A World of Tomorrows

By Michael J. Wilcock 1994 and Eugene H. Merrill

     Originally Chronicles was a single book, and its Hebrew name was ‘The events of the days’ — i.e. in the strict sense, ‘journals’, though we should more probably have called it ‘annals’, the events of the years. The LXX, the Greek version of the OT called it ‘Paralipomenon’, the ‘book of things left out’, since at first glance it seems to retell the histories of the books of Samuel and Kings, adding information which they omit. As we read it we quickly realize that that is an inadequate name, because Chronicles clearly does more than fill in gaps. It also leaves out much that Samuel/Kings puts in, and where the two histories do tell the same story they often tell it very differently. Jerome, translating the Bible into Latin, said that this book was in fact a ‘chronicle of the whole of sacred history’, and from him comes our present English title. It does, as Jerome indicates, cover not only the span of time dealt with in Samuel/Kings but the entire OT story from Adam through almost to the people of the writer’s own time.

Date and Authorship

     Following the rise to power of Cyrus, king of Persia, who conquered Babylon in 539 BC, many of the Jews living in exile in his territories returned to their own land. Since Chronicles more than once takes that event for granted, it must obviously have been written after it. Many have believed both that Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah were all written by the same person, and that that person was Ezra himself, writing fairly soon after the return from exile. But there are also good grounds for dating Chronicles some time later, probably in the fourth century BC. If this is right, then we do not know who its author was. He is usually simply called ‘the Chronicler’. His book was in any case intended for the Jewish community which had settled back in the area around Jerusalem, with a rebuilt temple and priests of Aaron’s line (though no longer with a throne for the kings of David’s line, since it was now part of the Persian empire).

Content

     Although Chronicles covers a tremendous sweep of history, it concentrates on the period of the monarchy, when for about 450 years Israel was ruled by a succession of kings, from Saul (c. 1050 BC) to Zedekiah (c. 600 BC). Samuel/Kings was certainly its main source, supplemented by other books now lost to us. So far from romancing when he recounts events not found in the older history, as some have thought, the Chronicler may well be following different sources of considerable accuracy. In 1 Ch. 1–9 he has compiled name-lists, most though not all of them family trees, which bind together the story of God’s people since the beginning of Bible times. 1 Ch. 10–29 covers the reign of David, and 2 Ch. 1–9 that of Solomon. 2 Ch. 10–36 deals with the royal line that descended from them — the kings, that is, of the southern Israelite kingdom of Judah — until it ends in exile in Babylon.

Purpose

     Chronicles presents history differently from Samuel/Kings. The differences, the distinctive features of Chronicles, have to do with the Chronicler’s theology — truths about God and the people of God which are his special concern. He assumes throughout that his readers know the facts already, and his object is to interpret them.

     One of the most obvious of these features is his concentration on the royal line of David, and therefore on the kingdom centred on Jerusalem. (The kings who ruled the breakaway northern kingdom from 931/30 BC onwards do not in themselves interest him.) Another matter to which he devotes a great deal of space is Solomon’s temple, its priesthood and its worship. This special interest, some have thought, arose from his desire to encourage his contemporaries to be wholeheartedly involved in the activities of the ‘second temple’, their own much less grandiose replacement for Solomon’s. But when we realize how constantly he draws his readers’ attention not only to the temple of Solomon (which did have a visible equivalent in their own day), but also to the throne of David (which did not), we are on the way to a wider and deeper understanding of his message. It is not really about religious observances, any more than it is about political structures. The Chronicler’s twin emphases on throne and temple, on kingship and priesthood, are relevant in all ages, because the first is about how God governs his people, and the second is about how they relate to him.

     This in turn helps to explain the Chronicler’s view of the divided kingdom. So far as everyday names were concerned, the north was called Israel and the south Judah. But the real ‘Israel’ meant all those for whom the true kingship was expressed through the sons of David and the true priesthood through the sons of Aaron. That meant southerners (unless they rebelled), but could equally include northerners (if they would return). 2 Ch. 13 is a key chapter in this respect (see especially vs 4–5, 8–12 ). The Chronicler therefore frequently uses the phrase ‘all Israel’, speaks of the possibility of its reunification and renewal, and presents a picture of an ideal Israel — not a photograph of the nation as it would have appeared at any given time, but a kaleidoscope or montage of glimpses pieced together from various times and sources.

