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The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift for James B. Jordan
Fyodor Dostoevsky
(Christian Encounters Series)
Athanasius
(Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)
The Four: A Survey of the Gospels
Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom
From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
Anatolios (Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine
Nyssa realized that this can’t be right and so “he sunders the conflation of ontological and moral connotations attached to the language of ‘passions,’ a conflation that tended to assign negative moral value to the very structure of corporeal human existence.” He thus reserves the term “passion” for “willful moral failure.” As Gregory himself puts it, “nothing is truly passion which is not conducive to sin . . . only the diseased condition of the will is truly passion.” The Word did not partake of passions in this sense, even though “he did partake of all the structural conditions of finite corporeal human existence, including the emotions that arise naturally and faultlessly from these conditions.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 3:18 pm
In his American Providence: A Nation with a Mission
In particular, “the baggage it needs to throw overboard in order to ascend higher than other faiths includes its ties to Judaism. Judaism, of course, is always the scapegoat for those who emphasize the universal nature of religious truth, as well as for those who think the universality of providence must eclipse everything that remains stubbornly particular. By dissassociating themselves from the [Jewish] ‘tribal’ roots of their faith, ‘Christians can face the future with confidence.’”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, June 21, 2011 at 10:51 am
Back to Witherington, and nearly done. Several of his comments defend against my charge that pacifists tend toward Marcionism. He writes: “it is not Marcionism to recognize that the OT tells the story of covenants that Christians are no longer under, and which the NT says quite clearly reflects God dealing with the hardness of human hearts problem, God dealing with fallen humans where they are. God’s perfect will is not revealed in the blood and guts narratives of the OT and they provide no basis for Christian praxis. Christians are under the new covenant, not any of the old ones. What is most stunning about Leithart’s analysis is his complete failure to have any kind of sense of progressive revelation in the Scriptures, despite the fact that texts like Hebrews 1.1-4 tells us very clearly that the revelation in previous days was partial and piecemeal, but in Christ the will and character of God is fully revealed and evident.”
What is most stunning about Witherington’s criticism is how thoroughly he misses the point of the section of my book he’s reviewing. The thrust of the last chapter is to describe the “end of sacrifice,” that is, the end of an old covenant order centered on animal sacrifice. The whole point of the chapter is to suggest that Constantine’s conversion, and the transformation of Roman order that resulted, was a real “baptism” of Rome, a real transition from a Rome-under-stoicheia to a Rome-after-stoicheia, a Rome-come-of-age. As I try to elaborate in the book, drawing largely on the brilliant work of Guy Stroumsa, the end of sacrifice was an epochal moment in the history of civilization.
What’s intriguing, if not stunning, is the way that Witherington expresses the discontinuity between old and new. Much I agree with: Scripture describes covenants Christians are no longer under, the NT deals with the problem of hard hearts, there is progressive revelation, the old revelation was partial and piecemeal, Christ is the final Word and Will of God. Nothing I wrote in Defending Constantine suggests anything different. But I do contest the inference that the narratives of the OT “provide no basis for Christian praxis.” No basis? And this as part of a paragraph that attempts to rebut my charge of Marcionism?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 8:29 am
In WCF 8.6, we read that the “virtue, efficacy, and benefits” of the work of redemption were “communicated unto the elect” even before the actual accomplishment of redemption in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus. ”From the beginning of the world” these benefits were given “in and by those promises, types, and sacrifices wherein He was revealed.” Gospel benefits, in short, are communicated to those under the law.
So how, exactly, is Torah a republication of the covenant of works?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, May 3, 2011 at 4:17 am
According to some Reformed thinkers today, the law was a republication of the covenant of works, and as such offered the promised inheritance on the “principle” of law. Do this and live; do this and inherit the land. That is the principle of law at work.
The WCF 7.5, however, gives a very different account of the law. For starters, it is an administration of the “second covenant,” the covenant of grace, not the covenant of works. Besides, all the ordinances of the old covenant were for “foresignifying Christ to come,” and they were intended not to be a law principle of inheritance but to “instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah.” Under the law, the elect “had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation” through that promised Messiah. The “principle” at work in the law appears to be very much a gospel principle.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, May 2, 2011 at 5:41 am
Steven Wedgeworth writes:
“You might want to be more skeptical of Torrance. You (and he) are right to sniff a problem, but the genealogy of that problem is a bit more complicated. Just one example. You blogged on visible and invisible and said that Torrance claimed later Federalism moved beyond the Scots Confession on visible/invisible church stuff. But in chapter 16 of the Scots Confession the church is defined as invisible and ‘known only to God, who alone knows whom He has chosen.’
