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Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 3 section 5

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This section of the Confession of faith deals with God’s unconditional election of those predestined for life. The bible clearly states that salvation is wholly a work of grace through faith in Christ so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 and since salvation is pure unmerited grace, then there is no room for works. Today’s confession makes this abundantly clear:

3 points –

1) God predestined some to life before the foundation of the world and this choice is eternal, and unchangeable

2) The choice was out of God’s free grace, good pleasure and love; not based on any quality or works of man

3) God’s election manifests his glory by displaying his holiness of wrath in the destruction of the wicked and displaying the perfection of his mercy and love in saving the elect.

Those people who are predestined to life, God—before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and unchangeable purpose and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will—has chosen in Christ to everlasting glory. He chose them out of his free grace and love alone, not because he foresaw faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of these, or anything else in the creature, as conditions or causes moving him to do this; and all to the praise of his glorious grace.

(WCF 3.5)

Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 3 Section 3

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That WCF 3.3 is concerned about God’s grace for both the elect and the reprobate. For the reprobate, God’s grace, mercy, patience is highlighted (and obviously God’s justice, but not just God’s justice). Eph. 2:3 “among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

If, from eternity, God had predestined the elect for grace and mercy (Eph 1:4-5), but in history the elect were for a time “children of [God's] wrath”, the converse could also be said: from eternity God had foreordained the reprobate to damnation, but in history the reprobate were for a time recipients of God’s common grace, mercy and patience.

To state it simply: after Adam’s fall, the human race was headed to hell. All of us deserve hell. However it was by God’s good pleasure that he decreed that some may be saved through Jesus Christ. All of us deserve hell, but for a short time, we all are recipients of God’s common grace, mercy and patience. Again this is for His glory.

By God’s decree, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestined to everlasting life, and others are foreordained to everlasting death.

Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 3 Section 1

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Chapter 3: Of God’s eternal decree
God, from all eternity, did—by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will—freely and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass. Yet he ordered all things in such a way that he is not the author of sin, nor does he force his creatures to act against their wills; neither is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

— The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 3, Sect. 1 (Modern English Version)

This week we will begin studying Chapter 3 of the Westminster Confession of Faith. This chapter is entitled “Of God’s Eternal Decree”

Note first that the word “decree” in the title is singular. God has one all-encompassing decree, which originated from eternity and has remained unchanged. God did not have to make any new decrees or backup plans.

In today’s confession, God’s decree is described as being wise, free, and holy:

1. First, it is WISE because God’s decree is in harmony with God’s perfect wisdom.
2. God’s decree is FREE because it is not constrained or influenced by anything outside of God’s nature. God ordained whatsoever comes to pass according to the counsel of his will.
3. And God’s decree is HOLY in that it is in harmony with his perfect holiness and utterly free of sin.

So to summarize God’s decree, it is according to his own holy purposes, guided by his own perfect wisdom, without necessity or influence from outside forces, and all without the possibility of revision.

However, when we look at God’s eternal decree, we have to guard against two errors:

1) God’s decree does not make God the author of sin/responsible for sin (even though there is sin in the world, he is not author of sin) and
2) God’s foreordination does not remove man’s responsibility for his own sin.

The Bible clearly establishes both truths: God’s foreordination and man’s responsibility. We recognize that God is holy and sin is a violation of God’s holy will and his holy character. Fallen man alone is responsible for his sin. And people sin freely out of their own freewill according to their own nature, without any external influences or compulsion (or what the confession calls “second causes”). God’s decree does not violate free will but instead establishes it.

The Bible clearly establishes both truths: 1) God’s foreordination and 2) man’s responsibility for his own sin and actions. And we affirm this in our confession today.

Let me now leave you with some good news, because if man is left to his own responsibility, there would be no hope. As part of God’s eternal decree, He knew that his people would fall, so he chose his people in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless in Christ. As part of God’s eternal purpose, He sent Jesus Christ into this world at just the right time to save his people.

Repentance

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Been thinking a lot about repentance lately. 

What is repentance?  “By [repentance] a sinner, out of the sight and sense not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, as contrary to the holy nature and righteous law of God; and upon the apprehension of his mercy in Christ to such as are penitent, so grieves for, and hates his sins, as to turn from them all unto God, purposing and endeavoring to walk with him in all the ways of his commandments. . . yet [repentance] is of such necessity to all sinners, that none may expect pardon without it. As there is no sin so small that it deserves damnation; so there is no sin so great that it can bring damnation upon those who truly repent. Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man’s duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly” (Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter XV, sections II, III, IV).

Biblical Theology (cont’d)

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Just attended a three day Biblical Theology of the New Testament class taught by Dr. Richard Gaffin. He’s a professor at Westminster in Philly. There was just so much he covered, that even trying to summarize would not give Dr. Gaffin justice. He emphasized the reality of the coming kingdom, both the already and the not yet. The kingdom that Jesus proclaims has in view the reality what was not previously, but is now presently. More broadly, we can remind ourselves, the Kingdom is a matter of fulfillment. The kingdom was what was longed for, hoped for and with the coming of Jesus, the Kingdom has arrived.