     In a similar way he pictures at the heart of the ideal Israel an ideal kingship, in the form of the successive reigns of David and Solomon. As we have noted, his first readers were very familiar with the stories of these two men, and knew how human they were, with great failings as well as great virtues. So we, like those earlier readers, are to understand the Chronicler’s depiction of David and Solomon as the ‘official’ portrait, complementing (not contradicting) the warts - and - all human one in Samuel/Kings. It is not inaccurate — simply selective. It draws attention to those aspects of their reigns which show us something of God’s regular ways of governing his people’s lives.

     The Chronicler’s hopes for his own age and his message for later ages include all this, and three other features also. One is continuity. This is brought out by the name-lists of his first nine chapters, binding the people of God together across the generations, and at a deeper level by his constant interest in   unchanging principles. He would want to tell us that there is no reason why (making allowances for changed circumstances) the same principles should not apply to the life of God’s people now as then.

     Another feature is what some call ‘retribution’, meaning that ‘if I sin I shall be punished’ (though also that ‘if I obey I shall be blessed’). Scripture recognizes elsewhere, and so does the Chronicler himself, that in practice things are usually more complicated than that, but this principle of spiritual cause and effect remains true as a basic fact. One of its consequences is that there is always new hope for each new generation: to simplify this aspect of it also, that ‘if I repent I shall be forgiven’. The NT simply clarifies the principle. The Christian, like his OT counterpart, finds that both obedience and disobedience have inevitable effects; and the unconverted person, for his part, will be punished for the basic sin of rejecting Christ, and blessed when he obeys the gospel.

     Finally, there are the Chronicler’s surprising statistics. Amounts of money, the size of armies, and so on, often differ from those in Samuel/Kings, and often appear to be improbably large. Many of the discrepancies can in fact be readily reconciled, and many of the seeming exaggerations may be due to a misunderstanding of words like ‘thousand’, which frequently means a fighting unit of much smaller size, or to the kind of copying error which in our own day might add an extra zero or miss out a decimal point. But a good many queries of this kind remain unexplained. It is quite proper to leave them that way, so long as we bear in mind that the Chronicler was in other areas an accurate writer; that his concern with the regular principles by which God works in the world was served better by fact than by fiction; and that both he and his first readers, well acquainted with the older history ( Samuel/Kings ) and much closer than we are to the world that both these histories describe, obviously took in their stride such matters as the figures we find difficult.

I. Genealogies (chaps. 1–9)

     The emphasis in 1 - 2 Chronicles is on the Davidic dynasty in Judah and the Levitical line. The genealogies are given to show how David and Judah were chosen by God. That divine selection is traced back to patriarchal and even prepatriarchal times.

A. Patriarchal genealogies (chap. 1)

     Careful comparison of this passage with the genealogical lists in Genesis reveals little difference in substance. The author either cited Genesis directly (though not always in the form of the Heb. text) or used sources which in turn depended on Genesis. His purposes, however, precluded a mere copying of the Genesis texts. Rather he used those texts selectively to include nations, tribes, and individuals that were relevant to his overall design.

1. GENEALOGY OF ADAM (1:1–4)

     1:1–4. The names here, based on Genesis 5:3–32, trace the ancestry of the human race from the first man, Adam, through Noah and his three sons. This enabled the chronicler not only to root the Chosen People in Israel and the Davidic line but also to show how they derived from only one of the three sons of Noah, that one through whom redemptive blessing would come, namely, Shem (cf. Gen. 9:26–27 ).

2. GENEALOGY OF JAPHETH (1:5–7)

     1:5–7. In the reverse order in which the names of Noah’s sons are usually given, Japheth is mentioned here first. For the identification of these names and the others as ethnic or geographic names, see the comments on Genesis 10:2–4.

3. GENEALOGY OF HAM (1:8–16)

     1:8–16. This list is almost identical to Genesis 10:6–8, 13–18. There is even an abbreviated narrative concerning Nimrod (1 Chron. 1:10; cf. Gen. 10:8–12), a fact that points decidedly to the view that the chronicler had the Genesis genealogies before him.

4. GENEALOGY OF SHEM (1:17–27)

     1:17–23. The tracing of the line of Shem follows that of Japheth’s and Ham’s lines because it is most important theologically. The Shemites (i.e., Semites) are the Noahic line from which Abraham, Israel, and hence David originated. The basis for this first part of the list is Genesis 10:22–29.

