typological snippets II

In the same collection of essays Francis Foulkes writes

we should not look back to this part of the Bible just for the history of the Jewish religion, nor just for moral examples, nor just for its messianic prophecy, nor to see the excelence of the faith of Israel in contrast to the religious faith andf understanding of the other nations of antiquity... We look to the Old testament to see God in his grace revealing himself in the history of Israel in preperation for the sending of his Son, the Incarnate Word and the Saviour of the world.

We study the Old Testament typologically, for we study it to gain a theological understanding of history; and that theological understanding is christological understanding, for it is only in Christ that the history of Israel, or of any nation or individual, past or present, is able to find its meaning. (370-1)

typological snippets

A few snippets from David L. Baker, on typological reading of Scripture, taken from his chapter in 'The Right Doctrine From The Wrong Texts: Essays On The Use Of The Old Testament In The New'. After defining

a type as a biblical event, person, or institution which serves as an example or pattern for other events, persons or institutions;

typology as the study of types and the historical and theological correspondences between them,

and further stating that the basis of typology is God's consistent activity in the history of his chosen people, he goes on to say:

'There is something even more basic about the idea of analogy or typology: it is the way in which almost any biblical text (Old Testament or New Testament) addresses us. The Bible does not generally contain propositions but stories and these can only be relevant in the sense of being typical. What significance would Abraham or Moses have for us if they were not typical? It is of no relevance to us that a frog can hop or that a snake can bite. It is because Abraham and Moses were men like us (James 5:17) and as such encountered the same God as we do, in other words because they were typical, that their experiences are directly relevant to us.' (Baker 323)

'The function of typology is therefore not to find a procedure for using the Old Testament but to point to the consistent working of God in the experience of his people so that parallels may be drawn between different events, persons and institutions and individual events may be seen as examples or patterns for others. Typology cannot be used for exegesis, because its concern is not primarily with the words of the text but with the events recorded in it. This means also that Old Testament exegesis is freed from the pressure to be relevant: often the narrator had recorded only a bare event, but in this very lack of interpretation it may have typical and thus theological significance.' (Baker 329)

'Typology points to the fundamental analogy between different parts of the Bible.... This means that the Old Testament illuminates he New Testament and New Testament illuminates the Old Testament.... although it is not a method of exegesis, typology supplements exegesis by throwing further light on the text in question. The most closely related discipline to the study of the Old Testament is therefore that of the New Testament: ancient Oriental and Jewish studies clarify details of the Old Testament but lack the intrinsic analogy of New Testament studies to Old Testament studies. The corollary is that the most closely related discipline to New Testament is that of the Old Testament... On the one hand a correct understanding of the Old Testament depends on the New Testament, and on the other hand one of the primary uses of the Old Testament is to be the basis for a correct understanding and use of the New Testament.' (Baker 329)

Dever on Preaching the Gospel Demand

In a society where people want everything as optional Mark Dever's reminder on how to preach the gospel is note-worthy.

"When we hold forth the good news in our preaching, we should particularly beware of presenting this gospel as an option to be exercised for the betterment of sinners’ lives. After all, what would a carnal person consider "better"? Leading questions like "are you scared of death?" "Do you want happiness?" "Wouldn’t you like to know the meaning of your life?" are all well-intentioned, and any of them may be used by God’s Spirit to convict someone, and to lead to their conversion. But such questions may also be answered by a simple "no." To use such questions as if they are the starting point for those considering the gospel is to make it sound all too optional.

I don’t care if my hearers are scared of death, wanting happiness or meaning in life, I know that they will die and stand before God to give an account of their lives. And I know that God will theref

...

This demand—rather than a marketer’s appeal—is to be the basis of the evangelistic call in our sermons. Our gospel sermons are not to sound like the solicitations of a salesman, but the summons of a judge."

