Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

Prayer and Preaching

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Robert Trail wrote, “Some ministers of meaner gifts and parts are more successful than some that are far above them in abilities; not because they preach better, so much as because they pray more. Many good sermons are lost for lack of much prayer in study.” . . . The church today desperately needs such preachers whose private prayers season their pulpit messages. The Puritan pastors jealously guarded their personal devotional time. They set their priorities on spiritual, eternal realities. They knew that if they cased to watch and pray constantly, they would be courting spiritual disaster.

Joel Beeke, Puritan Reformed Spirituality (RHB, 2004), 164.

Prayers for Keeping the Heart

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[Keeping the heart] includes earnest supplications and instant prayer for heart-purifying and rectifying grace, when sin has defiled and disordered it. So Psalm 19:12: “Cleanse thou me from secret faults”; and Psalm 86:11: “Unite my heart to fear Thy name.” Saints have always many such petitions pending before the throne of God’s grace. This is the thing which is most pleaded by them with God. When they are praying for outward mercies, perhaps their spirits may be more remiss; but when it comes to the heart case, then they extend their spirits to the utmost, fill their mouths with arguments, weep, and make supplication: “Oh, for a better heart! Oh, for a heart to love God more. Oh, for a heart to hate sin more and to walk more evenly with God. Lord, deny not to me such a heart whatever Thou deniest me! Give me a heart to fear Thee, love and delight in Thee, even if I beg my bread in desolate places.”

John Flavel, Keeping the Heart (SDG, 1998), 7.

The Threefold Office of Christ – Part One

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From the time of Eusebius of Caesarea (Ecclesiastical History 1.3), Christians have recognized that Christ held three offices: Prophet, Priest, and King. These three offices are not a later theological construct. All three play a major role in the history of redemption recounted in Scripture.

The seed for the Christological office of king lies in the dominion blessing of Genesis 1:28-30. As the climax of God’s creation, as the creature made in the image of his Creator, man was to rule the earth as God’s vice-regent. The text does not provide extensive information as to what the nature of this unfallen dominion would have been like. Some speculate that humans were to extend the conditions of Eden throughout the world (cf. G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 83f).

Before the original intent of mankind’s dominion could be realized, Adam and Eve sinned and the entire world fell under God’s judgment. The sin of the first couple affected more than their spirits. The blessing of dominion was distorted by sin. After the Fall, the very ground resisted mankind’s dominion (3:17-29). In some ways, the creation seemed to now have dominion over its ruler: “for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (3:19).

Genesis 4:17-26 reveals that the creation blessing has not been annulled. Cain is fruitful and he multiplies. Some of his descendants are recorded, and the multiplication of descendents is implied by the building of a city. Lamech’s bigamy should also be viewed in the context of the multiplication of progeny. Nor was dominion aspect of the blessing removed. The cultural achievements of Genesis four are all instances of subduing the earth. Some men assert their control over the animal world by domesticating animals. Others learned how to manipulate creation to create musical instruments. Men also learned how to forge minerals from the earth into tools. These cultural achievements are recorded in the line of Cain to demonstrate that the creation blessing still retained force among fallen man.

God also reaffirmed man’s dominion over the earth after the Flood. He gave the animals and plants into man’s hand (9:2-4). But the disorder of sin is also apparent in this passage. Man may rule the beasts, but the beasts will eat him (9:2). Though God also lays down a basic law of social order (Murder is a capital offense; 9:5-6), when men once again organize themselves socially, they exercise their dominion in defiance of God (11:4). For sinful man, the blessing of dominion became a curse, and man’s dominion needed to be curtailed (11:6).

At this point in the story the dominion of man over the earth does not appear to be beneficial, but the closing chapters of Genesis raise the issue of kingship in a more hopeful manner. This time the king is the solution. Jacob prophesied a king from Judah would rule over a restored earth (49:8-12; This interpretation presumes the translation, “until he whose right it is comes” (HCSB; cf. T/NIV). This translation is based on (1) the reading שלה rather than שילה in thirty-nine Hebrew manuscripts, (2) the translations of the LXX, Syriac Peshitta, and Targum Onkelos, and (3) the probable allusion to this verse by Ezekiel 21:26-27. For a survey of the views and detailed augmentation for this interpretation see Smith, 206-23).