     1:24–27. This genealogy of Shem has the added feature of a brief summation of names in which the first five names (Shem through Peleg), which are central to the line of descent, are repeated (cf. vv. 17–19). In addition five other names are given (Reu through Abram; cf. Gen. 11:18–26). Striking by omission are the names of Abram’s brothers, Nahor and Haran (which are found in Gen. 11:26). (The Nahor in 1 Chron. 1:26 is Abraham’s grandfather, not his brother.) Abraham’s brothers were left out by the chronicler because they were not in the line from Adam to David.

5. GENEALOGY OF ABRAHAM (1:28–34 )

     1:28–31. This section is arranged around the descendants of Abraham according to their mothers. First, the descent of Ishmael, son of Hagar, appears (cf. Gen. 25:12–16). As founder of the various Ishmaelite and, ultimately, Arabic tribes he was important to the chronicler’s own historical situation (cf. 1 Chron. 27:30; 2 Chron. 17:11; 21:16; 22:1; 26:7; also cf. Neh. 2:19; 4:7; 6:1).

     1:32–33. This second section lists the offspring of Keturah, Abraham’s concubine, all of whom are listed in Genesis 25:2–4. Of interest is the chronicler’s omission of the descendants of Dedan (who are given in Gen. 25:3b), probably because of the geographic distance of the “Dedanites” from Judah (cf. Jer. 25:23).

     1:34. This third section merely introduces Abraham’s line through Sarah, his wife, and Isaac, son of Sarah. It mentions Isaac’s two sons … Esau and Israel (Jacob), whose own genealogies then follow in verses 35–54 (Esau’s line) and chapters 2–7 (Jacob’s line).

A World of Tomorrows

By R.C. Sproul Jr. 9/1/2006

     Like the March hare, I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date. My column for this issue of Tabletalk was due yesterday. This morning I received from my friends at Ligonier a polite email reminding me of that truth. I’m embarrassed, disappointed, ashamed. I don’t believe, however, that I am sufficiently embarrassed, disappointed, and ashamed. I’m only mildly so, which is more a reflection of the culture in me than it is the grace in my friends at Tabletalk. That is, my relative peace about my tardiness isn’t because the email I received was so polite, but because we live in a world where work gets done tomorrow. All deadlines must be flexible, negotiable in our day, lest we have no deadlines at all.

     There are two raging rivers, culturally speaking, that converge from the lazy river of mediocrity. First, we do not know the excellent. Goodness, truth, and beauty, as the great triad of virtues, are so much more demanding, not simply to create, but to even enjoy, than okay-ness, funny-ness and pretty-ness. Entering into that towering poem The Wasteland by T.S. Elliot requires of us a higher aesthetic than we have obtained. It requires a greater familiarity with that which was great in the past than we are willing to acquire. It requires training and work. To enter the more familiar wasteland of our culture all you need is a remote control. To put it another way, one of our great problems as we receive culture is that we are too easily satisfied, too easily entertained. We get mediocrity in large part because that is what we ask for. Ninety-eight percent of us in the past year consumed a “meal” at McDonalds, not because we were reaching higher, but because it would do.

     The second great river at the source of mediocrity is one that precedes our particular culture. It is a problem, a weakness, a sin that has been with us since Adam first led Eve east of Eden. The problem is sloth. The medieval theologians, when compiling the list of what would come to be known as “The Seven Deadly Sins” included in their list things we might expect, like lust, or even gluttony. But sloth? Where did that come from? How did it make the list? The list had two fundamental criteria. First, the list would include those sins that are most apt to beset most of us. It is almost certainly a sin to smash your car up with a sledge hammer. Not many of us, however, fight desperately against that temptation. Lust, gluttony, and sloth, however, have wide appeal. The second criteria, however, is that these sins were believed to be root sins, sins that were apt to sprout still more sins. It may be that sloth is what gives rise, for instance, to theft.

     That list, we must remember, was concocted during the Middle Ages. Things moved pretty slowly then. Surely the same warning wouldn’t apply to us. We live in America, home of the Puritan work ethic. We have cell phones and laptop computers so that we can carry our work around with us wherever we go. We put in long hours so that we might climb the corporate ladder. We burn the midnight oil and the candle at both ends. How can sloth get a toe-hold on us? Because there is a great chasm that separates feeling busy with being busy, and an even greater chasm between being busy and working hard.