CCEL revamp

While looking around for material from Augustine I noticed that The Christian Classics Ethereal Library, CCEL, has had a makeover and promises to be easier than ever to locate historical documents from church history. They've even added a forum for site members to ask questions and post comments. Invaluable!

plebs, priests and unbelieving partners

I'm currently reading through Leithart's thesis, 'The Priesthood of The Plebs' which seeks to demonstrate how Christian baptism initiates priesthood so that baptism should be seen as the fulfillment of Aaronic ordination. Chapter 1, which Leithart notes in his preface, contains 'vignettes from the history of sacramental theology ..(that are) far to compressed to make much sense to anyone unfamiliar with the debates' [I definitely fall into this group] is excellent in stating the case for where he thinks Reformed and modern sacramental theology has gone wrong. His contention, following Augustine, is that The New is a ‘conjugation’ of the Old and therefore a ‘treatise on the sacraments of the Old Law must serve as prolegomena to a treatise on the sacraments in general’, something much of post medieval Christian tradition has singly failed to do.

By the time he gets to Chapter 4. Leithart applies his findings from the previous chapters to infant baptism. In seeking to demonstrate how infants contribute positively as members of the Christian priesthood and should therefore be baptised, Leithart quotes Mark Searle

a newborn infant alters the configuration of family relationships from the day of its birth, if not sooner, having a major impact on the lives of its parents and siblings. . . . Children will test the sacrificial self-commitment, the self-delusions, and the spurious faith of those with whom they come in contact for any length of time. They summon parents particularly to a deeper understanding of the mystery of grace and of the limitations of human abilities. . . . All this is merely to suggest that in their own way children in fact play an extremely active, even prophetic, role in the household of faith. The obstacle lies not in the child but in the faithlessness of the adult believers (153).

But, on the basis of 1 Cor. 7:14, to which Leithart alludes to suggest infants of believers are holy, shouldn't there be an analogous requirement for unbelieving husbands, whom Paul also identifies as holy, to also be considered as those contributing positively as members of the Christian priesthood.

an unbelieving husband alters the configuration of family relationships from the day of the spouses conversion, if not sooner, having a major impact on the lives of the believing spouse and any children they have. . . . The unbelieving husband will test the sacrificial self-commitment, the self-delusions, and the spurious faith of those with whom they come in contact for any length of time. They summon the believing spouse particularly to a deeper understanding of the mystery of grace and of the limitations of human abilities. . . . All this is merely to suggest that in their own way unbelieving husbands in fact play an extremely active, even prophetic, role in the household of faith. The obstacle lies not in the unbelieving husband but in the faithlessness of the adult believers.

I don't know any paedobaptist's who would want to affirm the above for unbelieving husbands, so why use this method of reasoning for the analogous case of infants?

temporizers and apostasy

Joel Garver has a really interesting article here outlining a generally oriented FV position and I think rightly identifying it within the bound of orthodoxy. However my question would be 'Is the salvation that all covenant members, including those who will finally fall away experience, a benefit that is purchased by Christ's atonement and if so what does this do for our doctrine of limited atonement?' All of the benefits of salvation that come to the eschatologically saved are purchased by Christ’s blood. Do the temporal and yet shared and real benefits that come to those covenant members who will finally apostatize come to them in the same manner, as purchased by Christ, or is this merely God’s ‘common grace’, with the shared benefit’s that the ‘temporarily faithful’ gain merely by association.

Maybe this could be a false dichotomy, but while not all traditional Reformed thinking would not want to affirm the former, the later appears to prompt difficulties for FV proponents who want to promote an objective covenant where all within that covenant receive blessings by virtue of their own real and full inclusion.

Interestingly I think this is where the marriage analogy just doesn’t help. All those who receive the sign of the ordinance are truly found within that relationship and are recipients of such benefits as the objective relationship entails. But as the elect receive all of the benefits of the objective relationship they have entered into as the purchased gifts of Christ’s death – on what grounds do those in the covenant who will fall away receive the benefits that come to them. The marriage analogy does not seem to fit this at all.

