We Distinguish: Antecedent/Consequent Conditions

One of the distinctives of Reformed churches is that we hold to what the Bible says about covenant theology; what’s more, we emphasize it.  In the Bible, God makes covenants.  The covenant of grace is a special relationship between God and his people.  Christians live within the context of this covenant relationship.   

One of the thorniest issues in Reformed covenant theology involves conditions.  In particular, are there conditions attached to the covenant of grace?  There are some who answer in the negative.  In particular, Herman Hoeksema and some of his followers have even said that speaking of conditions in the covenant of grace effectively makes one an Arminian.  It’s a complicated issue with a long history in Reformed theology.  An important distinction between types of conditions helps us, however, to untangle it.

Before we get to that distinction, there are two other important distinctions demanding our attention.  Many Reformed theologians have rightly stated that the covenant of grace is one-sided (monopleuric) in its origins, but two-sided (dipleuric) in its operation in created time and space.  The origins of the covenant of grace are solely with God, but its operation in history involves God and human beings.  When we speak from the first perspective, when we speak about God’s eternal decree, there must be no conditions.  That’s because God is sovereign and under no outside compulsion.  However, we have no access to God’s eternal decree.  Instead, we live within the context of the two-sided operation of the covenant of grace in history.  Here we have to reckon with what God says in his Word to us about our calling and responsibility.  This is the sphere in which our discussion proceeds.

A second important distinction has to do with two ways of relating to God within the covenant of grace.  Klaas Schilder, Geerhardus Vos, and others have pointed out how someone can relate to God merely in a legal sense.  Such a person is fully a member of the covenant of grace, has been genuinely addressed by God with his gospel promises, but has yet to embrace those promises through faith.  Once God’s gospel promises are embraced through faith, once a person takes hold of Christ and trusts in him, then he or she is also in a vital, living covenant relationship with God.  On the human side, this vital, living relationship is characterized first of all by true faith.  In what follows, for the sake of simplicity, we’re going to look at covenant conditions in the context of this vital way of relating to God.

So we’re talking about a real relationship with God as we experience it here and now.  A key thing to note from the Bible is that God interacts with people as responsible creatures.  Within the covenant relationship, God calls people to do certain things and not do others.  They are accountable for responding to God’s call.  As one example, consider God’s words to Jacob in Genesis 35.  God extended promises to Jacob, but also says, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply.”  He engaged Jacob as a responsible individual in this covenant relationship and calling him to action as such.

That brings us to the distinction I want to focus on:  between antecedent and consequent conditions.  An antecedent condition is one which comes before one relates to God in a vital living way.  Consequent conditions refer to those which come after one begins relating to God in a vital living way.    

There is one thing to which God calls all covenant members before they can enjoy a vital relationship with him.  In other words, there is one antecedent condition.  It is to believe God’s gospel promises.  The antecedent condition is faith in Christ.  Every covenant member is called to personally receive all the benefits of Christ through trusting in him.  When someone does place their trust in Christ, God declares them righteous.  They are justified and thus can relate to God as children with their heavenly Father.

Once in this vital covenant relationship, covenant members are called to continue trusting in their Saviour, and also to bear the fruits of our union with him.  We are called to sanctification as a consequence of our justification.  The consequent conditions are to continuing faith and what older authors called “evangelical obedience.”  “Evangelical obedience” is obedience to God motivated by the gospel, obedience rendered in response to what gospel has done for us.

Now how do I respond to the charge that such a view of covenant conditions is Arminian?  The Arminians taught that God’s decree of election was based on foreseen faith, an act of man’s free will cooperating with God’s prevenient grace.  This is not that.  I affirm that election is based solely on God’s sovereign good pleasure.  Moreover, I already stated that from God’s eternal perspective, we can’t speak about conditions.  However, in the Bible the theology of the covenant of grace is advanced in terms of our lived experience of it in time and space.  God treats people as responsible creatures.  He brings certain individuals into the covenant of grace and then calls them to a vital relationship with him through faith in Christ.  He subsequently calls them to pursue holiness within that relationship.  There’s nothing Arminian about that.