     We feel busy because we schedule too much stuff. If I can’t miss my weekly golf game, my monthly poker night, my five favorite television programs, the Braves game, and a little “me time” here or there, I will surely feel busy. The trouble is, I feel busy because work creeps into my insatiable demand for play time. But even if that doesn’t describe me, if I am busy checking for emails, looking up the stock indexes, going to meetings and writing things down in my daytimer, I still haven’t actually produced anything. Work means getting real things done that actually help people. And that is a far greater challenge than being busy.

     It has been said that any given job can be done with two of three qualities. It can be done quickly and cheaply, but not well. It can be done quickly and well, but not cheaply. It can be done cheaply and well, but not quickly. We have, as a culture, chosen quickly and cheaply. And having chosen thus, we find ourselves diminished, for we find that we like it that way. We find that we are not merely willing to accept mediocrity, but that we crave it.

     The Bible offers a different call. We are to do our work “as unto the Lord.” We should be known by the world around us as the most diligent of laborers and craftsmen. We ought also, however, be known as those with the most discriminating tastes. For we are to seek out those things that reflect the Lord, that show forth His glory. We are to surround ourselves with “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8). May our work and our play be suffused with excellence, that our Maker’s name might be praised.

Radically Contagious

By John Sartelle 9/1/2006

     When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

     I have always been leery of vaccinations. The idea that bits of a serious disease are put into my body is disconcerting. The doctor may use medical terms like pathogen or antigen. He may say that it is only being scratched on the surface of the skin. The fact still remains that I am purposely being exposed by direct contact to bacteria or a virus from a dangerous disease. The medical explanation is that I am being exposed to weak or dead elements of the disease so that my body will build antibodies to combat the sickness. The vaccination makes me immune to the real disease.

     That is what has happened with many Christians and churches. They have been vaccinated with dead or weak forms of Christianity. Thus, they have built up antibodies that combat the powerful, radical contagion of authentic Christianity. They are going through the motions of being Christian, but their lives show none of the severe symptoms of true Christianity.

     Make no mistake, the real disease of Christ is a virulent, extreme, revolutionary strain that kills the old way we live and gives birth to a new life that is a carrier of the infection. When Jesus said, “Follow Me,” He was not talking about trailing Him to a Sunday school class. When He said, “Follow Me,” He was saying, “Love your enemies. Pray for those who abuse you. Forgive the people who are driving the nails into your hands. If your eye leads you to sin, pluck it out. Love Me more than you love your children or parents. Rejoice even in suffering. Real strength lies in weakness, serving, fear, and forgiveness. Thieves and prostitutes are closer to the kingdom of God than the moralist. Don’t hide behind social propriety, confess your sin openly one to another. The morally pretentious must rely upon the grace of God just as much as a murderer.”

     Following the gigantic Christ that made such statements is not easy. However, anything less is not following Him. If we abbreviate these drastic precepts, we no longer have authentic Christianity.

     Many churches today are no more than inoculation clinics run by the world and Satan. People go there to receive weekly vaccinations, so they won’t come down with the real thing.

     However, this extreme life called “Christian” not only flows from following Jesus, this life is empowered by the Holy Spirit. The Bible teaches us that the Holy Spirit comes and lives in us.

     May I ask you a logical question? If you are following Jesus and indwelled by the third person of the Trinity, how can your life not be radical? Paul said that the life anointed by the Holy Spirit would be marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Now immediately we recognize that many of those characteristics can be seen in the pagan. So how are love and joy different in the Christian than in the world? This love and joy are supernatural. This is love and joy taken to another level — a level that is alien to the world — a level that is impossible without the Holy Spirit. The same power that created the universe is empowering our hearts to love. The world has a right to ask us: “If the demands of Jesus are so extraordinary, and if you have God inside of you, how come you live such ordinary lives?”

     Late in the nineteenth century, two men living in London went to a meeting of their geographical society to hear one of their members speak of his recent trip to China. During his report the man spoke of being in a village and inquiring if any Christians lived there. The leader told him there was one Christian living in a village about fifteen miles away. One of the two men leaned over to his friend and said, “Ah, there was only one Christian and he was fifteen miles away. But they knew exactly where he lived!” Does the world know where we live because of the radical nature of our lives?

