" (Book III. Ch 9.2). He calls the Christian to wake up to the reality of this fading world and live in the light of the eternal world to come. He understands this present life as perpetual exile: "If we reflect that by death we are recalled from exile to inhabit our native country, a heavenly country, shall this give us no comfort? But everything longs for permanent existence. I admit this, and therefore contend that we ought to look to future immortality, where we may obtain that fixed condition which nowhere appears on the earth" (Book III. Ch 9.5).

Prayer

The chapter on prayer is perhaps one of the most compelling parts of the book: "To know God as the sovereign disposer of all good, inviting us to present our requests, and yet not to approach or ask of him, were so far from availing us, that it were just as if one told of a treasure were to allow it to remain buried in the ground" (Book III. Ch 20.1).

In this chapter he has a section in which he does an exposition of the Lord's prayer. This part expresses a theme which runs seamlessly throughout the book beneath the surface, namely, the paternal care of God. The prayer significantly begins with the declaration that God in heaven is a Father, and "not only a Father, but the best and most merciful of all fathers, however ungrateful, rebellious, and wicked sons we may be..." (Book III. Ch 20.37).

Election

Calvin's discussion on election requires the reader to really think through their paradigms of existence. Calvin believed (along with Augustine) that God has predestined some to eternal life and some to eternal damnation:

"By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation" (Book III. Ch 21.5).

He faces the obvious human objection: "... to devote to destruction whomsoever he pleases, more resembles the caprice of a tyrant than the legal sentence of judge." Calvin's response to this is to argue that this presupposes a standard of righteousness which is higher than God himself. Yet "the will of God is the supreme rule of righteousness, so that everything which he wills must be held to be righteous by the mere fact of his willing it" (Book III. Ch 23.2). In other words, the only reason we know a thing to be good or righteous in the first place is because the thing is consistent with the will of God. What would the higher standard for goodness and righteousness be? What law is it by which God must abide so that he is consistent with righteousness?

The implication of this is not a bummer. The implication is that we may trust that while these things indeed seem impossible to grasp - how he could predestine a soul to hell, and at the same time that soul willingly rejects him and resists his paternal care - but we must not fix these things with nice systems. We must presuppose that God is truly good, and he truly may elect whom he will for salvation.

If the doctrine of double predestination brings your heart to a kind of rage, you will still be able to enjoy the Institutes. The doctrine of election only makes up about 44 out of about 1000 pages (although he does allude to it throughout the book).

Calvin's Institutes offers a holistic vision of humanity through the lens of the reformation. This is a theology book. It is about ultimate reality, and it is 1000 pages of compelling argument that the meaning of all reality and every human being is the glory of God in Jesus Christ, the living Word, as witnessed by Scripture, the written Word.

Pornland (Gail Dines)

When we hear about social justice issues such as sex-trafficking in Southeast Asia and injustice toward children in Africa, it is easy to dismiss these as impossible overseas problems. But pornography isn't overseas, and it is a monster too. We are living in "pornland," Gail Dines says. "Ironically, pornography has become almost invisible by virtue of its very ubiquity" (Dines 163). Her book tracks the steady increase of pornography from its beginnings in Playboy andPenthouse to the brutality of "gonzo," a genre of porn that has become very much the mainstream, and which thrives on brutal degradation of women. The power of the porn industry is staggering. It paves the way for technological advances (Dines 48-47).

Dines shows that critical to the success of the earlier pornographers was the casting of the "implied viewer." Playboy attempted to portray a rich, cultured sort of man as a viewer (thus the cultural articles that went along with the magazine), while interestingly Hustler portrayed the viewer as "someone to be either avoided or ridiculed, certainly not someone to identify with" (Dines 17). Viewers must have such justification to look at pornography. The viewer's self image must continually be maintained as the norm, in one way or another. Porn has effectively created a believable world for viewers to live in, which comes in a seriously sharp contrast to the real world, but, nevertheless, has also shaped the real world we live in so that it fits the world of porn. "By editing out those women who refuse to cooperate, GGW [Girls Gone Wild] creates a closed world where everybody seems only too willing to perform sexually for the camera" (Dines 31).

