Category: Theological Reflections

Henry P. Liddon, quoted in Spurgeon’s Treasury of David on Psalm 63
[Of the phrase ‘O God, thou art my God’, particularly the word ‘my’]

�The word represents not a human impression, or desire, or conceit, but an aspect, a truth, a necessity of the divine nature. Man can, indeed, give himself by halves; he can bestow a little of his thought, of his heart, of his endeavour upon his brother man. In other words, man can be imperfect in his acts as he is imperfect and finite in his nature. But when God, the Perfect Being, loves the creature of his hand, he cannot thus divide his love. He must perforce love with the whole directness and strength and intensity of his Being; for He is God, and therefore incapable of partial and imperfect action. He must give Himself to the single soul with as absolute a completeness as if there were no other being besides it, and, on his side, man knows that this gift of himself by God is thus entire; and in no narrow spirit of ambitious egotism, but as grasping and representing the literal fact, he cries �My God.� (�) Therefore we find St. Paul writing to the Galatians as if his own single soul had been redeemed by the sacrifice of Calvary: �He loved me, and gave himself for me.��

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV.8.5

First, if it is true, as Christ says, �Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him� (Matthew 11:27), then those who wish to attain to the knowledge of God behoved always to be directed by that eternal wisdom For how could they have comprehended the mysteries of God in their mind, or declared them to others, unless by the teaching of him, to whom alone the secrets of the Father are known? The only way, therefore, by which in ancient times holy men knew God, was by beholding him in the Son as in a mirror. When I say this, I mean that God never manifested himself to men by any other means than by his Son, that is, his own only wisdom, light, and truth. From this fountain Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others, drew all the heavenly doctrine which they possessed. From the same fountain all the prophets also drew all the heavenly oracles which they published.

Cocceius has this beautiful remark (from Heppe’s Reformed Dogmatics)

There are two parts of conversion answering to the two ends. The man who is converted is converted from bad to good, from darkness to light, from the slavery of Satan to God, I K. 8:35, Is. 59:20, Jer. 15:19, Ac. 26:18. These parts are called in Scripture nekrosis, the mortification, or ekdosis, the putting off of the old man; and zoopoiesis, quickening and endusis, putting on of the new man, Col. 3:9-10.�(XIV, 8) These parts go together. But, as regards the order of nature, although newness is subsequent to oldness,�yet the newness of the love of God is the cause of abolishing the oldness of the enmity of God. Darkness is not removed save by light; not death save by life; nor poverty save by riches; nor nakedness save by being clothed; nor ugliness save by beauty; nor vice save by virtue; and so neither hate save by love.

This has application to sanctification and to preaching. We cannot hope to kill without vivification: to attempt the negative without the positive is ultimately destructive. And so in preaching: the pastor may weep over the darkness, spiritual poverty and ugliness of his congregation and indeed of his own heart; but the remedy for it is not found in exposing it (that is no more than a preliminary): the remedy is found in the light, life, wealth, garments, beauty, virtue and love of Christ.

First, Richard Sibbes, To the Christian Reader, (prefixed to John Smith’s An Exposition of the Creed: cited in A.B. Grosart, Memoir of Richard Sibbes, D.D., in v.1 of the BOT reprint, p.CIII)

Though we are to believe circumstance as well as the thing itself, yet not with the same necessity of faith, as it is more necessary to believe that Christ was crucified than that it was under Pontius Pilate; though when any circumstance is revealed we ought to believe it, and to have a preparation of mind to believe whatsoever shall be revealed. Yet in the main points this preparation of mind is not sufficient, but there must be a present and an expressed faith. We must know, as in the law, he that breaketh one commandment breaketh all, because all come from the same authority; so, in the grounds of faith, he that denies one in the true sense of it denies all, for both law and faith are copulatives. The singling out of anything is contrary to the obedience of faith. Fides non eligit objectum.

Second, Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics

�Hence it follows (1), that the distinction between fundamental and derivative articles of doctrine is well worth observation. The doctrinal propositions in which the real foundation of doctrine is expressed and expounded have a higher and more essential meaning than those which do not impinge upon it directly.�All Reformed dogmaticians discuss this distinction with peculiar interest. E.g. Voetius II p. 513: “The first hypothesis is, that everything that occurs in Scripture is not equally necessary to saving faith or to Church union and communion, or needs to be taught the faithful and inculcated upon them with a like necessity. This we gather from 1 Cor. 3:10,12,15; Phil. 3:15-16; 2 Tim. 1:13; Tit.1; 1 Tim. 6:3. There is the additional reason that as in all disciplines so in the Scripture the essentials and oiketa of religion, or the axioms or precepts are to be distinguished from the commentaries upon them.�p. 531: These (fundamental) articles are the principal theses in the separate dogmatic heads of the Christian catechism; or they are the common ennoiai and aphorisms of Christian doctrine, necessary for promoting and preserving the practice and profession of faith and holiness in the unity and society of the Church”.�Similarly Franz Turretin I, xiv, 5: “Although all truths which are revealed in Scripture are necessary to be believed as divine and infallible, they are not all equally necessary. Here we must accurately distinguish between the scope (amplitudo) and extension of the faith and its necessity. Not everything within the scope of faith is at once of its necessity”.