Further, we also have to think about this in relation to Christ, the Mediator of the covenant of grace.  We need to personally appropriate him and his saving work for there to be a living relationship between us and God.  That happens through faith.  Faith is a gift of God, according to Ephesians 2:8.  Faith comes because the Holy Spirit works regeneration in a sinful heart.  And yet in the Bible we still read of the call for individuals to repent and believe (e.g., Acts 2:38, 16:31).  Does that call mean we deny that faith is a gift of God?  Absolutely not.  We hold to both:  faith is a divine gift and it is a personal responsibility.  People are responsible for not believing.  But ultimately the fulfillment of the antecedent condition is something God works in us.  It isn’t a meritorious action we perform.  

The same can be said for the consequent condition.  In the Bible God calls believers to pursue holiness.  We are responsible for doing that.  Yet the work of sanctification is ultimately Christ in us with his Holy Spirit (Phil.1:6, 2:13, 1 Pet. 2:5).  We depend on his grace to do this. 

In each instance, then, God graciously provides what is needed to fulfill both the antecedent and consequent conditions; yet human responsibility remains.  Can I completely and logically reconcile these two truths?  No, and I don’t feel compelled to.  God teaches both in the Bible and I can just accept that he understands how these things logically connect to one another.  My calling is simply to believe what’s been revealed.

Why does this matter?  A proper understanding of this distinction is a safeguard against two serious problems.  One is automatism – the idea that covenant membership is an automatic one-way ticket to heaven involving no personal responsibility to believe the gospel.  You cannot be in a living, vital relationship with God apart from believing in Jesus Christ.  The other problem is fatalism – the idea that, because God is sovereign, there is nothing I need to do or can do in my relationship with him.  But Scripture is clear:  God is sovereign and you are responsible.  You are responsible to believe in Christ, but then also to repent and live a godly life in response to the free gift of salvation.                   

We’ve been swimming in the deep end and, if you’ve made it this far without drowning, I commend you.  Covenant theology isn’t easy to get right.  It’s easy to construe covenant theology in a way that sounds Arminian – where eternal life ultimately depends on the individual’s choice.  It’s also easy to do it in a way that’s deterministic – where God’s decree and sovereignty eclipses all human activity.  But I believe that if we aim to follow what Scripture teaches, and if we pay attention to sound Reformed theologizing from the past, we can both understand and enjoy the wonders of God’s covenant of grace in our lives.

Book Review: Visual Theology

Visual Theology: Seeing and Understanding the Truth about God, Tim Challies and Josh Byers, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016.  Paperback, 155 pages.

I’ve read and reviewed several systematic theologies.  These books were geared towards pastors, theologians, or theological students.  They follow the same basic structure and, because they’re Reformed, they tend to say the same things in mostly the same way.   Visual Theology has “theology” in the title, and it generally steers in the Reformed direction, but that’s where the similarities end.

Visual Theology is decidedly not directed at the ivory tower – though scholars will certainly reap spiritual benefits if they read it.  Instead, it’s for regular people in the pew.  It also recognizes that some of those regular people are more visual in their learning style.  So, Tim Challies delivers clear prose and Josh Byers illumines with effective infographics.  All up, it’s not only a beautiful book, but also pedagogically powerful.

Conventional systematic theologies cover such topics as God, creation, salvation, and the last things.  Visual Theology is different; it has four parts:  grow close to Christ, understand the work of Christ, become like Christ, live for Christ.  It’s Christ-centered and relationally oriented.  It’s theology that, as Challies says, “is about growing in godliness” (p.12).  You can only grow in godliness in a healthy relationship with Christ.  Visual Theology shows why and how.  I found valuable insights new to me (especially in the third section on hating and fighting sin), but also many familiar truths expressed or illustrated freshly.

As I mentioned, generally this book leans Reformed.  For example, the use of creeds is affirmed (p.85); the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s definition of sin is quoted (p.94); the real spiritual presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper is affirmed (p.27); and justification is properly defined as a declaration of righteousness (p.33).  Commendably, Visual Theology teaches a monergistic view of salvation which includes unconditional election.

By the authors’ own admission, the book “is not a thorough introduction to Christian doctrine” (p.79).  Some readers will detect gaps.  Allowing for the intent of the authors, but also for full disclosure to readers of this review, let me mention two.  Visual Theology is almost completely positive in its presentation of biblical teachings.  That means there’s not much, if anything, in the way of exposure or addressing of errors.  Next, its relational framework is a plus, but it is surprising that the biblical framework for a healthy relationship between God and humanity is missing.  There’s no explicit mention of the covenant of grace.

