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HT: Glen Scrivener
“Jesus is God and man in one person: man that he may feel our woes, God that he may help us out of them.”
- Charles H. Spurgeon, “Immanuel – The Light of Life” (sermon on Isaiah 9:1,2)
A minister must be learned, on pain of being utterly incompetent for his work. But before and above being learned, a minister must be godly.
Nothing could be more fatal, however, than to set these two things over against one another. Recruiting officers do not dispute whether it is better for soldiers to have a right leg or a left leg: soldiers should have both legs. Sometimes we hear it said that ten minutes on your knees will give you a truer, deeper, more operative knowledge of God than ten hours over your books. “What!” is the appropriate response, “than ten hours over your books, on your knees?” Why should you turn from God when you turn to your books, or feel that you must turn from your books in order to turn to God?
You are students of theology; and, just because you are students of theology, it is understood that you are religious men—especially religious men,to whom the cultivation of your religious life is a matter of the profoundest concern—of such concern that you will wish above all things to be warned of the dangers that may assail your religious life, and be pointed to the means by which you may strengthen and enlarge it.
In your case there can be no “either—or” here—either a student or a man of God. You must be both.
-Benjamin B. Warfield, The Religious Life of Theological Students, 182-183
The patristic fathers are an important group of people for the church to hear. They stand the closest to the Apostles in time and place when it comes to understanding doctrines and Christian beliefs. The Roman Catholic Church even uses their words to create traditions that Christians must follow and believe.
This raises the question for us about how we are to read and understand them. Should they have an authoritative word for us when we think through doctrines? Should what they say be the decisive factor if there is a debate over a certain issue? Are we to assume that they are closer to the truth because of their relative closeness to the early church?
Mark R. Saucy raises an important point about the teachings of the Church Fathers in his article, Canon as Tradition: The New Covenant and the Hermeneutical Question. He states the logical flow of his thesis,
1. The theology of the new covenant is central to the story of the Old and NT and so comprises the canonical tradition.
2. The patristic church did not pay sufficient attention to the canonical tradition of the new covenant.
3. Therefore, by implication, the claims for the patristic church’s necessity and normativity in the hermeneutical question must be moderated accordingly.
He then explores each one of these points. The hope of the bible is placed in the New Covenant planned by the Father, brought about by the death of Christ and activated by the work of the Spirit in the hearts of believers promised in the Old Testament and inaugurated in the New. This is an essential grid to have when coming to the Bible. Without it we miss the grand story of redemption that is portrayed in the scriptures. Dr. Saucy writes ( διαθήκη means “covenant”),
As is clear from this brief survey of the canonical tradition, Johannes Behm’s assessment accurately reflects the view of the NT writers: “Jesus conceived of His Messianic work fulfilled in His death from the standpoint of the fulfillment of prophecy of the eschatological διαθήκη.”(J. Behm, “διαθήκη,” TDNT 2:133. Themelios) In this fulfillment, Jesus truly continues the Great Covenant Story of restoration of the creation promised to Abraham back to the earliest parts of Israel’s Scriptures. But he also advances that Story by moving it beyond and cancelling earlier transitional elements. The final resolution of the sin-problem accomplished in Christ’s cross made obsolete earlier mediated approaches to God in the temple cult. With the life of God’s own Spirit pulsing within, the believer in Jesus has new knowledge of the Holy One of Israel as Father, giving the new, true power of full acceptance and sonship from within that enables obedience and holy living. As heirs of God’s irrevocable promises, the blessing of all flesh could be expected in the future restoration of Israel itself. Here then is the canon of Scripture’s tradition of the new covenant’s continuity and discontinuity that founded the church by the apostles’ inspired witness.
After reading Jason Meyer’s book, End of the Law, I find myself in more and more agreement with this point as I look at the bible. The New Covenant is not an interesting point that the biblical authors refer to now and then. But the reality of God’s actions through the New Covenant is foundational to the Apostle’s understanding of God’s redemptive workings in this world.
Then Dr. Saucy looks the different patrisitc fathers and how they departed from this central point. He lists four main areas of departure,
- First, dominance of the Christus Victor model of the atonement in the early patristic tradition means that things other than forgiveness of sins occupy center stage.
- Second, the second-century church tended to dissipate the power of Christ’s cross to other mediating objects and human moral striving.