Jesus teaches that the period of the church being built is the period in which the gospel is being brought to the nations. It is distinctively an eschatological phase of the coming of the kingdom. What sanctions the church building example of baptism. The teaching and preaching of the apostles in its entirety can be seen as amplifying the kingdom proclamation of Jesus. Apostolic teaching expounds eschatological structure. Ridderbos in the outline of Paul’s theology: “Paul does nothing but explains the eschatological reality of Jesus kingdom proclamation.”

New Testament revelation is an organism. It is whole, it is part of a larger whole. In its parts it is an organic whole. Each part is not equally important, but every part is integral, so no part is dispensable. This has to be insisted upon that the teaching of Jesus cannot be separated from the teaching of the apostles. This cannot place Jesus teaching above the apostles because of Jesus unique character. The fallacy of this argument is that the only access to Jesus is through the apostles.

Vos – “Jesus is not the exhaustive expounder of truth. Jesus in his earthly ministry does not have the last word, but Jesus in his person and work, is the great fact to be expounded. Jesus and the Apostolic are the fact to be interpreted and the subsequent interpretation of that fact.” They are incomplete without each other. The apostles provide the necessary amplification and elaboration of Jesus and Jesus teaching provides the roots or the presupposition.

Gaffin then makes a connection between the baptism of John the Baptist with Pentecost. These two historical events are linked in that the result is the giving of the Holy Spirit. The first instance to perform the messianic work through Jesus and the second instance, to equip the apostles for the apostolic ministry of building the church.

Looking at other positions that are taken, not a rite or ritual that is tied in time of a rite or sign. What distinguishes the messiah’s activity of baptizing to John’s water ritual, is their relationship in the messianic reality of the sign that points to that. John’s sign of water points to Holy Spirit and fire of Christ’s baptism. This reality is a reality of judgment. This messianic spirit and fire baptism is a judgment/judicial transaction or forensic. Note the use of the word judgment – is a judicial process that has a dual outcome, positive (acquittal, blessing, reward) or negative (condemnation, curse, punishment). Look at Luke 3:7-9 “brood of vipers.” v.17 subject is Christ, spirit and fire baptizer is the subject of v16-17. This is an amplification of messianic spirit and fire baptism. The messianic baptizer is a harvester and judge. In his baptizing, he is harvesting and judge.

Whatever is the full significance of Pentecost, Pentecost is a forensic reality, within a judicial setting. A proper overall understanding Pentecost of nothing less than eschatological judgment. Additional observation 3 things: 1) It is Christ and not the Spirit who is the primary actor of Pentecost (note: the Messiah will baptize with the spirit). It is more a Christological event than it is a Pneumatological event. 2) Pentecost is not in any sense a second blessing or additional blessing. Pentecost is at the heart and work of Christ, at the core of the work in which he came to do. Not of second order significance, it is of primary significance, it is tied primarily to the death, resurrection and ascension.

Note: Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:8 (no reference to fire), and Luke 3:16. Mark’s baptism is the same as Matthew/Luke’s reference of baptism with spirit and fire. Spirit and fire is a unitary complex that constitutes the element of baptism. Blessing to the repentant and condemnation to the unrepentant. Fiery baptism in which we are immersed or deluged.

For the messianic people to escape the destructive aspect of the messiah’s own baptism of holy spirit and fire, for them to be saved from fire, (even for there to be a messianic people), eschatological judgment, for this to happen, there needs to be a messiah that must go through eschatological judgment that the sins his people deserves. Because of that he emerges triumphant from this baptism ordeal as that happens. He must be baptized with condemnation and curse. When the messianic baptizer comes to baptize his people, just as he promised he would, when that happens, fire must happens. Tongues as of fire that rests on each one. How are we to understand that sign? Very frequently the fire-tongue as symbolizing the refining or purifying aspect of the spirit’s work. Also the empowering of the spirit. The fire of destruction has been exhausted, abated. The fire is there but does not destroy or harm. The fire has been domesticated. Spirit and fire had both connotations… In as much as the outpouring of the spirit has clear affinities with the messianic ordeal, the death and resurrection of Christ. Cross and resurrection belongs together. Pentecost has the efficacious empowering of the church for service, but also the effective demonstration that the church is subject to God’s wrath. What takes place during Pentecost, with background of who Jesus is, both baptizer and baptized, the church is no longer under condemnation, the church is the justified people of God.

According to Luke 3:16, what John prophesies, is nothing less than the blessing that is bound up with the coming of the kingdom, that is realized in the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. Nothing less than the redemptive activity of the Messiah is realized in the baptism of the Spirit in Pentecost. As crucial as the death and resurrection of Christ, it is only preliminary, that we might share in the gift of the holy spirit. That we might share in Holy Spirit baptism. His Kingdom ministry taken in a whole – the resurrected and spirit giving Christ, is crucial. Everything that Jesus does is one large effort to secure for his people to pour out on them the Holy Spirit as a gift as a blessing. Recall connection between Luke 11:13 and 12:32. Holy spirit is Kingdom gift is first order fundamental importance.

Pentecost must be seen first of all its pivotal place for the flow of redemptive history. It finds itself in the completed work of Christ. What takes place in Acts 2 is the great turning point, the hinge of Luke/Acts. The pivot of the apostolic history in which Luke surveys. To clarify this, Pentecost is coordinate with the death and resurrection and ascension are conjoined with these other events. Pentecost is as pivotal event. While they are temporally distinct, they are unified as event complex constituting together so that they are inseparable from each other. They imply each other.