The doctrine of the Trinity is no doubt one of the sacred mysteries of the faith, a wonder before which we bow and adore. At the same time, the statements that most Christians even in sound orthodox churches hear about the Trinity (one God, three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit) while most certainly true and necessary, are not everything that can be said about this doctrine. Consider this:

[Riissen (IV,14)]: “What the difference is between generation of the Son and the procession of the H. Spirit cannot be explained and it is safer not to know than to enquire into it. The Scholastics would look for the difference in the operation of intellectus and voluntas, so that the generation of the Son is brought about by means of intellectus, whence he is called the wisdom of God; but procession by means of voluntas, whence it is called love and charity. But as this is said without Scripture, it involves rather than explains matters. Those talk more sanely, who babbling in such a difficult matter find the distinction in three things. (1) In principle: because the Son emanates from the Father alone, but the H. Spirit from Father and Son at once. (2) In mode: because the Son emanates per vim generationis, which culminates not only in personality but also in likeness, on account of which the Son is called the image of the Father and according to which the Son receives the property of communicating the same essence to another person. But the Spirit does so by spiratio, which ends only in personality, and through which the person who proceeds does not receive the property of communicating that essence to another. (3) In order: because as the Son is the second person, but the H. Spirit the third, generation by our way of thinking, precedes spiratio, although really they are co-eternal.

From Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics

Conscience and Scripture both testify to the reality of the covenant of works. Consider these brilliant extracts from Cocceius and Mastricht, helpfully provided and introduced by Heinrich Heppe in his Reformed Dogmatics. (Formatting and punctuation edited here for readability, and Heppe’s copying out of Scripture texts suppressed.)

Cocceius (Summ. theol. XXII, 20-21) explains how man is taught by his conscience about the covenant of works originally ordained by God. Conscience witnesses to man that he “who has preserved the image of God and has done righteously in accordance with it “has” a covenant with God, provided that there is (1) “no offense between him and God but (2) the peace by which benefits are possessed in security; but also (3) that he is righteous, i.e. has a right to God’s friendship and communion and to ask and expect of God what it is just, right and holy to expect of God”. Conscience bears witness that “God cannot put off those who seek Himself or refuse to satisfy and fulfill a right and holy desire”. Could it be assumed that God wished not to be found of them for their enjoyment, it would follow that it is wrong to seek and desire God. But if it is wrong, God “is not man’s good and cannot make man happy in Himself.” So it would have to be the case instead that “man’s good” and its “end” “are things created by God; for man’s good is man’s end”. Thus it follows (XII, 22) “that he who does what conscience dictates has exousia and power to call God his God and to glory in Him as his good”.

So conscience itself is a witness to the reality of the covenant of works. But we are not left with the light of nature in this regard: God has spoken in His word as well.

What is thus guaranteed to man by the voice of his conscience is confirmed for him by the witness of H. Scripture�From H. Scripture the fact is proved as follows (Mastricht III, xii, 23), that God has made a covenant with Adam:
“(1) It specifically (rhtos) states in Hosea 6:7: ‘they like Adam have transgressed the convenant [sic]; there have they dealt treacherously against me’; cf. Job 31:33 (if after the manner of Adam (man) I covered my transgressions by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom) where the best translators (Vulgate, Tigurinus, Pagninus, Castalio, Belgae and others) take [Hebrew] proprie, not appellative, though I admit there are not wanting those who prefer the appellative sense.
(2) The Apostle, Gal. 4:24 ,mentions a double covenant, the former of which is ‘by the works of the law’, 2:16, demanding most punctilious obedience, 3:10, by means of which no can ever obtain everlasting life, 2:16; 3:2, under which we all were until the covenant of faith, 3:23, and are, as long as we live as children of the flesh, 3:22,29, which only begets to slavery, 3:24; Heb. 2:14-15. And this is the very thing which we call the covenant of works, subsequently; as the result of the faith of the Gospel. If you say the apostle is speaking of a covenant not in Paradise, but the covenant at Sinai, the answer is easy, that the Apostle is speaking of the covenant in Paradise so far as it is re-enacted and renewed with Israel at Sinai in the Decalogue, which contained the proof of the covenant of works.
(3) Synonyms of the covenant of works are extant in the NT, Rom. 3:27; Gal. 2:16. Moreover what is the law of works but the covenant of works? What is law simpliciter as opposed to grace? Rom. 8:3; what, I say, if not the legal covenant? Because we are said to be not under the law but under grace, Rom. 6:14-15; 4:16, what is that but that we are not under the covenant of the law? At least for us these are plainly synonymous.
(4) We have previously in the exegetical section shewn that all the essentials of the covenant of works are contained in the first publication of it, Gen. 2:17.
(5) To very many heads of the Christian religion, e.g., the propagation of original corruption, the satisfaction of Christ and his subjection to divine law, Rom 8:3-4; Gal. 3:13; 4:4-5, we can scarcely give suitable satisfaction, if the covenant of works be denied”.

Item 2 of course has deep interest in its mention of the doctrine of the republication of the covenant of works in the Mosaic administration of the covenant of grace. (See also Thomas Boston on the subject.) Item 3 is a fascinating line of argument, and something to keep in mind to follow up in more detail. But note item 5. The covenant of works is to be accepted as a Scriptural doctrine because of its explanative power. By upholding the doctrine of the covenant of works we are able to give full weight and due credit to many representations of Scripture which we should otherwise be tempted to underplay or deny, if we care about a harmonious doctrinal system, or accept as flat contradictions if we don’t. This gives the covenant of works the force of due and necessary consequence, in addition to the direct testimony of Scripture and conscience.