The promise of a Messianic king in this passage is commonly recognized, but his dominion over a restored world is often missed. The prediction of a restored world is found in verse 11 A world in which vines can be used for hitching posts is manifestly overflowing in agriculture. Likewise washing clothes in the juice of crushed grapes indicates the extravagance of this future age. Smith notes this creates quite a contrast with the present world of famine, thorns, and sweat (Smith, 215f.). This prophecy invests the promise to Abraham, “kings shall come from you,” with greater significance than would have been at first apparent.

Works Cited

Beale, G. K. The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God. New Studies in Biblical Theology. D. A. Carson. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004.

Smith, Bryan.  “The Presentation of Judah in Genesis 37-50 and its Implications for the Narrative’s Structure and Thematic Unity.” Ph.D. diss., Bob Jones University, 2002.

Poythress on Textures in Inaugurated Eschatology

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This is a fascinating thought worth pondering:

Inaugurated eschatology does indeed constitute a common theme across the NT books. But one can still see differences in the detailed textures of the way in which it is integrated within different NT books. Vos notes one striking difference between Paul and Hebrews:

“The representation of the present age is not the same in both. For Paul the present age is the evil age and the new age is the perfect age. Paul thus presents a bisection of universal history, with the resurrection of Christ as the dividing point. In Hebrews, however, the old age is the Old Testament. Thus Hebrews presents not a bisection of universal history, but a bisection of the history of redemption, which results, therefore, in a philosophy of redemption and revelation. The writer of Hebrews does not regard the old Diatheke as something evil, but rather as the world of shadows (the Levitical world).”

One may extend Vos’s observations to other NT books. Revelation represents the present age as the age of intense spiritual war, culminating in the final battle and the consummation era of peace. Luke represents the present age as the age of the spread of the gospel, culminating in final answerability at the judgment (Acts 17:31). John represents the present age as the age of the revelation of the glory of God in Christ (John 14:9), by means of the presence of Christ through the presence of the Holy Spirit as “another helper” (John 14:16).

From https://www.frame-poythress.org/poythress_articles/2008Kinds.htm

Flavel on autonomous man

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Flavel’s description of autonomous man is worth pondering:

Man by degeneration has become a most disordered and rebellious creature, contesting with and opposing his Maker as the first cause by self-dependence; as the chief good by self-love; as the highest Lord by self-will; and as the last end by self-seeking. So he is quite disordered,, and all his acts are irregular. His illuminated understanding is clouded with ignorance, his complying will full of rebellion and stubbornness, his subordinate powers casting off the dominion and government of the superior faculties.

Sins like self-dependence, self-love, self-will, and self-seeking do not always asset themselves in notorious ways. By showing how each of these sins is rebellion against the Lordship of the Creator, Flavel strips them of their disguise and enables us to see the sinfulness of sin.

Source: John Flavel, Keeping the Heart (SDG, 1998), 5.

B. B. Warfield and Separation

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A common objection against the practice of separation from brothers in Christ is that separation implies the brother is in sin and no true Christian can remain in sin. If the fundamentalist (here defined as an orthodox Christian who practices the doctrines of separation from both false teachers and persistently disobedient brothers both within and beyond the local church) grants this objection, he is forced either to concede that his evangelical brothers’ failure to practice separation is not sinful or he is forced to conclude that evangelicals are, in fact, not truly brothers at all.

While this objection must be (and can be) met on exegetical and theological grounds, parallel situations in church history often helpfully shed light on present debates.

An example of this may be found in the discussions about unification between the northern and southern Presbyterian churches after the Civil War. In these discussions B. B. Warfield recognized both that different sins required differing levels of responses and that in certain situations a sin may require ecclesiastical separation without casting doubt on the professed salvation of those separated from.

Note this letter from Warfield to a fellow Presbyterian pastor in 1887:

I must confess to you that I am one of those whom you perhaps consider grossly inconsistent, who heartily accord with both the deliverances of 1818 & 1845. I do think slavery a gigantic evil & entirely inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel & a sin in the slave holders: & I do not think it a disciplinable offense or a fit test of communion. It is possible ‘to sin against Christ’ & yet not be subject to exclusion from his table (1 Cor. viii. 12, compared with the context & the parallel in Romans xiv, e.g. Ro xiv 3). . . .
. . . That the Southern Church has not repented of its sin in regard to slavery would be no bar to my union with it: I could unite with it in a free conscience tomorrow. But that it is not awake to its duty to the Freedman & that organic union with it would injure if not destroy our work among them makes me deprecate & pray against reunion in any near future.

Cited in Bradley J. Gundlach, “Warfield, Biblical Authority, and Jim Crow,” in B. B. Warfield: Essays on His Life and Thought, ed. Gary L. W. Johnson (P&R, 2007), 163.