“The Scots Confession, along with all of the pre-Westminster Confessions, defines the Church as invisible and simply does not include an additional discussion on the visible. The WCF is new precisely because it spends as much time as it does talking about the visible church by itself.
“The key to the unity is, I believe, what Luther called ‘trysting places.’ The visible church, sacraments, etc. were all trysting places for believers to encounter the invisible realities through faith. Trigg has a good discussion on this in his book on Luther and baptism.
“Also, this site will give the other side of the Reformed history on God’s love, atonement, etc:http://calvinandcalvinism.com/“
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, October 9, 2010 at 4:38 am
In answer to a question from a former student about the relations of Jews and Gentiles in Old and New, I offered these points as coordinates for that question:
1. Yes, Gentiles were saved under the Old Covenant, and Israel’s contact with an success with Gentiles increased as time went on. Solomon influences Hiram and other kings in a way that Moses never did; once Israel is scattered around the Mediterranean, kings and emperors start confessing Yahweh as the God of heaven.
2. Calvin gets the relation of OT and NT right, I think, when he says that the OT was “relatively” darker than the NT. It was not completely dark, but it was darker. It was night with a full moon (Passover), moving to the beginning of dawn; but it’s wasn’t daylight yet. Those images get at it. Augustine talks about this in a couple of ways: He takes up the NT language about “symbol” and “substance” or “shadow” and “substance”; OT is shadow and symbol of the coming fulfillment, but those shadows still revealed God and communicate His gifts.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, August 11, 2010 at 6:11 am
Merleau-Ponty asks, in Humanism and Terror, “What if it were the very essence of history to impute to us responsibilities which are never entirely ours?”
A very Augustinian, covenantal question.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, March 15, 2010 at 12:34 pm
This past week, a committee of the PCA’s Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) issued a report in a case from the Pacific NW Presbytery regarding my views on a number of theological questions. Among other things, the committee claimed that I denied the “bi-covenantal” structure of Scripture laid out in the covenant of works/covenant of grace distinction in the Confession. They quoted me as saying that the distinction of the Adamic covenant and the covenant of grace is more “administrative” than “soteriological.” The committee said that this shows that I believe there is “no significant difference between the covenants,” and added that my stated views on the difference of the covenants of works and grace was more like the Confession’s statements about the difference of Old and New covenants (which, presumably, is a significant difference?).
The committee’s summary of my views does not appear to take account of my response to the investigative committee, which I wrote last spring. They may well have considered my response, and concluded that it didn’t change their conclusions, but to clarify my own views, and to clarify also the specific views the Presbytery judged to be Confessional, I post below a snippet of that response.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, December 12, 2009 at 9:41 am
Robert Letham is among the best Reformed theologians writing today. His books are deeply researched, up-to-date, his conclusions judicious and balanced; he knows the Reformed tradition, but is not narrow in either his reading or sympathies; he is resolutely Reformed, but makes bold in his recent book on the Westminster Assembly (The Westminster Assembly: Reading Its Theology in Historical Context (Westminster Assembly and the Reformed Faith)
The book is full of historical information: digressions that summarize the development of controverted issues within Reformed theology up to the mid-seventeenth century, summaries of debates at the Assembly (drawn largely from Chad van Dixhoorn’s work on the minutes), and outlines of the basic theology of the Confession. At several points, he notes the flexibility of the Assembly, its effort “to reach the widest measure of agreement possible, within acceptable limits of doctrine and practice” and its refusal to blackball and exclude members who took positions that were finally not represented by the Confession itself.
I was disappointed that I didn’t find more Letham.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, November 27, 2009 at 5:21 pm
In a recent article on Ruth 1:16-17 in CBQ, Mark Smith comments on the relation between covenantal and familial terminology in Ruth and elsewhere. Even when covenants have political dimensions, as in international treaties, they are fundamentally mechanisms for extending kin ties beyond immediate blood relations. Smith writes:
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 5:56 am
Did Adam have to earn access to the tree of life? Not at all. Nothing could be clearer in Genesis 2: God offers every tree of the garden, and makes one – count ‘em – one exception, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life was there for the taking. Adam had only to accept God’s offer, take, and eat.
After the fall, God kept Adam from the tree of life, until Life itself appeared in the flesh to be heard, seen, touched, and eaten.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 5:55 am
Did Adam have to exercise faith in the garden, prior to sin?
Of course. He was a creature.
Creatures are utterly dependent on the Creator for everything, absolutely everything. That’s what it means to be a creature. An utterly dependent being is a being whose stance must be one of expectant trust.
God said, Eat from the trees. But how could Adam produce the fruit? He couldn’t. He had to trust God for food.
God said, It’s not good for man to be alone. Could Adam find a helper suitable to him? He had to trust God.
