Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

On the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Birth

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1. The action of the Holy Spirit points to the sovereign newness of the work that God is accomplishing.

2. The Spirit used Mary’s existing humanity so that Christ has our human nature.

3. The revelation of the virgin conception by the Spirit forbids any adoptionist Christology.

4. The work of the Spirit preserves both the reality of his union with us in genuine human nature and his freedom from the guilt and curse of Adam’s fall (Rom. 5:12-21) because his person is not of Adamic stock.

5. It underlines the principle that the work of the redemption engages every Person of the Trinity.

Sinclair Ferguson, The Holy Spiritt, 41-43.

 

n.b. I jotted these down originally as class reading notes, so the wording may be any variation of quotation, paraphrase, and/or summary.

The Incarnation as Revelation of God

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This is truly the grand mystery of godliness: ‘God manifest in the flesh’ (1 Tim. 3:16), ‘For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily’ (Col. 2:9), so that He is both God and man in the same person.

Perhaps this mode of exhibiting the divine attributes in humanity may be of unspeakable importance to all intelligent creatures in heaven. It may have given them an opportunity of knowing much more of God than they ever knew before, or could know in any other way. The doctrine of redemption is not only useful to the redeemed, but to all the hierarchy of heaven. No creature can know anything of the nature of God but what He is pleased to reveal; and the method by which He makes Himself known is by His works and dispensations.

Archibald Alexander, Brief Compendium, 55-56 cited in Garretson, ed., A Scribe Well-Trained: Archibald Alexander and the Life of Piety, 69.

Why Our Mediator Must Be God and Man – Part 2

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He declined not to take what was peculiar to us, that he might in his turn extend to us what was peculiarly his own, and thus might be in common with us both Son of God and Son of man. Hence that holy brotherhood which he commends with his own lips, when he says, “I ascend to my Father, and your Father, to my God, and your God,” (John 20:17). In this way, we have a sure inheritance in the heavenly kingdom, because the only Son of God, to whom it entirely belonged, has adopted us as his brethren; and if brethren, then partners with him in the inheritance (Rom. 8:17). Moreover, it was especially necessary for this cause also that he who was to be our Redeemer should be truly God and man. It was his to swallow up death: who but Life could do so? It was his to conquer sin: who could do so save Righteousness itself? It was his to put to flight the powers of the air and the world: who could do so but the mighty power superior to both? But who possesses life and righteousness, and the dominion and government of heaven, but God alone? Therefore, God, in his infinite mercy, having determined to redeem us, became himself our Redeemer in the person of his only begotten Son.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.12.2.

On Why Our Mediator Must Be God and Man

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It deeply concerned us, that he who was to be our Mediator should be very God and very man. If the necessity be inquired into, it was not what is commonly termed simple or absolute, but flowed from the divine decree on which the salvation of man depended. What was best for us, our most merciful Father determined. Our iniquities, like a cloud intervening between Him and us, having utterly alienated us from the kingdom of heaven, none but a person reaching to him could be the medium of restoring peace. But who could thus reach to him? Could any of the sons of Adam? All of them, with their parents, shuddered at the sight of God. Could any of the angels? They had need of a head, by connection with which they might adhere to their God entirely and inseparably. What then? The case was certainly desperate, if the Godhead itself did not descend to us, it being impossible for us to ascend. Thus the Son of God behoved to become our Emmanuel, the God with us; and in such a way, that by mutual union his divinity and our nature might be combined.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.12.1.

Purposes for the Incarnation

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I’ve been intrigued by passages that explicitly state why Jesus did or did not come to do during his earthly ministry. I’ve tried to keep alert to these passages as I’ve read the Bible and have compiled them into a list (unless otherwise noted, Scripture texts should be from the ESV).

Matthew 1:21—She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Matthew 5:17-18—”Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”

Matthew 9:12-13—But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Matthew 15:24—“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Matthew 10:34-36—“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.

Matthew 20:28—even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Mark 1:38—He said to them, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.” (NASB); cf. Lk. 4:43.

 

Mark 2:17—And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Mark 10:45—For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Luke 1:32—establish the throne of David

Luke 4:18–21—“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Luke 4:43—I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose [These towns are Jewish towns]

Luke 5:31-32—And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

Luke 12:49-53—“I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! 51 Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. 52 For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Luke 19:10—For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (in context, the lost ones of Israel)

John 6:38—For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.

John 9:39— Jesus said, “For judgment I came into the world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”

John 18:37—Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

Hebrews 2:14-15 — Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

Hebrews 2:17-18 — Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Hebrews 10:7—Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’ ”

1 John 3:8—Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

 

Theological Foundations for Common Grace

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There are at least three theological foundations for common grace.

First, for it to be grace, it must be founded on the atoning work of Christ. McCune comments:

There is no one verse that anchors common grace in the atonement of Christ. However, theologically this is necessarily so. Any mitigation of the effects of sin is due ultimately to the cross work of Christ. There is no other basis on which God could deal with sin in grace or mercy. Common grace is grace—non-redemptive grace—and is a mitigation of the full effects of sin.