Jenna Jameson is the first pornstar to achieve celebrity status, and culture has paraded her as the typical pornstar, who out of her own free will has chosen to express her sexuality through such a career. She is "an image of a highly sexual woman who luckily finds her niche in porn" (Dines 35). Dines presents several interviews with Jameson which reveal that she has an utterly split personality. One side attempts to remain consistent with this image. But digging deeper one finds that she had suffered abuse as a child and early adult, that she was neglected by her father, that she was later raped by an abusive boyfriend, that this boyfriend coerced her into stripping, etc. For Jameson, the path toward pornography was abusive and full of deceit, contrary to the image the industry would wish to portray.

One of the most difficult parts of Dines' book to read is the quotes from blogs and forums in which fans of gonzo porn sites express their opinions about various productions. So naive are these fans, that when they come across parts in gonzo films that seem "obviously too much for her," they are disappointed at the possibility that these women might in fact be acting. This demonstrates the depth of numbness viewers have reached in a desperate attempt to live in and believe the false reality which pornland has created: "If porn performers truly don't like what is happening to them, then the fantasy that users have erected about women and porn begins to crumble..." (Dines 67).

Dines' book is extremely graphic (to warn, if you consider reading). She discusses also the systematic dehumanization of women (and men, actually) in porn, the consistent pattern of a decline toward more and more violent and taboo porn among users, the utterly racist world within porn, etc.

This holistic overview of the industry (by a nonreligious feminist) has kindled within me a passion for purity and holiness, and a passion to fight pornography together with my brothers and sisters. The most powerful weapon to fight against pornography is to expose it, to call it what it is, to bring it to the light: "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light" (Eph 5:11-14). Brothers and sisters must have open conversations about the struggle, the insecurity, the shame, the sin.

Fight against pornography, because it - unlike the social justice issues in Africa or Southeast Asia - is all around us. Not that we cannot address these other issues, but we do indeed live in pornland. I would suggest that this is one of the most important parts of Christian holiness and sanctification. Pornography is a subject which involves Christians as men and women, as sexual beings - the very part of our identity which proclaims the image of God in human beings (Gen 1:27). The reason that pornography is so evil is because sexuality is so good. This universe is about a Bridegroom's love for his Bride, and this story is engraved into our identity as men and women in our sexuality, and thus our sexuality is infinitely precious and must be protected at all cost (Eph 5:22-33).

How are you fighting pornography? Do you view it yourself? Do you turn a blind eye to it? Have you become numb to it? Are you praying for those in your life who view it? Are you discipling men or women who struggle with it? Are you naive about it? do you understand it?

"But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints" (Eph 5:3).

"Come, Lord Jesus!" (Rev 22:20)

The Hobbit

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." - Thorin

The Hobbit is a book about thirteen dwarves and a hobbit who go on adventure over mountains, through woods, past goblins, spiders, down rivers, etc., in order to reach the mountain where the dwarves used to live, and where their treasure still was, in which the dragon Smaug now lived since he had driven the dwarves out years ago. Their plan is to steal back the treasure. This treasure is the goal which drives the plot along. Bilbo, the hobbit, is much more fond of food, tea, smoking his pipe, and the likes, and cannot sympathize with the dwarves' drive to regain their treasure. Bilbo is a little hobbit, perhaps the most insignificant character in the face of the powerful forces of the dwarves, the elves, the goblins, Smaug, the men, all whom are caught up in a power struggle with the treasure at the center. Bilbo's character becomes a profound proclamation that the wars and worries of men, dwarves, and elves, are often over nothing of real importance. Pride has grasped the best of them, and caused them to run blindly toward a power which will bring them no satisfaction at all. His humility and desire for simplicity is a bright light in their world.

Stories involve tension and conflict, which rises in pain and struggle, and which eventually resolves. The Hobbit is about going through the Wilderness, coming up out of Egypt; it is about the necessity of darkness to prove the light. The dwarves needed to be captured and poisoned by spiders, and nearly eaten, and saved by Bilbo before they learned to trust him; the men, the elves, the dwarves, needed to be invaded by the goblins and their worgs before they learned to trust each other; the men in Laketown needed to be attacked by Smaug before the corruption of the Master was exposed, and they were able to put in his place a man like Bard, who had the true heart of a king; and Bilbo must go on an adventure before "the sound of the kettle on his heart was ever after more musical than it had been even in the quiet days before the Unexpected Party."

Merry Christmas everybody. The person and work of Jesus is the true story. All other stories are just cheap imitations, even The Hobbit. 