Sacramental Hermeneutics

Leithart notes his frustration with Berkhof's typological assumptionshere, claiming that the move from the purely carnal and external to the purely spiritual and internal between antitype and type is more in line with Baptist theology. No thanks Peter, you can keep him.

Anyway, he picks up the same theme in his chapter in The Case for Covenant Communion entitled 'Sacramental Hermeneutics and the Ceremonies of Israel', in which he highlights, what is to me, the weakness of the paedo-baptism and paedo-communion argument. (Leithart refers to these generically as the paedo-argument). Leithart begins by stating that Reformed paedo-arguments basically hold the following logic.

Children were included in Israel in the OT, Israel and the church are the same people, bearers of the same promise, therefore just as children (males) were marked for inclusion by circumcision and children ate with their parents at the feasts of Israel in the old covenant, so children should be marked for inclusion by baptism and participate in the Christian feast under the new covenant.

Leithart acknowledges that these paedo-arguments raise several hermeneutical questions, among which are:

1. They assume that 'ceremonial' regulations of the old covenant have 'ceremonial' import in the new. Whilst Leithart acknowledges that the 'ceremonial' / 'moral' distinction is 'legally unworkable and practically awkward' he suggests that it is wrong simply to 'moralise', 'spiritualise' or 'humanise' the OT ceremonial regulations, if the NT warrents that they can support NT ceremonial practices.

2. Further, the paedo-arguments assume a typological hermeneutic in whihc the OT persons, institutions, and events not only typify Jesus Christ but also have some regulatory authority in the church. In Augustinian terms, these arguments assume that the OT is typological not of Jesus simply but of the totus Christus, the whole Christ, both head and body.

3. Paedo-arguments assume that in the midst of discontinuities between the institutions of the old and the new there is continuity. The question is, how do the arguments determine which features shared by circumcision-baptism and Passover-Supper are relevant and which are not. (112-113)

Leithart deals most fully with points 1. and 2. in his chapter and states that

Though not often admitted, accepting the paedo-arguments involves a prior commitment to particular answers to these problems. Accepting that infant circumcision supports infant baptism logically entails accepting the ceremonial regulations of the Old can be applied as ceremonial regulations in the New. And accepting that the inclusion of children at the Passover is an argument for their inclusion at the Lord's Supper assumes that we are capable of discerning a specific point (or points) of similarity between the two meals in the midst of their evident dissimilarities.

That these assumptions go largely unexamined is evident from the inconsistent hermeneutical practices of some paedobaptists. Applying the logic of the paedo-arguments, some (myself included) have argued that the sacrifical procedures of the Levitical law govern the order and procedures of Christian worship. That is, the ceremonial regulations and patterens of animal offerings in Leviticus provides a pattern for the ceremonies of worship in the church.(113)

The point is that after dealing with 1 Corinthians 5, 9, 10; Acts 15:20, 29; Romans 15:15-16 and briefly alluding to Hebrews 13:10-13, Leithart concludes the chapter thus

This exploration has not uncovered any knock-down text that proves the paedo-arguments beyond a shadow of doubt. But it has, I hope, given a plausible account of, and justification for, one key assuption of those arguments.(129)

That key assumption that Leithart hopes he has given a plausible account of are hermeneutical issues 1. and 2. above, but it is far from clear that he has been sucessful. At most, from a mixture of Romans 15 and 1 Corinthians 9 Leithart may demonstrate that the ceremonial regulations of the old can tropologically apply as ceremonial regulations in the new. But it is unclear how this application should be made if valid, and especially if the point of application supports the paedo-arguments. My suggestion is it doesn't and that Leithart fails to give anywhere near conclusive evidence that it does.