Rolland McCune, A Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity, 2:297.

A confirmation of this is found in the fact that the Noahic Covenant, a common grace covenant, is based on a burnt offering, which Leviticus 1:4 identifies as a sacrifice that makes atonement.

Second, common grace is founded on the reality of God’s sovereignty over all creation. The good things that happen to people, the growth of food, etc. are not merely natural occurances. They are gifts from God. As Kuyper notes,

 If God is sovereign, then his Lordship must remain over all life and cannot be closed up within church walls or Christian circles. The extra-Christian world has not been given over to satan or to fallen humanity or to chance.

Abraham Kuyper, “Common Grace,” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 166.

Third, common grace is rooted in the reality that God built his law into creation. Living in the world contrary to God’s law always has consequences. As humans reckon with those consequences, sin is retrained to a degree. Al Wolters comments on this reality:

The structure of all the creational givens persists despite their directional perversion. That structure, anchored in God’s faithfulness, sets a limit on the corruption and bondage wrought by evil. . . . Ignoring the law of creation is impossible. The law is like a spring that can be pressed down or pushed out of sight only with great effort and that continues to make its presence felt even when repressed for a long time. The ‘structure’ of a thing is the law that is in force for it, and not amount of repression or perversion will ever succeed in nullifying its presence and effect.

Albert M. Wolters, Creation Regained, 2nd ed. 60, 62.

Daniel Strange Reviews Kuyper’s Church as Institute and Organism Distinction

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Daniel Strange, “Rooted and Grounded? The Legitimacy of Abraham Kuyper’s Distinction between Church as Institute and Church as Organism, and Its Usefulness in Constructing an Evangelical Public Theology,” Themelios 40, no. 3 (2015): 430-445.

In this article Strange conducts a helpful survey of Kuyper’s church as institution / church as organism distinction. Strange notes that this distinction is used by many in discussions of public theology, but Kuyper’s precise understanding is often not in view. After surveying Kuyper, Strange raises a number of concerns. First, he notes that Kuyper moves from metaphors in Ephesians that are organic and institutional to a model of the church as institutional and organic. Exegetically, he finds this move untenable. Second, Strange seems hesitant to identify as church anything that is not gathered. He seems to understand the universal church as gathered in some sense in heaven. Third, he’s concerned that Kuyper privileged the organic church over the institutional church, especially in his later writings. Interestingly, he brings in Van Til’s critique of Kuyper’s view of common grace at this point in which Van Til thinks Kuyper too influenced by Plato and Kant in an emphasis on “abstract universals” (the organic church being more of an abstract universal than the institutional church), Nonetheless, Strange is willing to accept distinctions such as “church as church, and church as Christians” (Carson), “the public ministry of the church and the church as people scattered in their various vocations” (Horton), or “church ‘gathered’ and church ‘going’” (Strange’s own proposal).

This is a helpful survey and critique. Though not convinced of the second point of the critique, I find Strange’s other concerns to be compelling. Nonetheless, I still wonder if the organic/institution language may still retain value.

What is Common Grace?

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Common grace is an operation of the Holy Spirit, based on the atonement of Christ and God’s merciful and benevolent attitude toward all, by which He immediately or through secondary causation restrains the effects of sin and enables the positive accomplishment and performance of civic righteousness and good among all people.

McCune, A Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity, 2:297.

Grace is basically God’s condescending, unmerited favor. Common grace is favor shown to all men in common. God was under no constraint or compulsion of necessity to show this favor. He could justly have left the world to the full, unrestrained and unmitigated effects of sin. That God arrested the progress of these just desirets is all of grace.

McCune, A Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity, 2:300.

Van Til on Deduction and Doctrine

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It follows that the creeds of the church do not constitute deductive systems derived from the master concept of God. They are rather statements containing, so far as possible, all the various facets of truth about God and his relation to the world. There is coherence in these creeds, but it is not the coherence of deduction. The famous doctrine of the two natures of Christ as set forth in the Chalcedon creed exhibits the fact that the church was unwilling to submit the apparently contradictory materials of Scripture to the requirements of a deductive system.

Van Til, Defense of the Faith, 4th ed., 206.

R. R. Reno on David Brooks on the norms necessary for helping the poor

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He recounts the difficulties facing young people growing up in the dysfunctional family cultures of poor and working-class America. We need to respond to their hard circumstances with sympathy. ‘But it’s increasingly clear that sympathy is not enough. It’s not only money and better policy that are missing in these circles; it’s norms. The health of society is primarily determined by the habits and virtues of its citizens. In many parts of America there are no minimally agreed upon standards for what it means to be a father. There are no basic codes and rules woven into daily life, which people can absorb unconsciously and follow automatically.’ This loss of social capital didn’t just happen. Norms for decent behavior ‘were destroyed by a plague of nonjudgmentalism, which refused to assert that one way of behaving was better than another.’ Care about the poor and vulnerable in America? Step one is to combat the plague of nonjudgmentalism.

First Things, (May 2015): 69.