In other words, Warfield insisted on remaining ecclesiastically separate from R. L. Dabney, but he was not casting doubt on the intransigent Dabney’s regeneration.

John Murray on the Fear of God

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“The first thought of the godly man in every circumstance is God’s relation to him and it, and his and its relation to God. That is God-consciousness and that is what the fear of God entails.”

John Murray, Principles of Conduct, 238

Exodus 20:20

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Exodus 20:20 intrigues the attentive reader with an interesting juxtaposition of ideas. The delivery of the Decalogue with its accompanying theophanic thundering, lighting, trumpeting, and smoking supplies the context for the verse. The people were afraid, and they moved from the foot of the mountain (19:17) to a place “far off” (20:18) (Currid, 2:53). They pled with Moses to serve as their mediator because they feared God would strike them dead.

Exodus 20:20 is Moses’ response to these fears. He first of all rebukes the people for their fear: “Do not fear.” He explains to them the cause of God’s coming (marked by the כִּי). God came to test them, not to kill them. Furthermore, God intended this test to produce fear(!) in the people.

At Sinai God came to test his people in a way that should remove one kind of fear and should instill another kind of fear.

This raises the question of how God’s coming at Sinai was a test for the people. Similar occurrences of the word “test” [נִסָה] (Gen 22:1; Ex 15:25; Ex 16:4; Deut 8:2; Deut 8:16; Deut 13:3; Judg 2:22; Jdg 3:1; Jdg 3:4; Ps 26:2) indicate that God tests his people to reveal if they will obey him (in Deut. 13:3 the test reveals whether or not they love him). But the purpose [וּבַעֲבוּר] of this test, at least as stated in this verse, is not to reveal something but to produce something: people that fear God in such a way that they do not sin.

Helfmeyer, following Noth, says “The people assembled at Sinai passed the test: they ‘have shown the right ‘fear’ of God and have not attempted to go too near the theophany” (TDOT, 9:451; cf Stuart, NAC, 469). This, however, misses Moses initial statement, “Do not fear.”

The children of Israel seemed to have failed this test. The test revealed in their hearts a fear that drove them from God. It should have produced a fear that drove them closer to God. The fear God intended to produce by the test at Sinai included the idea of dread (with Stuart, NAC, 469; against Currid, 54, who downgrades the term to mere “reverence”) because the fear of God includes fear of judgment (cf. Ex. 20:5; Deut 17:13; 21:21; Matt. 10:28; Heb. 4:1; 10:27, 31; cf. John Murray, Principles of Conduct, 233f.). But right fear of God–the kind of fear not forbidden–is more extensive than mere dread. As John Murray says, “The fear of God in which godliness consists is the fear which constrains adoration and love. It is the fear which consists in awe, reverence, honour, and worship, and all of these on the highest level of exercise” (Principles of Conduct, 236; cf. Deut 6:2 with 6:5; Deut 10:12; Josh 24:14; 1 Sam 12:24; Psalm 112:1; Pro 8:13).

The fear that the test at Sinai should have produced is modeled by Isaiah in the sixth chapter of his book. There he combined “Woe to me, for I am destroyed” (6:5) with “Behold me; send me” (6:8). Implicit in God’s command for Israel not to fear so as to draw back but to fear so as not to sin is the promise of mercy enacted in Isaiah 6:6-7. For those with ears to ear, Exodus 20:20 was a promise to Israel that God would provide atonement for their sin.

Sermonic Providences

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In God’s grace several of the sermons I listened to yesterday connected with one another in providential ways. As I was getting ready yesterday morning, I began listening to Tim Keller’s sermon on Isiah’s vision of God in Isaiah 6. I finished the message at lunch and the very next message on my iPod was a sermon by Steve Hafler that that began with readings from the Scripture passages in which Ezekiel and Daniel had visions of God. The closeness in content between Keller’s sermon and the way Pastor Hafler’s sermon began was striking.

In addition to this, Pastor Hafler developed the concept of the fear of God, which is a key thought in Exodus 20:20–a verse that I’ve been studying in my devotional time.

During the morning service at church I was able to teach a neighborhood teen class. We began our class time by working on memorizing Revelation 5:9-10, and I taught on Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King. In our evening service Pastor Vincent preached from Matthew 12:6, 41, 42. He concluded the message by noting Priest, Prophet, King theme in these verses and by reading Revelation 5:9-10.

I take these “coincidencecs” as good gifts from my heavenly Father to guide my thoughts about Him on His day.