     When someone is sick with the real form of a powerful disease, we stay away from him. That person is very contagious, and we don’t want what he has. However, I have never stayed away from someone who has simply been vaccinated. That person is not contagious. Just so, the world will never be infected by those who have a vaccination of Christianity. They can live next to them for years without any fear of catching the virulent strain of the true Christ.

     Perfection in sanctification is impossible this side of glory. However, continual growth in Christ is attainable. Failure will happen. That is certain. Peter and John failed too. However, failure is an opportunity for repentance, and authentic repentance is an essential part of sanctification for the sinner. Don’t give up. Remember this is the Gospel of grace. You are a work in progress.

     Today, this week, once again read the Gospels. Listen to the voice of Jesus. Observe the way He lived. We cannot explain the lives of those first disciples apart from their association with Christ: “they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” Today, this week, go to the Father in prayer and ask Him to fill you with His Spirit. Pray and pray again to be filled. Those are dangerous steps to take. You may contract a “disease” from which you will never recover.

     Some believe that had Adam not fallen into sin, he would have entered an even greater rest than the one enjoyed in Eden. While we cannot be sure of this, we do know that we will enjoy an even greater rest than Eden’s because sin makes us able to know God as the Redeemer. Praise God for the greater rest that is to come.

Exceptional Mediocrity

By R.C. Sproul 9/1/2006

     In my book The hunger for significance I explored the desire commonly found among us to find some basis for dignity, for value, for worth in our lives. I wrote at that time: “Modern man has an aching void. The emptiness we feel cannot be relieved by a new car, a better job, a bigger house. It can only be filled by understanding that each human life is significant. Our lives cannot be reduced to meaninglessness.”

     The modern quest for significance and human dignity is often prompted by the overwhelming aura of despair that penetrates the cultural worldview in which we live. We are repeatedly told that we are cosmic accidents who have oozed fortuitously from the slime. Our origins are meaningless and our destiny is annihilation. Yet in the midst of those two poles of despair, the search for significance and dignity is one that is often attended by a sense of urgency.

     In this issue of Tabletalk, we’re exploring the quest for excellence, which in many cases is inseparably related to our fundamental aspiration for significance. There can be different and at times conflicting motives for the search for excellence. That search can be based simply upon a desire to excel at something in which we are engaged. On the one hand, the motive for this kind of excelling can be one of competitive dominance. Historically, we’ve defined our humanness via the term Homo sapiens. Friedrich Nietzsche, the nihilistic philosopher of the nineteenth century argued that what most defines human existence is not our wisdom (sapiens), but our will to power, our will to conquer. The lust for power that drives tyrants and dictators is something that we characteristically see as evil, but Nietzsche regarded it as virtue. For him, the super-man (übermensch) is one who above all else is a conqueror. He is the one who allows his inherent will to power to go not only unchecked but to be fed lustfully by every means available. In the world in which we live, the will to power is often seen as a desire to climb the corporate ladder, to reach the peak of authority and power, so that we can dominate other people. In this regard, the competitive desire for domination by which we can exercise sovereignty over weaker people is a manifestation, not of inherent humanness, but of inherent human fallenness. It is a manifestation of the depths of corruption that lurks in the heart of each one of us.

     On the other hand, a strong desire to excel may be motivated by an attempt to reach goals of achievement. The aspiration to significance that is inherent in every human being is, in and of itself, not a sinful appetite. The aspiration to significance is given to us, I believe, by our Creator. As His creatures, made in His image, we know that the dignity we possess is not intrinsic but extrinsic. That is, it is a dignity assigned to us by God. We have value and worth, because God declares us valuable. It is God who calls us to labor to the highest level of excellence and achievement of which we are capable. It is by His hand that we receive gifts to use in this world. The faithful exercise of those gifts is what should drive our desire to excel. In and of itself, aspiration to significance is not a bad thing, but, indeed, such worthy desires that beat in the human heart can run amuck. The aspiration to significance, if not checked by godly ethics, can easily transform itself into the Nietzschian will to power.