God put Adam into deep sleep and tore him in two. Adam has to entrust himself to Yahweh just as surely as Abraham did when Yahweh told him to sacrifice Isaac.
Adam went into deep sleep exercising the faith of Hebrews 11 – hoping for something delightful that he had not yet seen.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 5:51 am
The term “mono-covenantalism” has been tossed around wildly in the last few years. Apparently, mono-covenantalism is really scary and bad. The PCA FV report insists on “bi-covenantalism” as the structure of “Scripture.”
So, is there one covenant, or are there two?
Might as well ask if Indian and African elephants are one species or two. Are you mono-elephantine or bi-elephantine?
The answer, of course, depends on what features you’re attending to. Nobody believes that the Adamic covenant in the garden was the same in every respect as the postlapsarian covenants. If nothing else, there’s the difference of Adam’s location: In the first covenant, he’s in the garden; the postlapsarian covenant presumes his exclusion from the garden.
Yet, most everyone agrees that there are fundamental similarities: Both covenants have identical parties – God and Adam; both are initiated by God; both include promises and threats; and so on.
Carrying on a debate between bi- and mono-covenantalism is just that – carrying on. It’s sloganizing, not theology.
If the scholastics taught us nothing else, and they taught us much, they would be valuable for introducing the word “quoddamodo” (“in a certain sense”) into theological discourse.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 5:45 am
A few weeks ago, I criticized an article by Cal Beisner and Fowler White for introducing the notion of “merit” into the inter-Trinitarian relations. On reflection and having read some of Joel Garver’s recent discussion of the PCA Federal Vision study report (at sacradoctrina.com), I want to nuance my criticism a bit.
If saying that the Son “merits” the Father’s good pleasure in the Spirit means that the Son is worthy of the Father’s love, attention, regard, pleasure, then that is certainly the case. This does not mean that the Son initially lacked worthiness and had to earn it; He has always been worthy of the Father’s love, and vice versa, and the Spirit too.
Even this probably needs to be massaged a bit.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, June 9, 2007 at 10:23 am
Barth offers a challenging critique of the covenant of works. Let me summarize three points, briefly.
First, Barth points out that the covenant of works sets law and works as the framework for the entire account of redemptive history and God’s dealings with man. The work of Jesus is understood in these terms, as the fulfillment of the covenant of works, and he argues that even the Christian life is guided by law, in the sense that the law provokes our repentance and guides our obedience. God’s relation to man is centrally that of Lawgiver and servant.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 10:38 am
Last week, I posted a critique of the argument of Cal Beisner and Fowler White concerning the connection between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of works. Beisner and White replied, and I post their reply here with their permission.
We offer our sincere thanks to Dr. Leithart for his thoughtful interaction with our observations on the relationship between the doctrine of a meritorious covenant of works and the doctrine of God. We agree with him that reflections on that relationship promise to shed useful light on matters of dispute in the FV controversy. In what follows, we present our response to his evaluation of our thinking.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, May 3, 2007 at 5:47 pm
All theology is theology proper.
Michael Horton says that human beings are created “wired” for the law: “It belongs to us by nature in creation, while the gospel is an announcement of good news in the event of transgression. It has to be preached, whereas the law belongs to the conscience of every person already. Therefore, the original relationship of humanity to God is one of law and love, not of grace and mercy.”
This makes grace, not law and judgment, the “strange work” of God. Grace comes, apparently, from the “left hand.” Is this not a fundamental reversal of Luther?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at 11:40 am
What should Adam have done when the serpent started talking to Eve? What would you do?
You’d scream, probably. But then you’d pray, hard. Because you’d know that only God can deliver you from a dragon.
We sometimes think that Adam should have stepped up and handled the serpent bare-handed. Perhaps; but that confrontation would have been a confrontation of faith, Adam relying not on his own strength but wholly on God.
Unfallen Adam, in short, should have cried out in faith to his Savior Yahweh to save him. To remain unfallen, he needed to be saved.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Horton cites Irenaeus as an early theologian who anticipated the federal theologians by distinguishing between “the ‘covenant of law’ and the ‘covenant of grace.’” In a footnote, he claims that “Irenaeus even distinguishes between ‘an economy of law/works’ and a ‘Gospel covenant,’” citing Against Hereies 4.25.
I don’t find the phrases Horton uses in that section of Irenaeus, but perhaps we’re looking at different translations. More substantively, it’s clear that Irenaeus is talking not about the covenant with Adam and the covenant with Christ, but the Abrahamic/Mosaic covenant of circumcision and law and the new covenant. His interpretation of Romans 4 anticipates N. T. Wright more than the federal theologians:
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 4:39 pm
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