Augustine

If you have heard seminary students who have never actually read Augustine but who have heard their professors who have never actually read Augustine outline his works/beliefs, then you might be skeptical of the man. He did indeed have some ideas that might seem foreign to contemporary protestantism; he included the apocrypha, he had some strange views on sex and singleness, etc. But if you read through Confessions yourself you will discover two things: he was extremely brilliant and he really loved Jesus and the Scriptures. There is a category of authors in my mind who know the Truth about life, who really know Jesus, and this knowledge compels their writing. Augustine knew the Truth. Sure, there were weird quirks here and there with the concrete details of his theology, but I think if you read him yourself you will discover it is quite easy to forgive him for these. And in fact, maybe some of what we in our modern age view to be "quirky" is actually just wisdom.

The City of God is a really meaningful read. I have always wondered what God's commentary on post-Scripture historical events such as the fall of Rome or the history of the translation of the English Bible or the Reformation, the Renaissance, the formation of the church of England, the Revolutionary war, etc., - I have always wondered what God would say if he were to comment on these events as he did the exodus or the exile. Augustine in no way intends to speak the words of God like Isaiah or Jeremiah, but he does apply wisdom and some seriously robust intelligence to help people understand God's sovereign dealings with humanity and his faithfulness to the kingdom.

I also read On Christian Teaching. I decided to read this last minute because I was also reading Sailhamer's Meaning of the Pentateuch, in which he refers to Augustine's relationship between words (verba) and things (res). Sailhamer argues that modern evangelicals have adopted Augustine's view, namely, seeing the significance of the Word of God in the "things" which the words (signs) point to rather than in the words themselves (as the reformation emphasized). Augustine's teaching led the church to give itself the authority to determine what things meant as they were understood in the mind of God (mens dei), rather than finding the meaning in the words of Scripture itself. Sailhamer likewise argues that evangelicals have simply replaced the authority of the church for the authority of extra-biblical history and archeology. Sailhamer calls for a renewed emphasis on the words themselves, and to look to the discipline of philology to understand their meaning rather than history and archeology.

I am still sorting out this discussion in my mind. There was so much in On Christian Teaching that I really enjoyed. He writes about the importance of Godliness and love in understanding Scripture, and the sheer pleasure of enjoying the literature and beauty of Scripture which can often be neglected by those who draw it out into pragmatic systems. God has given difficult passages of Scripture for the Christian's joy in wrestling with his Word.

So much to discuss with Augustine: body/soul, spiritual death/life vs. physical death/life, freedom of the will, Trinity (I was excited to find he views the Trinity the same as Jonathan Edwards...), memory, time, etc.  I will definitely return to him one day.

Surprised By Joy

I have been reading a lot of Lewis the past couple months. I have read Perelandra, Four Loves, the Weight of Glory, some from God in the Dock and Grief Observed, I just finished Surprised By Joy, and I am now reading That Hideous Strength. All I have to say is that Lewis was really an incredible human being.

Surprised By Joy has instantly become one of my favorite books. In it Lewis tells the story of his earlier life. For a man who taught at Oxford and is a classic Christian author, it amazes me how much detail he spends on his childhood and early school experiences (rather than his experience hanging out with J.R.R. tolkien, for instance - although he does briefly). One outstanding instance from his life is when he goes to study with "The Knock," a teacher who incessantly challenged him on the precise meaning of what he said. If this man had not been in Lewis's life, we simply would not have C.S. Lewis today.

His conversion experience was the perfect climax to his story. He describes the event as the most free choice he had ever made, and yet - he says - how could he have possibly not chosen it? The paragraph in which Lewis describes this decision is the best treatment of the paradox of freewill and God's sovereignty I have ever read. I think that what he outlines is quite in sync with what good calvinists have always believed concerning the relationship of human will and sovereignty.

Conversion is free precisely in the constraint of irresistible grace. The answer is somewhere between determinism and arminianism, which is exactly where I believe good, biblical, Edwardian/Owenian, seven-point calvinism lands.

These paradoxes are outlined well in the Great Divorce too. I remember reading the Great Divorce last semester along with Edwards' Freedom of the Will, and noticing that these two authors really did understand something very similar regarding the legitimacy of divine sovereignty and human will.
One last thing to note about Lewis is how transcendent his themes are within his different work. It is a fascinating network of writing between his essays and his novels. For instance, most are familiar with how Lewis describes friendship happening when someone says, "Wait, you like that too? I thought I was the only one!" In Surprised By Joy, this is exactly what happens to him and his friend Arthur. Similarly, That Hideous Strength is practically the narrative outworking of his essay called "The Inner Ring" (although I'm not sure which he wrote first).