     The legitimate motive for excellence is to seek achievement for the end to glorify God. That is the chief purpose for which we are created, to bear witness to His glory. One thing that does not bear witness to the glory of God is a human addiction to mediocrity, a smug satisfaction with the status quo. Rather, the Scriptures call us to seek a high calling — the high calling that is ours in Christ Jesus. Such a high calling cannot be achieved when we wallow in sloth. Slothfulness and laziness are twin vices that are roundly and soundly condemned by sacred Scripture. The biggest reason we fail to achieve excellence is that we are unwilling to work to such an extent that excellence can be achieved. No one achieves excellence in any worthy enterprise without diligent and disciplined labor. The enemy of achievement in this sense is sloth. On the other hand, even with the most sanctified human heart, the quest for excellence will always be tainted with a corrupt sense of pride. If we were to achieve the highest goals possible in this world, to scale the heights of human achievement in unprecedented manners, we would still be at best, unprofitable servants who have no right to boast in anything but in the glory of God and the precious redemption that is ours in Christ Jesus.

     Let us therefore seek to excel, let us push ourselves to the highest limits of endurance to achieve the highest possible level of excellence in all that we do, while at the same time watching ever vigilantly for the evil impulse of pride to vitiate any value to our labor. Let us work hard, let us excel to God’s glory. Soli Deo gloria.

Robert Charles Sproul, 2/13/1939 – 12/14/2017 was an American theologian, author, and ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America. Dr. R.C. Sproul was founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, an international Christian education and discipleship organization located near Orlando, Fla. He was also copastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla., chancellor of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Dr. Sproul has contributed dozens of articles to national evangelical publications, has spoken at conferences, churches, and schools around the world, and has written more than one hundred books. He also served as general editor of the Reformation Study Bible.

The Protestant Work Ethic

By Gene Edward Veith 9/1/2006

     The Protestant work ethic promotes excellence. But what is the connection between Protestantism, work, and excellence? The pioneering sociologist Max Weber was the first to draw attention to the Protestant work ethic. In his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, published in 1904, Weber studied the phenomenal economic growth, social mobility, and cultural change that accompanied the Reformation. He went so far as to credit the Reformation for the rise of capitalism.

     Usually, he said, religion is otherworldly. But the Reformation doctrine of vocation taught that religion is to be lived out in this world. Weber did not completely understand the doctrine of vocation. He had the idea that the early Protestants worked so hard so as to build up evidence for their salvation. But the early Protestants knew better than anyone that their salvation had nothing to do with their works or their work, trusting in the grace of God through Christ alone.

     Weber also assumed the early Protestants were ascetics. While their hard work inevitably made them lots of money, he said, their moral scruples prevented them from spending it, at least on worldly pleasures. So instead, they saved their money, put it in banks, and invested it. That is, they transformed their money into capital, thus creating capitalism. There may be something to this, but modern research has shown that the early reformers — despite the stereotype of “Puritans” — were not particularly ascetic, a quality that better describes the medieval Catholics they were reacting against.

     But Weber is right to see the transforming power of the doctrine of vocation. Medieval Catholicism taught that spiritual perfection is to be found in celibacy, poverty, and the monastic withdrawal from the world, where higher spiritual life is found. But the reformers emphasized the spiritual dimension of family life, productive labor, and cultural engagement. “Vocation” is simply the Latinate word for “calling.” According to Luther, God calls each of us to various tasks and relationships. We have vocations in the family (marriage, parenthood), in the workplace (as master, servant, exercising our different talents in the way we make a living), and in the culture (as rulers, subjects, and citizens). We also have a vocation in the church (pastors, elders, organists, congregants), but the spiritual life is not to be lived out mainly in church and in church activities. Rather, when we come to church, we find the preaching of forgiveness for the sins we have committed in our vocations. Then, through Word and sacrament, our faith is strengthened. Our faith then bears fruit when we are sent back to our vocations in our families, our work, and our culture.

     Luther stressed that vocation is not first about what we do. Rather, it is about what God does through us. God gives us this day our daily bread through the vocation of farmers, millers, bakers, and — we would add — the factory workers, truck drivers, grocery store employees, and the hands that prepared our meal. God creates and cares for new life by means of the vocations of mother and father, husband and wife. He protects us by means of police officers, judges, the military, and other Romans 13 vocations of those who “bear the sword.” God brings healing not primarily through miracles but through the vocation of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and the other medical vocations. God teaches through teachers, conveys His Word through preachers, gives the blessings of technology through engineers, and creates beauty through artists. God works through all the people who do things for us, day by day. And He also works through us, in whatever tasks, offices, and relationships He has called us to do.