I have one noteworthy concern:  the authors are Baptists and this becomes evident in the description of baptism:  “The water of baptism represents the washing away of sin, while going into the water and coming back out represents death and new life” (p.27).  The first part of that sentence is true, and the second part can be true, but more needs to be said.  The authors assume immersion of the believer as the norm for baptism.  As one would expect from Baptists, the sprinkling of babies is not even in the picture, nor is the relationship between baptism and the covenant of grace.  However, this is one short paragraph in an otherwise great book and it is far from being a polemic for the Baptist position.  Discerning readers should be able to chew the rest of the meat while spitting out this bone.

This book could be useful as edifying reading for a Sunday afternoon.  Perhaps it could also be used as a textbook for an adult education class.  For those who might use it in an educational setting, there’s also a website with the infographics available as PowerPoint slides and more.  Visual Theology is innovative in its approach, almost entirely reliable in its content, and attractive in its presentation.  You’ll find it both enjoyable and edifying!

Four Essential Pictures

I’m currently reading Tim Challies’ book Visual Theology.  This book presents many theological basics not only with text, but also with infographics.  This kind of approach aims to help those who learn best with visual helps.  I’m appreciating the book in many respects and will probably write a review in the near future.

As good books do, this one got me to thinking, particularly about the place of pictures in Reformed theology.  While we don’t believe it’s lawful to make images of God, this doesn’t rule out diagrams or other visual helps.  In fact, embedded in our theology are several essential pictures.  Even apart from an actual picture, these doctrines come across to us via some particular image we’re to hold in our minds.  Let’s look at four important doctrines and the associated pictures.

Covenant

In Scripture, the covenant of grace is portrayed in terms of a relationship.  When you think “covenant of grace,” you should immediately picture a relationship.  In Ezekiel 16 and Hosea 1 (and elsewhere), God speaks in terms of a marriage relationship with his people.  In the New Testament, this is taken over into the relationship of Christ (the groom) and his church (the bride).  While there may be contractual elements in the covenant of grace, the essence of it is a relationship.

Regeneration

The Bible gives several pictures of regeneration and one of those is a heart transplant.   When you think “regeneration,” you can picture someone receiving a new heart.  The Holy Spirit uses this picture in Ezekiel 11:19, “…I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh…”  This one picture does not exhaust everything the Bible says about regeneration, but it is one helpful conceptual peg on which to hang the doctrine in your mind’s eye.

Justification

Whenever you think about justification, you need to think “courtroom.”  The courtroom image is essential to this doctrine.  One of the key ways that people often get justification wrong is by saying that it is God making us right with himself.  However, justification is, in its very nature, a judicial matter.  It involves a judge making a declaration, issuing a verdict.  This is why Romans 1-3 describes man’s condition before God as a judge.  For example, Romans 2:2, “We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.”  Starting at the end of Romans 3, the Spirit explains how a negative judgment can be averted through Jesus Christ.  After all that, we get Romans 8:1, “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  Condemnation is what we would receive from the Judge if we did not have Christ.  In its essence, therefore, justification involves the picture of a courtroom.

Adoption

Adoption is a beautiful word that pictures family.  Having been purchased by Christ, having been justified by him, we are now included in God’s family as his dearly loved children.  God is no longer our Judge, but our Father and we relate to him as such.  Nowhere is this stated more explicitly than Romans 8:15, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!'”  We’ve gone from the courtroom (justification) to the family room (adoption), and that’s a wonderful place to be!

To summarize:

Covenant —> Relationship

Regeneration —> Heart transplant

Justification —> Courtroom

Adoption —> Family

Reformed theology has more pictures, but those four are crucial to understand.  When you get those, you grasp several basics of the Christian faith.

Personal Responsibility

Does calling for personal responsibility make one into an Arminian?  Some Reformed people have real trouble with holding people accountable for the spiritual choices they make.  Some get uncomfortable when Reformed preachers make a distinct call to faith and repentance.  They feel that this somehow undermines God’s sovereignty.  After all, if God wants to save someone, he will do so in his own time and in his own way.  Calling for people to respond with repentance and faith seems to say that human beings may be trying to do something contrary to God’s purposes.  In fact, once I was even told by a Reformed church member that the Heidelberg Catechism is Arminian when it says that justification is mine, “if only I accept this gift with a believing heart” (QA 60).  Apparently, the Catechism is also Arminian when it says that forgiveness belongs to believers, “as often as they by true faith accept the promise of the gospel” (QA 84).  Some folks really stumble over that word “accept.”  How can that be Reformed?