Lewis is really great. I would advise anyone reading this to please, please stick close to Lewis. Read him a lot.

The Book of Isaiah

Isaiah Big Idea: Yahweh will destroy the pride and self-righteousness of humanity and glorify his name through the salvation of his Messiah.

The anger and wrath of God expressed in this book is generally against the pride and self-righteousness of humanity. "For Yahweh of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up- and it shall be brought low...." (Isaiah 2:12). The day of Yahweh is a day when he brings low all by which man lifts himself up. As it says about Jacob, "Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures; their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots. Their land is filled with idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own finders have made." These things listed are things which Jacob (and all humanity as the author is careful to clarify) has looked to for security. They have turned from Yahweh and bowed down to these things. The day of Yahweh consists of this sort of idolatrous foundation being completely pulled out from beneath humanity. Yahweh is glorified when human beings display faith in him, for it speaks of the truth that he is the sovereign ruler, Father, and that he is forever powerful. Idolatry glorifies earthly things. So for the sake of his own name he does this (Is 48:11). Yet he also provides salvation through his anointed one, his Messiah, who offers quite explicit imputed righteousness (Is 53:4-6). This salvation is from Yahweh, and when humanity looks to this salvation Yahweh will be glorified. This way of salvation is the only way of salvation, and all other idols will fall through, but this one way of salvation will stand forever (Is 47:8-15).

Reading Update

Over the next three of four months I hope to read:

1. Four Loves - Lewis
2. That Hideous Strength - Lewis
3. Weight of Glory - Lewis
4. Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained - John Milton
5. Confessions - Augustine
6. City of God - Augustine
7. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Twelve, Colossians, John, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, Lamentations, Esther, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Ecclesiastes (we'll see how far I get...)

Perelandra

I just finished Perelandra, the second from Lewis's space trilogy.

Lewis's writing is always rich, and there is a lot that he packed into this novel which I am still thinking through, but here is a brief take-home/response:

Ransom is sent to Perelandra (aka Venus). On Venus he meets a lady who is the first mother of the planet; she is basically Eve. Satan, in the body of Ransom's old enemy Weston, has come onto the planet to attempt to deceive this lady as he had deceived Eve. But Maleldil - God - has sent Ransom for the purpose of thwarting Satan's plans. For the duration of a few chapters, Satan and Ransom are in the company of the Lady as Satan tries to convince her to disobey Maleldil's command, and Ransom tries to show her the folly of his deception.

One of Satan's methods of deception is to argue that Maleldil had brought good from Eve's disobedience: "... it was this breaking of the commandment which brought Maleldil to our world and because of which He was made man" (Lewis 120).

Ransom is frustrated with the "unfairness of it all." But his response is illuminating: "Of course good came of it. Is Maleldil a beast that we can stop His path, or a leaf that we can twist His shape? Whatever you do, He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed Him. That is lost for ever. The first King and first Mother of our world did the forbidden thing: and He brought good of it in the end. But what they did was not good; and what they lost we have not seen. And there were some to whom no good came nor ever will come" (Lewis 121).

How often we attempt to justify wicked, unwise decisions on the basis that God will use it for his good in the end. Yet this is the original sin; it is our attempt to play God's role; instead of trusting and obeying we wish to sit on his throne and operate his sovereignty, working all things, even our selfishness, foolishness, and wickedness, for good.

Perelandra provides a helpful scene to illustrate this lesson: trust and obey.

Scarlet Letter

⁵ This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. ⁸ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 2:5-10)

Freedom of the Will

Jonathan Edwards' Freedom of the Will offers one of the most thorough presentation and defense of the Calvinist doctrines of the will and the sovereign grace of God. Regardless of what comes to mind when you hear the term "Calvinism," this book is really worth reading. The reader is left with a holistic theological and philosophical overview of the topic of the freedom of the will. The book is excellent for reference. It would be difficult to come up with an objection to Calvinist doctrine which he has not thoroughly addressed (regardless of whether you agree or disagree with his response).

