Peter J. Gentry, “The Meaning of ‘Holy’ in the Old Testament,” Bibliotheca Sacra 170, no. 677–680 (2013): 400–417.

Gentry challenges the traditional understanding of holiness as denoting “moral purity,” and “transcendence” or set-apartness. He first challenges the idea קדש can be defined by means of the surmised etymological link with קד, “to cut.” Gentry proposes that a usage study, done by Claude Bernard Costecalde in 1986, of both the Hebrew word and its equivalent in congate languages does not support either “moral purity” or “transcendance” as the meaning of holy. In line with Costecalde’s analysis Gentry concludes: “The basic meaning of the word is ‘consecrated’ or ‘devoted.'” Gentry surveys texts in Exodus 3, 19, and Isaiah 6 to establish this point.

In the end, I’m sympathetic to the idea that the basic meaning of קדש is “devoted,” but I didn’t see “set apart” or “moral purity” to be as decisively excluded from the range of meaning as Gentry argues. Gentry also seems to have a fairly negative view of the discipline of systematic theology in comparison to biblical studies: “Indeed, systematic theologians of the last five hundred years have not been helpful in explaining what Scripture teaches on this topic due to reliance on doubtful etymologies and connection of the term with moral purity and divine transcendence.” But more than Gentry’s exegesis, it was a theological observation from Sinclair Ferguson’s Devoted to God that convinced me that at its root holiness about being devoted. Ferguson observes that holiness, as an attribute of God, has to have a meaning that works apart from the created order. Being transcendent or set apart does not work theologically whereas devoted does.

O’Donovan, Oliver. “Sanctification and Ethics.” In Kelly M. Kapic, ed. Sanctification: Explorations in Theology and Practice. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2014.

I find O’Donovan’s writings difficult to comprehend, as if I’m not yet acquainted with his dialect. In this essay I at points wondered about his commitment to the Reformation distinction between justification and sanctification. More positive were his helpful reflections on the relation of ethics to dogmatics and his observation that age does not confer sanctification. Each period of life has its own challenges to holiness that must be met.

Eglinton, James. “On Bavinck’s Theology of Sanctification-As-Ethics.” In Kelly M. Kapic, ed. Sanctification: Explorations in Theology and Practice. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2014.

Eglinton argues that Bavinck was just as much an ethicist as he was a dogmatician. He was actually working on a Reformed Ethics at the same time he was writing the Reformed Dogmatics. He seemed to give up the ethics project when he moved to the Free University and the professor of ethics there was writing, and completed, a Reformed Ethics. At that point Bavinck turned to writing essays that were, in effect, applied ethics. Eglington’s article is largely helpful historical situation of Bavinck as ethicist with a brief summary of his approach and with many useful works to follow up in the footnotes.

Bavinck on Sanctification

The kingdom of God is a gift granted by God according to his good pleasure (Matt. 11:26; 16:17; 22:14; 24:22; Luke 10:20; 12:32; 2:29), yet it is also a reward, a treasure in heaven, which has to be aggressively sought and gained by labor in the service of God (Matt. 5:12, 20; 6:20; 19:21; 20:1ff.; and so forth). Believers are branches in the vine who cannot do anything apart from Christ, yet at the same time they are admonished to remain in him, in his word, in his love (John 15). They are a chosen people, and still have to be zealous to confirm their call and election (2 Pet. 1:10). By a single offering of Christ they have been sanctified and perfected (Heb. 10:10, 14). God effected in them that which is good (13:21), yet they must still persevere to the end (3:6, 14; 4:14; 6:11-12). They have put on the new self and must continually clothe themselves with the new self (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). They have crucified the flesh with its desires, and must kill its members who are on the earth (Gal. 5:24; Col. 3:10). They are saints and sanctified in Christ Jesus, and must nevertheless become holy in all their conduct (1 Pet. 1:15; 2 Pet. 3:11), pursuing and perfecting their sanctification in the fear of God (2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Thess. 3:13; 4:3), for without it no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12:14).

Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:254.

On the one hand this union of believers with Christ is not a pantheistic mingling of the two, not a ‘substantial union,’ as it has been viewed by the mysticism of earlier and later times, nor on the other hand is it mere agreement in disposition, will, and purpose, as rationalism understood it and Ritschl again explained it. What Scripture tells us of this mystical union goes far beyond moral agreement in will and disposition. It expressly states that Christ lives and dwells in believers (John 14:23; 17:23, 26; Rom. 8:10; 2 Cor. 13:5; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 3:17), and that they exist in him (John 15:1-7; Rom. 8:1; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 1:10ff.). The two are united as branch and vine (John 15), as are head and members (Rom. 12:4; 1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 1:23; 4:15), husband and wife (1 Cor. 6:16-17; Eph. 5:32); cornerstone and building (1 Cor. 3:11, 16; 6:19l Eph. 2:21; 1 Pet. 2:4-5). This mystical union, however, is not immediate but comes into being by the Holy Spirit….The very first gift that believers receive is already communicated to them by the Spirit, how takes everything from Christ (John 16:14). It is he who regenerates them (John 3:5-6, 8; Titus 3:5); gives life to them (Rom. 8:10); incorporates them into fellowship with Christ (1 Cor. 6:15, 17, 19); brings them to faith (2:9ff.; 12:3); washes, sanctifies, and justifies them (6:11; 12:13; Titus 3:5); leads them (Rom. 8:14); pours out God’s love into their hearts (5:5); prays in them (8:26); imparts to them an array of virtues (Gal. 5:22-23; Eph. 5:9) and gifts (Rom. 12:6; 1 Cor. 12:4), especially the gift of love (1 Cor. 13); prompts them to live by a new law, the law of the Spirit (Rom. 8:2, 4; 1 Cor. 7:9; Gal. 5:6; 6:2); and renews them in intellect and will, in soul and body (Rom. 6:19; 1 Cor. 2:10; 2 Cor. 5:17; 1 Thess. 5:23). In a word, the Holy Spirit dwells in them and they live and walk in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:1, 4, 9-11; 1 Cor. 6:19l Gal. 4:6; and so forth)

Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:250-52.

Justification and sanctification, accordingly, while distinct from each other, are not for a moment separated. They are distinct: those who mix them undermine the religious life, take away the comfort of believers, and subordinate God to humanity. The distinction between the two consists in the fact that in justification the religious relationship of human beings with God is restored, and in sanctification their nature is renewed and cleansed of the impurity of sin. At bottom the distinction rests on the fact that God is both righteous and holy.

Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:249.

But there is something else as well: the moral law that confronts us in the Decalogue, in the Sermon on the Mount, and further throughout the Old and New Testaments is not the case of ‘precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little’ [Isa. 28:10, 13] but comprises universal norms, great principles, that leave a lot of room for individual application and summon every believer to examine what in a given situation would for them be the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God (Rom. 12:2). Since the moral law is not a code of articles we merely have to look up in order, from moment to moment, to know exactly what we must do, there is in its domain a freedom that may not be curbed by human ordinances but must—precisely to safeguard the character of the moral life—be recognized and maintained. On the one hand that freedom includes the permissible, the adiaphora, and on the other what Rome calls the ‘counsels.’ Error begins in both schools of thought when the adiaphora and the counsels are located outside or alongside of, below or above, the moral law and are therefore detached from the moral life. There is no right or reason for this either in the one or in the other case. There are cases in which what is in itself permissible becomes impermissible (Rom. 14:21, 23; 1 Cor. 8:13; 10:23); and there are also circumstances in which abstention from marriage (Matt. 19:11; 1 Cor. 7:7), giving up remuneration (1 Cor.9:14-19), the renunciation of all earthly goods (Matt. 19:21), or the like is a duty. But in ‘doing’ these good works one is not accomplishing anything that is outside the moral law or surpasses it. For there is a difference between a law that furnishes universally valid rules and a duty that is inferred from that law in a given case for everyone personally. Those who lose sight of this and assume the existence of a series of good works that really lie outside of and surpass the moral law fail to honor its unity and universality and degrade it.

Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:259-60.

Ryken, Leland. Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986.

The title of this volume doesn’t indicate that the Puritans were worldly in the negative biblical sense. The pairing with “saints” is the tip-off. Ryken’s point is that the Puritans lived in the created world—in the world of work, marriage, family, money, education, and social action—as saints. Thus stereotypes of the Puritans as a dour, cloistered people are incorrect.

In seeking to correct the record Ryken surveys Puritan views on the topics listed above as well as on their views of the Bible, preaching, and worship. Two concluding chapters look at faults to avoid and strengths to learn from.

The book is full of primary source material and suggestions for further reading. It would be a good place to start in learning about the Puritans. The book is not perfect. I wondered at times about its appeal to Milton as a Puritan or if there was perhaps a greater diversity of views among the Puritans in certain areas that were being elided for the sake of summary (for instance, I think the Puritan view of revolution, the Civil War, and the Restoration may have been more varied). But these quibbles aside, this is a book well worth reading.

Kaplan, Fred. John Quincy Adams: American Visionary. New York: Harper, 2014.

I’ve been interested in reading a biography of John Quincy Adams since reading David McCullough’s renowned biography of John Adams. I selected this particular biography for the unscientific reason that its Kindle edition was on sale. It nonetheless was a satisfying read. Kaplan not only covers the basic political history that is intertwined with Adams’s life, but he also covers Adams’s religious views and his literary interests. For instance, it was interesting to read of a debate John Quincy carried on with his father regarding the Trinity. John Adams favored the unitarian position while his son defended the trinitarian. (This seems to reflect the move toward rationalism by the founding generation and a move back toward orthodoxy in the following generation, due to the influence of the Second Great Awakening, though it should be noted that John Quincy Adams did not entirely embrace orthodox Protestantism.) The political life of John Quincy Adams is fascinating because it spans almost the entire era from the founding to the Civil War. Adams plays an important part in many key national events from negotiating the end of the War of 1812 to opposing Jacksonian populism to opposing slavery. He is involved in these momentous events as ambassador, president, and congressman. He was also the first president to be the son of a president and the only president to later serve in the House of Representatives. His philosophy of public service was to never put himself forward but to never decline if his fellow citizens called on him to serve.

Leithart, Peter. “If It Were Done When ‘Tis Done: Macbeth.” In Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide to Six Shakespeare Plays. Moscow, ID: Canon, 1996.

Leithart’s analysis is illuminating and enhanced my enjoyment of the play. Here’s an example:

Whether or not Macbeth will act on his ambition depends on his answer to the question, What does it mean to be a man? Two answers to this question are presented by the play, and Macbeth is forced to choose between them. When Lady Macbeth urges him to kill Duncan, he protests, ‘I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none’ (1.7.46-47). On this view, one cannot be a man without placing limitations on desires and actions. Whoever tries to do more than ‘becomes a man’ becomes less than a man. Lady Macbeth, by contrast, operates on the view that you are not a man unless you act on every single desire. She asks her hesitating husband, ‘wouldst thou have that / Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, / And live a coward in thine own esteem, / Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’ (1.7.41-44), and adds, ‘When you durst do it, then you were a man’ (1.7.49). Any effort to control desire, to deny and suppress evil, or to place any limits whatever on action—all these for Lady Macbeth amount to nothing but cowardice.
. . . . . . . . .
His assault on the order of the world turns him into a beast. Having tried to lift himself above his place, he ends up falling into an abyss (see Ezekiel 28:1-10). As a consequence of his ambition to be more than human, he becomes less than human (see Daniel 4:1-37). By the end of the play, Macbeth is being seen, and even sees himself, as a subhuman creature: a baited bear, a hell-hound, a devil. He has dared do more than becomes a man, and at the last he is none. [162-63]

The one drawback is that the book is without footnotes or endnotes. Are all these observations simply Leithart’s or is he drawing on other sources?