Leithart's suggests that his account of how the priestly ministry and accompanying benefits (access to meat from sacrifices) have moved from the sole preserve of the Levitical order under the old, to the priesthood of all believers under the new supports paedo-communion, given that children are to be included in the holy priesthood based on 1 Cor. 7:14. But even conceeding Leithart's understanding of 1 Cor. 7:14 as correct, which I wouldn't want to, this appears suprising weak for someone so capable and who has spent so much time and effort on this subject. From Paul's statement that as an apostle he carries out priestly duties (Rom. 15:15-16) and that ministers of the gospel should be recompensed for their labours in the Lord even as those who ministered at the alter did (1 Cor. 9:13-14), Leithart maintains that all the Christian communtiy (including those holy infants) may partake of the Lord's supper.

Leithart appears to think that if he can prove that points 1.and 2. above occur in any way in Scripture, then this gives support for the paedo-arguments. I'd suggest that this is nowhere near the level of support required. Leithart would need to show that Scripture demonstrates the OT

• is typological not only for Jesus simply but for totus Christus specifically in respect to the paedo-arguments (point 2. above).
• and that the 'ceremonial' regulations of the old covenant have 'ceremonial' import into the new specifically with respect to the paedo-arguments.

One feels Leithart recognises he has failed to do this and acknowledges as much in his own conclusions.

Dagg on 1 Corinthians 7:14

Stan Reeves gives an interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7:14 here, based on John Dagg's understanding of this controversial verse. Dagg argues that Paul

is arguing from analogy rather than by cause/effect. If the unbelieving spouse is holy, the children are holy; if the unbelieving spouse is unclean, the children are unclean -- not because one causes the other but because they are like cases.

Covenant Communion

The Case for Covenant Communion is an interesting book, if for nothing else in that it shows the unanswerable inconsistency of administering one of the sacraments to infants and then withholding the other from them. Something that has been the practice of the overwhelming majority of the Reformed tradition from Geneva onwards and something Baptist’s have consistently highlighted.

Baptist’s have also too often been guilty of using this as a conclusive argument against Paedobaptists. As if somehow that by pointing out the inconsistency in their opponent’s argument, that by de facto proves that your argument must be right. Dream on! Actually the Paedobaptist’s answer to the Baptist’s cry of ‘Well you don’t allow your children to the table’ should always have been ‘No, but actually we should’. So the Auburn Avenue’s latest publication is also of value in removing a poor and all too frequent Baptist argument within this debate.

'tu quoque' cry the Baptists

Well at least those with a rudimentary grasp of Latin do. I mentioned here how Federal Vision proponents have rightly criticised Guy Waters for his misrepresentation of their views. To demonstrate there is much misrepresentation on both sides of this debate here are two examples I've come across since I wrote that blog entry by FV proponents misrepresenting a Baptist view.

First Leithart says here that

if you refuse to baptize infants, then you are saying that God's plans have changed. Once upon a time, God intended to form a new human race that would share His life and glory. But that plan failed, so He has now decided to gather together adults who will share in that life and glory.

No doubt some Dispensationalist Baptist's are guilty of considering that God's plan has changed as they understand him to move from intending to form a new humanity made up of people, including infants, from all stages of life in Israel to now working with the Church of Christ made up of those solely who are capable of making a profession. Yet this is certainly a false charge against the Baptist position I and those Baptists I know hold. Leithart's accusation that to deny paedobaptism is to understand God's plan as having changed is just incorrect.

If one understands God to have one redemptive plan whereby he is forming a new humanity to himself in Christ Jesus, which was in some ways foreshadowed in Old Testament Israel and which is fulfilled in the New Testament church, Leithart's charge won't stick. In the biblical story God redeems adult and infant both before and after Christ's incarnation and death, but the shift in the composition of the people with whom he is at work and how they are to be identified is part of the movement from shadow to fulfillment that exists between the Testaments on a Baptist understanding of that story.

Secondly, upon receiving my copy of The Case for Covenant Communion I flicked briefly to Rich Lusk's chapter on 'Infant Faith in the Psalter' having previously posted some thoughts on his treatment on this isuue in his book on paedofaith here. By page two Lusk states

Some have adamantly denied the possibility of infant faith. Certainly this has been true of the Anabaptist and Baptist traditions, but it has also been the case with many Reformed theologians as well. Others have vigorously affirmed infant faith, pointing to infants as the best illustrations of gospel grace. Apart from intellectual and rational abilities, the Spirit is able to regenerate and sanctify infants so that they have a kind of 'baby faith'. This view was advocated by Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, and Zacharias Ursinus among others.