One of the most helpful discussions in the book is the distinction between moral inability and natural inability. To illustrate this he uses the example of a drunkard who is given a drink. At this point, the drunkard is naturally able to choose to not drink, yet he is morally unable to resist. Edwards recognizes that many would object saying that an inability is an inability, whether moral or immoral. But he points out that common sense would indicate that there is a legitimacy to moral ability and inability; people who are by nature morally loving, who love to do good - we say these are excellent people, and those who love wickedness we understand to be legitimately wicked. If we do not hold as legitimate both moral inability and the responsibility for this immorality, we will make those who love truth and justice the most immoral people, since it is easy for them to be moral, and we will make saints out of those who love wickedness and deceit, since it is impossible for them to resist.

Interestingly, these things have been confirmed in psychological studies of addiction. If people who have addictions are not held responsible for their actions they are not usually successful in overcoming their addictions; they must be held responsible - even though they are faced with impossible addiction - in order to make progress in overcoming the addiction.

See article: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90688&page=2

There is much much more in The Freedom of the Will worth reading. His biblical overviews of God's sovereignty are rich. It is definitely worth the time and energy to work through this book.

Reading Update

Here is what I am reading at the moment if anybody wants to join:

1. Anything Emerson (Self-Reliance next...)
2. Edwards' Freedom of the Will
3. Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter
4. Gilkey's Shantung Compound
5. Miller's Death of a Salesman
6. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Twelve
7. Barth's Dogmatics in Outline
8. A book on postmillenialism by Douglas Wilson called "Heaven Misplaced"
9. Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship

This might seem like quite a bit, but I am reading them slowly. And most of them are for classes.

The Book of Kings

There is a contrast between David and Solomon in the Deuteronomistic history which is parallel to a contrast between Abraham and Moses in the Pentateuch. The relationship between God and David and God and Abraham is an unconditional relationship. In Genesis 15 Yahweh makes the covenant with himself and is thus dependent on his own faithfulness entirely (the oneness of God/Trinity), which contrasts the Sinai covenant which is between Yahweh and the people of Israel; the blessing of the Sinai covenant is dependent on the obedience of Israel (Deut 28).

Even though Abraham relates to God in an unconditional covenant, one of the last things Yahweh says about Abraham is that he "obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws" (Gen 26:5). Yet Moses, the one given the commandments, statutes, and laws of the Sinai covenant is not able to enter the promised land.

Likewise, David is said to have walked blamelessly before Yahweh in spite of his many failures recorded in Samuel:

"Yahweh dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of Yahweh and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his rules were before me, and from his status I did not turn aside. I was blameless before him, and kept myself from guilt. And Yahweh has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight" (2 Sam 22:21-25).

This is because Yahweh relates to David with an unconditional covenant, an unconditional promise not dependent on David. This covenant which is not dependent on David following the commandments and statutes of Yahweh - like the covenant with Abraham - is precisely the reason he is able to fulfill the statues and commandments of Yahweh.

In contrast, the covenant with Solomon is conditional:

"But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them..." (1 Kings 9:6-7)

Thus Solomon fails to please Yahweh (1 Kings 11:9-10).

Kings then tells the story of the subsequent kings of Israel and Judah, and when a king fails to fulfill the commandments of Yahweh one of two things may happen; either Yahweh will be gracious "for the sake of David" (e.g. 1 Kings 11:12) or else he will punish "because the people of Israel had sinned against Yahweh their God..." (2 Kings 17:7-13).

The question arises: which covenant is Yahweh judging the kingdom according to?

It seems that ultimately Israel has been judged by a conditional covenant, since the story ends with their exile. Yet biblically, the exile is sanctification; it is bringing Israel into holiness, and the reader can understand that both covenants are simultaneously fulfilled; the wrath and punishment is the purification and salvation of Israel, as Jeremiah is quite clear in expressing:

“Then fear not, O Jacob my servant, declares the Lord,
nor be dismayed, O Israel;
for behold, I will save you from far away,
and your offspring from the land of their captivity.
Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease,
and none shall make him afraid.
¹¹ For I am with you to save you,
declares the Lord;
I will make a full end of all the nations
among whom I scattered you,
but of you I will not make a full end.
I will discipline you in just measure,
and I will by no means leave you unpunished." (Jer 30:10-11)

The Book of Samuel

The Book of Samuel is about Yahweh's "Anointed One," the Messiah, the Christ. The plot of the Hebrew Bible is propelled by the search for the coming seed, the one who will crush the head of the serpent, who will restore Eden (Gen 3:15). The story traces genealogies and comes to screeching halts at crucial characters such as Noah or Abraham who become a type of Christ and provide some sort of picture of salvation. In the time of Noah salvation was offered to those who would be blessed by his obedience, namely, his faithful construction of the ark in accordance to Yahweh's instructions (Gen 6:8,9, 22; 7:5,9). Likewise, God's promise to Abraham is that he will "bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen 12:3). Characters such as Lot and Abimelech are thus blessed in their relationship and connection with Abraham (Gen 14:14; 19:29; 20:17).