Leaving aside any popular misunderstandings of what constitutes Arminianism, can we speak about the need for all of us to personally accept God’s gospel promises?  Does an acknowledgement of human responsibility add up to a denial of divine sovereignty?  Or, to put it another way, does divine sovereignty mean that we are mere puppets on a string or perhaps pre-programmed robots who can only follow the Programmer’s wishes?  These are important questions and they’ve been wrestled with many times throughout church history.

One path we might take in exploring these questions could take us back to Klaas Schilder (see here for a short bio).  Personal responsibility in the covenant of grace was one of Schilder’s emphases.  Against the background of others who placed everything under the umbrella of divine sovereignty, Schilder sought to drive home the reality of the covenant as a relationship between God and his people, a relationship where human beings are treated as completely responsible for how they respond to divine overtures.

A good summary of Schilder’s approach can be found in the essay of S.A. Strauss in the book Always Obedient: Essays on the Teachings of Dr. Klaas Schilder (yes, as noted before, an infelicitous title).  Strauss noted that Schilder was contending with the covenant views of two theologians in particular:  Abraham Kuyper and Karl Barth.  Writes Strauss:

Schilder observed the same weakness in both schools of thought, even though this weakness arose from different motives.  With regard to the doctrine of the covenant, both reasoned so strongly from the perspective of the eternal decrees of God that man’s responsibility in the covenant was underemphasized.  In contrast, this responsibility was a basic motive in Schilder’s theology: in the covenant God treats man as a responsible being and confronts him with the choice of “all or nothing,” for God or against him!  Schilder therefore did everything in his power always to define the covenant in such a way that justice was done to man’s responsibility. (Always Obedient, 21)

Schilder’s point of departure in this approach was not God’s inscrutable eternal decrees, but his dealings with humanity in history.  God’s decrees are certainly behind all he does, but what is accessible to us and what we experience are his dealings here and now.

There are consequences that follow from this and one of the most marked is going to be found in preaching.  Reformed preaching which acknowledges this reality is not going to allow for or encourage passivity amongst God’s people.  Covenant preaching of this sort will not countenance fatalism.  Strauss elaborates:

…it is Schilder’s view that true “covenant preaching presents the strongest appeal to human responsibility.  This is why such preaching is also so tremendously serious, and revealing…comforting, but destroying all excuses for idleness [maar het stuksnijding van alle duivels-oorkussens].”  Such covenant preaching is a prohibition against imagining going to hell while being on the way to heaven, and it is a prevention against imagining going to heaven while being on the way to hell. (Always Obedient, 25)

Taking Schilder’s approach means that a Reformed preacher is not going to be soft on human responsibility.  In fact, you should expect a preacher who has learned covenant theology from Schilder to emphasize this rather strongly.

What about baptism?  Where does that fit in here?  Strauss explains that Schilder taught that all who are baptized receive a concrete address from God, “a message that God proclaims to everyone who is baptized, personally:  if you believe, you will be saved.” (28-29).  However, if a baptized covenant member rejects God’s overtures in unbelief, such a person will come under God’s covenant wrath and curses.  Greater blessings and promises imply greater responsibility and accountability.  Strauss concludes about what Schilder wanted to emphasize most strongly:

…that the covenant should never be allowed to lead to a false sense of security.  People of the covenant may never think that salvation is already theirs because they have received the promise.  The promises of the covenant are not predictions; they imply demands…

This is, then, the great and lasting signifance of what Schilder taught us about the covenant.  When God establishes his covenant with human persons, he treats them as responsible beings.  As Schilder characteristically put it, the covenant stands or falls by its rule “all or nothing.”  (Always Obedient, 30-31)

The fact of the matter is that no one, least of all covenant members, can use God’s sovereignty to evade their personal responsibility to repent and believe the gospel.  In fact, to do so would be to give in to a Satanic way of thinking.  Satan wants people to stand idly by and be passive before God — because passivity before God always means plenty of activity that pleases the evil one.