Mansfield, Harvey C. Tocqueville: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

This excellent “Very Short Introduction” is written by one of the translators of the excellent University of Chicago Press edition of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.

Mansfield, in a brief span of pages is able to distil Tocqueville’s thought, relate it to that of other thinkers, and to show the significance of the questions Tocqueville raises.

Some examples:

Here is another singular feature of his liberalism. Whereas john Stuart Mill, a more typical liberal, does his best to defend the value of individuality in not conforming to majority opinion, Tocqueville expands on the benefits for liberal society of associating. He is less confident than Mill that individuals can be taught to stand up to the majority, and he wants also to persuade the majority that it need not demand conformity. [25]

In noting American reliance on self-interest, Tocqueville differs from much current discussion on democratic participation, sometimes called ‘communitarian.’ Communitarian sentiment is opposed to self-interest; it wants to be altruistic and selfless, for the common good as opposed to selfish or market-oriented. For him, sentiment on behalf of the community comes out of one’s self-interest and is useful to it rather than selfless and opposed. [26]

Religion is the root of the mores that help maintain a democratic republic in America. It is considered for this function, not for its truth—and he says that what is most important is not that all citizens profess the true religion, but that they profess a religion. In this political view, religion serves politics, rather than politics serving religion, as with the Puritans. [30]

Almost immediately after introducing majority tyranny, Tocqueville speaks of the ‘power that the majority exercises over thought.’ He makes the flat statement that ‘I do not know any country where, in general, less independence of mind and genuine freedom reign than in America. It is not that a dissident need fear being persecuted or burned at the stake, but that nobody will listen, and he will be dismissed from consideration, finally shushed. This is an ‘intellectual’ violence that closes the mind and, more effectually than the Inquisition, takes away from authors even the thought of publishing views contrary to the majority’s opinion. [45-46].

“Equality develops the desire in each man to judge everything by himself; it gives him in all things a taste for the tangible and real and a contempt for traditions and forms.” In the permanent bustle of democracy men have no leisure for the quiet meditation required for the “most theoretical principles.” [64]

At the end of his master work Tocqueville discloses the political evil toward which democracy naturally tends, the culmination of his fear, repeatedly expressed, that democratic equality will overcome democratic freedom. Here, he calls this evil ‘mild despotism’; elsewhere he calls it democratic or administrative despotism….We have seen the germ of mild despotism in his description in volume 1 of the vague power of public opinion, but in volume 2 we see it embodied in the centralized democratic state. [77-78]

As these quotations show Tocqueville both has insights that remain relevant to life today (e.g., above quotations from pp. 25, 46-46, 77-78) and ideas that Christians must reject (e.g., quotations form pp. 26, 30).

Murray, Iain H. J. C. Ryle: Prepared to Stand Alone. Banner of Truth, 2016.

Iain Murray writes history like J. C. Ryle wrote history. He writes with the desire to edify God’s people. He makes use of church history to instruct in doctrine and to exhort to holy living. This does not mean Murray writes hagiography, overlooking faults or trimming the truth. But it does mean he writes history that is not the bare recitation of facts and context. Murray, like Ryle, seeks to draw out the significance of events.

One example. Ryle tells the sad story of how J. C. Ryle’s son Herbert left the faith his father defended. In their lifetimes Herbert gained the greater scholarly acclaim. “Yet,” Murray observes, “a century is a small time in the history of the kingdom of God. It takes the long term to judge what is of enduring value. Herbert Ryle’s last book, a Commentary on the Minor Prophets, on which he spent many years, was never published. It found no publisher; the ‘latest scholarship’ was already out of date by the time of his death in 1925. His father as a teacher rested on a different authority and, as one who delighted in the law of the Lord, he inherited the promise, ‘He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither’ (Psa. 1:3)” (196).