Samuel picks up on this theme of the Anointed One. Hannah's song at the beginning of the book ends saying, "Yahweh will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the power of his anointed (Messiah/Christ)" (1 Sam 2:11b)

Likewise, Yahweh tells Eli through a man of God "I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind. And I will build him a sure house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed forever" (1 Sam 2:35).

And like Genesis, Samuel plays this theme out by showing the characters' blessing based on their nearness to Yahweh's Messiah.

David refuses to harm Saul because he is Yahweh's Anointed. His men urge him to "do to him as it shall seem good to you" (1 Sam 24). Killing Saul would be a pragmatic way to gain victory, and in a sense David would be justified; according to worldly wisdom this is the most wise thing to do; yet David refuses: "Yahweh forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, Yahweh's Messiah" (1 Sam 24:6). The Messiah is the man which God has elected to bring his salvation through. Man ought not to seek better, more practical ways for salvation:

"There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way to death." (Prov 14:16)

David is anointed king in place of Saul. The book shows many characters (mostly gentiles) who are faithful to David:

"... everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became captain over them" (1 Sam 22:1-2).

2 Sam 15:32 (and chapter 16) shows the faithfulness of "Hushai the Archite" towards David.

In 2 Sam 17:27-29, "Shobi the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites and Machir the son of Ammiel from Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim, brought beds, basins, and earth vessels, etc., for David and the people with him to eat..."

In contrast, the "worthless man" Sheba the Benjaminite blows the trumpet and says "We have no portion in David, and we have no inheritance in the son of Jesse; every man to his tents, O Israel! So all the men of Israel withdrew from David and followed Sheba the son of Bichri. But the men of Judah followed their king steadfastly from the Jordan to Jerusalem" (2 Sam 20:1-2).

While many Gentiles are faithful to follow David, Yahweh's Messiah, "all the men of Israel withdrew from David." Nationality does not determine Yahweh's blessing; rather, Yahweh's blessing is through Yahweh's Messiah, being king David in the Book of Samuel, "the Messiah of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel" (2 Sam 23:1).

"You delivered me from strife with the people;

you kept me as the head of the nations;

people whom I had not known served me.

Foreigners came cringing to me;

as soon as they heard of me, they obeyed me.

Foreigners lost heart

and came trembling out of their fortresses" (2 Sam 22:44-46).

Samuel does not leave the reader to assume that Samuel is merely a story about David:

2 Sam 7:12-16

^"12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³ He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. ¹⁴ I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, ¹⁵ but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. ¹⁶ And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’”

Texts like these (similar to texts such as Deut 18:15 in the Pentateuch) are crucial for showing that these stories of David (or Abraham/Moses in the Pentateuch) point ahead to a coming character; Abraham, Moses, and David are important in the biblical text because they create meaningful pictures of the coming Messiah, the coming seed. These texts are crucial because they make the coming Messiah (Jesus) the subject matter of these OT characters and stories.

The American Scholar (Emerson)

Emerson's address titled "An Oration Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society in Cambridge, August 31, 1837" was republished as "The American Scholar" in 1849, showing that Emerson was speaking to more than the group of scholars at Harvard.

This address is a good summary of Emerson's work, of his incessant attempt to convince Americans to think for themselves, to become self-reliant, to rid themselves of their insecurity with which they judge themselves in comparison with Europe.

"Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions that around us are rushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests. Events, actions arise, that must be sung, that will sing themselves" (Emerson 1138).

Emerson also emphasizes "creative reading."

"One must be an inventor to read well... when the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world" (Emerson 1142).