- Third,…, the ecclesiology of the church’s tradition developed along vectors alien to the canonical tradition’s new-covenant ideals.
- Fourth, the growing institutionalization of the patristic tradition also correlated well to a perception of God quite alien to the new-covenant canonical tradition.
- Whereas the new-covenant Story climaxes in the unbroken communion between creature and Creator provided in the forgiveness of sins, God the Father in the patristic tradition waxes again strangely distant and becomes shrouded in the mist of absoluteness, impassibility (ἀπάθεια) and apophatic discourse as the maxims of Neoplatonism are enlisted to talk of him and battle pagans.
Now, I do not have the personal knowledge of the writings of the patrisitic fathers to give authoritative backing to what he says. But Dr. Saucy does work through the actual writings of the fathers to back up his points.
What we have with the apostolic and church fathers are men who were susceptible to error like the rest of us. If Saucy’s findings prove true then we see the fathers departing from a central motif of the Scriptures. This should cause us to not treat the patrisitc church as a final authority over matters of doctrine but as simply other righteous voices that we should listen to as we allow the bible to be the final authority on all things. And where they agree with Scripture we should embrace their teaching but where they depart we should depart from them as well.
You can read the article in full if you want the full explanation of backing of all these point.
One of the most helpful books I have read on Justification and Regeneration was Charles Leiter’s book called Justification and Regeneration. It is simple and concise, yet it is substantial in its presentation of these two doctrines. Leiter cames from a pastoral standpoint where he has grasped the depths of these doctrines and gives them to the sheep in ways they can comprehend and appreciate. Also, his section on regeneration was very helpful when I read it. I had never given much thought to what regeneration entailed for me as a believer until I read this book. I would gladly past along this book to new and mature believers as a source of growing in their knowledge of these two doctrines.
And now the book can be downloaded and distributed for free. Challies has a link to the book if you want to download it.
This is a very helpful overview of key points with the relationship between justification and sanctification by Rick Phillips. I have been thinking about the relationship a good bit as I have been reading Walter Marshall’s Gospel Mystery of Sanctification and by living daily life. I know for myself that I come from a history of having the faith portrayed as basically imperatives and calls to live passionately for God. when I came across a gospel centered view of sanctification it was illuminating and freeing. Yet, there is the constant development of how I am to understand the gospel as it applies to sanctification. What Rick says is very helpful. He lists seven assertions about the relationship.
- Justification and Sanctification are twin benefits that flow from union with Christ through faith.
- Justification and Sanctification are distinct but simultaneous.
- Justification and Sanctification are both necessary and intrinsic to salvation.
- Justification is logically prior to progressive Sanctification.
- Justification does not cause Sanctification, but Christ both justifies and sanctifies his people.
- In Justification faith is passive and receptive (Gal. 2:16), whereas in Sanctification faith is active.
- The law of God functions differently with respect to Justification and Sanctification.
Rick goes on to explain each one of these assertions in his post. You would be cutting yourself short if you didn’t read the explanations.
Thus we see that the Lord’s supper is intended to be to us a full store house—an overflowing fountain of spiritual blessing. It is designed to furnish us with an abundant supply for our manifold wants…
It gives new ardour to our hopes. It looks back to the first, and forward to the second coming of the Lord. It points to future glory. It carries us forward to the inheritance—the kingdom, the crown, the restitution of all things, the rest that remianeth for the people of God, the bridal day, the marriage supper of the Lamb.
We sit here as at our eastern window to watch the first rays of coming day; to see star after star fading from the heavens as the dawn approaches, and the sun prepares to rise, “the sun of a morning without clouds,” bringing in the splendour of the everlasting day. We seem to hear the voice which sounded over the lonely rocks of Patmos in the ears of John, “He that testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly.” And with him we eagerly echo back the joyful words, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
Horatius Bonar, Christ is All, p. 177, 180
Every time I take the Lord’s Supper it is a tangible reminder that I have a greater supper awaiting me. It is a physical promise that through this world of pain and trials there is a coming feast at which I will sit down at. Though the food is simply now, it will be glorious then!
Not to long ago my church, Immanuel, changed our practice or having the Lord’s Supper. We went from having it once a month to having it every Sunday. And it has been a wonderful change. Now, every week, I get a tangible reminder that the greatest feast of all is in my future. Every Sunday I am reminded that I will sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