     The doctrine of vocation charges our everyday lives and our mundane activities with spiritual significance, and it is indeed a powerful motivator to perform them with excellence. But there is another dimension to vocation, one that is often left out. Yes, we fulfill our callings to the glory of God. But how, exactly, do we glorify God? That is to say, how does God command us to glorify Him?

     The medieval Catholics also spoke much of glorifying God. The Jesuits had as their motto: “to the greater glory of God.” The Inquisition burned Protestants at the stake for God’s glory.

     Luther stressed that our vocations are not works that we perform “for” God. The monastics talked that way, as if the Lord of the universe needed or was impressed by our actions. “God does not need our good works,” Luther said. “But our neighbor does.” The monks insisted they were saved by their good works, but Luther denied that their self-chosen mystical exercises, performed in isolation from other people, could even be called good works. “Who are you helping?” he asked. Good works are those that help our neighbor. They are performed primarily in our callings.

     Our relationship to God is based wholly on His works, not our own; on His grace; on our redemption in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He, in turn, calls us to love and serve our neighbors. And yet, we learn from Christ that “as you did it to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40). So it turns out that when we love and serve our neighbor, we are serving Christ after all.

Covenant Community

By David McKay 9/1/2006

     When a pastor looks at his assembled congregation, what does he see? If he accepts a biblical covenant theology, he knows that he is not looking at a collection of randomly gathered individuals, or even families, but at a part of the covenant people of God. That perspective, when grasped by a congregation, ought to make a great impact on how these people view their life together.

     Covenant theology reminds the people of God that they are to think covenantally rather than individualistically. Such a mindset is the very opposite of that which shapes much of current Western thinking. The church of Jesus Christ is a community of redeemed sinners bound to their Lord and to one another in the bond of love known as the covenant of grace. God gives Himself to them to be their God and takes them as His people (the covenant promise, which is spelled out, for example, in Lev. 26:12). Christians belong to their covenant Lord: “None of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself…whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom. 14:7–8). This also means that Christians are bound to one another and must think of themselves as part of a community. Paul expresses this truth using the language of the body in Ephesians 4:25: “We are members of one another.” We are therefore to take our covenant brothers and sisters into account in all aspects of our Christian living. The covenant community is no place for rugged individualists. We must constantly be asking, “How will this affect other believers?”

     If we love our covenant brothers and sisters, we will seek what is best for them, especially their growth in grace. This can be done in a positive way by exhortation and mutual encouragement. The writer to the Hebrews, after speaking of the blessings of the new covenant that are provided by the blood of Jesus, has this stirring call for God’s people: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:24–25). The covenant community is the place where we are spurred on by fellow believers to make use of the means of grace, including the gatherings of the church for worship, which will shape us more in the likeness of the Mediator of the covenant. This is not something that happens automatically — we must consciously “consider” how to do it most effectively. A consistent example, a word of encouragement, an offer of help when a brother appears to be struggling — all these, and more, have their place. Here is a ministry in which every Christian can, and should, be engaged. Whilst elders have a special responsibility for the oversight of the community, there is opportunity for all to be involved.

     A particularly important element in the life of the covenant community is the bearing of one another’s burdens. This is Paul’s command in Galatians 6:2: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Our brothers and sisters are called by the Lord to bear all kinds of burdens (as are we ourselves), but they are not called to bear them alone. Apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit who indwells them, there is the ministry of those who are united to the same Savior in the bonds of the covenant. Indeed, this is often how the Spirit provides His help. When a brother or sister struggles with discouragement, failure, worry, bereavement, aging, sickness, the prospect of death, or any other problem, the burden is made heavier if others who could help stand idly by, showing no concern, apparently wrapped up in their own affairs. It can be costly to bear someone else’s burden — costly in time, costly in physical and emotional energy — and there is sadly no guarantee that the effort will be appreciated. If we take seriously our covenant solidarity, however, we will make the effort and take the risk. In our own times of trial, we also need to be willing to accept ministry. It is easier to be the strong one giving help than it is to admit weakness and accept help, yet that too is part of being members of the one body.