So is it Arminian to insist on human responsibility?  If it is, then not only am I guilty, but so is Klaas Schilder.  Of course, the Protestant Reformed allege exactly that.  Followers of Herman Hoeksema, most notably David Engelsma, have insisted that we are essentially Arminians because we hold to the view that there are conditions in the covenant of grace.  This is not the time to enter into a full rebuttal of that view.  Only let me say that their position is the result of viewing everything, and especially the covenant, through the lens of election.  Everything has to fit in a neat system that we humans can comprehend.  Against that, I acknowledge God’s full and complete sovereignty in our salvation in line with everything in the Canons of Dort, but at the same time I stress the human responsibility to repent and believe found in the Heidelberg Catechism and elsewhere.  That is a responsibility far more weighty for those who have been included by God in the covenant of grace.  In the covenant, God treats us as responsible creatures and, as such, calls each one of us to repent from our sins and accept the gospel promises in true faith.

The Covenant of Grace and the Style of Reformed Worship

When a Reformed church takes the covenant of grace seriously, what impact does that have on our public worship?  That question gets addressed at length in a forthcoming book, “I Will Be Your God”: An Easy Introduction to the Covenant of Grace.  If all goes well, this book should appear in early-mid 2015.  In the meantime, here is an excerpt that deals with the style of Reformed worship and how the covenant of grace speaks to that.

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Seeing God as having the prime place in the covenant of grace is also going to dramatically impact and distinguish the style of Reformed worship. By “style,” I mean things like our attitude towards worship, our dress and deportment, our church architecture, the way our music is played and sung, and so on. These are not trivial or indifferent matters. How we come into God’s presence and how we conduct ourselves in God’s presence matters tremendously.

We can learn that from Malachi 1, especially these words from verses 6-8:

⁶ “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’ ⁷ By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the Lord’s table may be despised. ⁸ When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the Lord of hosts.

In many of the prophets, we find God pressing a covenant lawsuit against his people. He has this relationship with them and they have violated the relationship. They have not believed the LORD and followed him and so he goes after them with his prophets and confronts them with their covenant breaking. In Malachi 1, he speaks about their worship. On a superficial level, it looked like the people were worshipping God faithfully, as he commanded. However, God saw what was really happening.

What was really happening was that the people were bringing sacrifices that were second-rate and thinking that God would not notice. After all, other people did not notice. So, for example, verse 8 says that the people were bringing blind animals for sacrifices. It would not be obvious to anyone else that the animal was blind. Yet God’s law had expressly commanded that only the best sacrifices be brought to him (e.g. Lev. 22:22). God wanted only the best and healthiest animals. Yet here the Israelites were trying to cut corners, offering God the weak and sick animals, thinking he would not notice. He noticed. Then he says in verse 8, “Try and do that with a human ruler. Bring your human ruler your weak and sick animals as a gift; try bringing him your second or third best. See if he would accept that!”

That teaches us an important principle about worship. Since God is exalted, because he has the number one place in the covenant relationship, because he is our God, we want to bring him only our absolute best. He is worthy of that. That applies to external things like how we dress when we come to church. Do we really believe that we are meeting in a special way with the most exalted King in the universe? Then that should be reflected in the way we dress. We do not want to draw up a dress code for the church, and we should not be looking at others. Each of us should ourselves be conscientious about this. Should we not offer our level best as we meet with the King of kings? That applies to everything. It applies also to our singing, to the playing of musical accompaniment, to the preparation of sermons, to the way we treat our church building, our attention to the sermon – in everything we want to offer our covenant God the absolute best when we worship. He deserves it. He is worthy of it.

Yet let us be clear: it is not just about the external things. The external things are not even the most important thing. The most important thing is what is going on in your heart, your attitude as you approach the Holy One of Israel. The first and foremost thing he desires is your heart, a heart that loves him and wants to glorify him. When our hearts have been made alive by the grace of God, when we see how much we have been loved by this exalted God, when we see what a treasure the covenant relationship is, that is going to inevitably have an impact on how we come to meet with this covenant God. That will shape our attitude: do we come into God’s presence because we have to, or because we really want to?

To say it as clearly as possible: the style of our worship is going to reflect our understanding of whom this God is who has covenanted with us. Is he high and exalted, a majestic and transcendent God? Or do we think of him as a distant observer and not really present in our services? Or worse, do we think of him as a low-brow god who will always just take what he can get from us, even if it is second or third-best? Basically, do we accept and believe what God’s Word says about himself and let that impact the manner and style of our meeting with him?