One of the reasons I love Emerson is that he longs for men to savor the small and profound things in life, to go against the mindless flow of the masses and enjoy beauty in simplicity. Thus "the sense of our author is as broad as the world." Instead of spreading ourselves thin over a massive amount of books in our desperate attempt to become scholarly, perhaps we ought to take Emerson's advice and just reread the Great Gatsby about five times: "The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life, are the topics of the time... I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low" (Emerson 1149).

"Man is surprised to find that things near are not less beautiful and wondrous than things remote. The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocean."

Read and enjoy Emerson.

Some Highlights From Emerson's "Nature"

Emerson's "Nature" is one of those works that I have a hard time not underlining the whole thing, so it's very hard to pick out "highlights." But since I have been thinking about the theology of everything via Jonathan Edwards lately, I decided to pick out some aspects of the essay that relate to that.

Emerson says, "the use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history."

He offers a very holistic approach to nature; nature is spiritual and symbolic. There are no detached caveats or exceptions to the rule. Everything in nature tells a story or speaks of something else, something spiritual.

Jonathan Edwards likewise had 220 notes ("Images of Divine Things") in which he explained explicitly how various things teach us spiritual lessons about Christ. Emerson does the same. Of course, he is not the same sort of Christ-centered theologian that Edwards is, but nevertheless he establishes precisely the same framework and presupposition for seeing and savoring the spirituality of nature.

"All things with which we deal, preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, sun, — it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow of winter overtakes in the fields. But the sailor, the shepherd, the miner, the merchant, in their several resorts, have each an experience precisely parallel, and leading to the same conclusion: because all organizations are radically alike."

Here, I think that Emerson is absolutely right. The reason farms, cars, tables, coffee, oranges, clouds, houses, bridges, and everything else in nature are in existence is to preach the Gospel to us.

Paul is clear on this too; God's invisible attributes are seen in the things that are created. Paul is so strong on this that he says that mankind is without excuse in their rejection of God because of "the things that have been made", namely, nature.

Read "Nature." It will bring joy to your soul.

"The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship."

A Divine and Supernatural Light

This morning I finished Edwards' sermon "A Divine and Supernatural Light."

The sermon is based on Jesus' statement in Matthew 16:17: "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."

The full title of the sermon is "A Divine and Supernatural Light Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God."

Edwards argues from Scripture and reason (as he usually does) that saving faith - the faith in which Peter declared Jesus to be the Christ - is faith achieved by an act of God alone, in which he reveals the truth of who Jesus is by the Spirit.

By "immediately imparted" he means that the cause of the faith is ultimately the Spirit alone, not a preacher, teacher, book, or anything of that sort (though he may use these means). In fact, he argues that the kind of knowledge these things in themselves provide is "natural knowledge," which is quite distinct from real, spiritual knowledge.

And this distinction between natural and spiritual knowledge is perhaps one of the most helpful parts of the sermon. Regarding this distinction he says,

"Thus there is a difference between having an opinion, that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty. The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the latter only by seeing the countenance."

Edwards, like Luther, Kierkegaard, Pascal, Barth, etc., is clear that he does not negate the importance of reason, but he carefully defines it's limits:

"Reason may determine that a countenance is beautiful to others, it may determine that honey is sweet to others; but it will never give me a perception of its sweetness."

The sermon would take you less than an hour to read. It is very rich. Read it, and enjoy it.

Here is a link:

http://www.ccel.org/e/edwards/sermons/supernatural_light.html

Reading Plan

I am starting a new reading schedule, and I will try my best to post reading responses on this blog. Anyone is free to read along with me, and we can discuss the different works on here.

This is my reading plan:

Three month rotations of a philosopher (as a broad ambiguous category), theologian, literary author, and a section of the Bible as outlined below.

April-June:

Philosopher: Ralph Waldo Emerson (philosopherish...)
Theologian: Jonathan Edwards
Literary author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Bible: Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Book of the Twelve)

Feel free to join in on any of these authors. Reading in community is extremely important.

I have split the Bible into 8 different sections as follows:

1)Pentateuch: Gen, Ex, Lev, Num, Deut
2)Former Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings
3)Latter Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, The Book of the Twelve
4)Writings: Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles (I might end up splitting this and taking 6 months to cover it)
5) Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke-Acts
6) Pauline Epistles: Romans, 1 & 2 Cor, Gal, Eph,Phil, Col, 1 & 2 Thess, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Phil
7) Hebrews - Jude: Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, Jude
8) Johannine: John, 1,2, & 3 John, Revelation