Let's give Lusk the benefit of the doubt and understand the some at the beginning of the quote as refering to some, but not all in the Baptist tradition. Even if this is the case, Lusk's association of a theological position with a whole tradition where only some in that movement hold to that stance is guilty of the same faulty method of argumentation that Waters uses against FV proponents and for which he has been rightly criticised.

To digress slightly, certainly the Anabaptists that Calvin came up against denied the possibility of infant faith. Their use of Deut. 1:39 to claim that infants who could not know right from wrong, could not actually know anything and could therefore not know God, was at least part of the reason Calvin shifts his defense of infant baptism from stating

no men are saved except by faith, whether they be children or adults. For this reason baptism also rightly applies to infants, who possess faith in common with adults

in the 1536 edition of his Institutes, to more reservedly writing in the 1559 edition

the Lord might shine with a tiny spark at the present time on those whom he will illumine in the future with the full splendor of his light.(IV.xvi.19)

This is neither the same faith nor the same knowledge of faith that is allotted to adults yet it has the same genus. For Calvin, the church therefore, is to baptise infants into future repentance and faith, and not as those presently possessing actual faith. Though neither of these has yet been formed in them,

the seed of both lies hidden within them by the secret working of the Spirit.(IV.xvi.20)

Calvin's shift from ascribing full faith to infants in 1536 to allowing them only a seed of faith addresses the Anabaptist criticism he faced and left him in a position where at least some Baptist's would be in agreement with respect to infant faith. Calvin however baptised infant's not because he thought they presently possessed faith but because of their prior inclusion in the covenant and elect of God based on the promise. Thus Lusk not only misrepresents Baptists who would want to affirm the possibility of a seed of faith in infants, but also I would suggest Calvin himself. Directly after the quotation above Lusk continues

They (Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Ursinus) all connected faith with baptism. They insisted that faith was necessary to a right reception of the sacrament and that infants were capable (by grace) of such a right reception. Many early Reformers viewed infant faith as having a kind of normativity with regard to those infants born in the context of the church.(TCFCC 91)

Lusk seems to suggest that Calvin is one of those 'many early Reformers' but this is misrepresenting Calvin, who would have insisted faith was necessary to right reception of baptism and that infants were capable of faith, but does not understand present faith as being normative for those baptised in infancy. As a Baptist I'd want to affirm Calvin's 1559 position with respect to infant faith. Where I'd disagree with him is on all the children of believers being previously included in the covenant and elect of God based on the promise.

'and with the measure you use it will be measured to you' (Matt. 7:2). Whilst the level of misrepresentation in the current FV debate is concerning, making accusations against your opponent while not wrentching out the log in your own eye makes for hypocrisy. Lord, from such preserve us all.

Garver on Wright on Paul

Joel Garver has posted an excellent sympathetic summary of N T Wright's thoughts on Paul which is well worth a read for those unclear of the issues surrounding the current debate. Suggesting reasons for why Wright is loved by some and held in suspicion by others within evangelicalism he starts and ends his summary thus:

I was asked recently, by someone who has found what she's read of Tom Wright's work to be helpful and edifying, why his writings have been such a particular focus of criticism among evangelicals. Part of the answer is that Wright probably has a greater degree of direct influence over evangelical thought than many other contemporary mainstream New Testament scholars, thereby coming under closer scrutiny, as well as the fact that we tend to criticize most sharply those with whom we differ who are otherwise the closest to us.

Though these comments are brief, perhaps for some they will help defuse the overly simplistic notion that Wright is of a piece with some wider "new perspective" movement. These comments might also help clear up some of the common misunderstandings and misconstruals of his work, in order that genuine disagreements can be pursued without unnecessary distraction from the relevant issues.