     Sin is a reality in the covenant community. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). In love, believers can hold each other accountable for their behavior, and so deal with sin before it grows and causes even greater problems. Sin can devastate fellowship, and thus it must not be ignored in the futile hope that it will just go away. Whilst elders have a particular responsibility to exercise loving discipline, if all believers were faithful in ministering to one another, far fewer issues would require attention in formal discipline. We must not forget that receiving discipline is part of our covenant responsibility, and never easy.

     A covenant community that is functioning according to God’s pattern is a healthy environment for the raising of covenant children. As they grow up, they will be surrounded by examples of what it means to be a godly man or woman. We will not be afraid to have them copy what they see. Words of instruction will be supported by actions. Here the challenges and opportunities of covenant solidarity come to their sharpest focus.

Psalm 42

By Don Carson 4/30/2018

     Millions of Christians have sung the words as a chorus. Millions more have meditated on them in their own quiet reading of Scripture: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God” (Ps. 42:1).

     It is a haunting image. One pictures the buck or the doe, descending through the forest’s perimeter in the half-light of dusk, to slake the thirst of a hot day in the cool waters of a crystal stream. When Christians have applied the image to themselves, they have conjured up a plethora of diverse personal circumstances: semi-mystical longings for a feeling of the transcendent, courageous God centeredness that flies in the face of cultural opposition, a lonely longing for a sense of God’s presence when the heavens seem as bronze, a placid contentment with our own religious experience, and more.

     But whatever the possible applications of this haunting image, the situation of the deer—and of the psalmist, too, as we shall see—is full of enormous stress. The deer is not sidling up to the stream for the regular supply of refreshment; it is panting for water. The metrical psalter adds the words, “when heated by the chase”; but there is no hint of that here, and the application the psalmist makes would fit less well than another possibility. The psalmist is thinking of a deer panting for refreshing streams of water during a season of drought and famine (as in Joel 1:20). In the same way, he is hungry for the Lord, famished for the presence of God, and in particular hungry to be back in Jerusalem enjoying temple worship, “leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng” (42:4). Instead, he finds himself “downcast” (42:5) because he is way up the Jordan Valley, somewhere near the heights of Hermon, in the far north of the country.

     Here the psalmist must contend with foes who taunt him, not least regarding his faith. They sneer all day long, “Where is your God?” (42:10). The only thing that will satisfy the psalmist is not, finally, Jerusalem and the temple, but God himself. Wherever he finds himself, the psalmist can still declare, “By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life” (42:8). So he encourages himself with these reflections: “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (42:11).

     Sing the chorus, repeat the ancient lines. And draw comfort when you are fighting the bleak bog of despair, and God seems far away.

Don Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and co-founder (with Tim Keller) of The Gospel Coalition. He has authored numerous books, and recently edited The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (Eerdmans, 2016).

Read The Psalms In "1" Year

Psalm 44

9 But you have rejected us and disgraced us
and have not gone out with our armies.
10 You have made us turn back from the foe,
and those who hate us have gotten spoil.
11 You have made us like sheep for slaughter
and have scattered us among the nations.
12 You have sold your people for a trifle,
demanding no high price for them.
13 You have made us the taunt of our neighbors,
the derision and scorn of those around us.
14 You have made us a byword among the nations,
a laughingstock among the peoples.
15 All day long my disgrace is before me,
and shame has covered my face
16 at the sound of the taunter and reviler,
at the sight of the enemy and the avenger.

By Gleason Archer Jr.

ALLEGED DIFFERENCES IN THEME AND SUBJECT MATTER (continued)

     It should also be pointed out that the Babylon - centered chapters ( 40–48 ) do not appear without some advance preparation in the earlier part of  Isaiah. As E. J. Young points out, chapters  1–39 constitute a “staircase, as it were, which gradually leads one from the Assyrian to the Chaldean period. The two belong together, since the former is the preparation for the latter, and the latter is the completion of the former.” That is to say, the atmosphere of Isaiah’s day was filled with the threat of exile. Samaria had already been carried away captive by the Assyrians in 722; Sennacherib made a supreme attempt to do the same to Jerusalem in 701. With deliberate purpose, Isaiah placed chapters  38 and  39 (even though they narrated earlier events from about 712 B.C.) after chapters  36 and  37, which narrate episodes occurring in 701. (Note  Isa. 38:5–6, which quite clearly point forward to the future invasion of Sennacherib in 701.) This is because chapters  38 and  39 lead up to the reason for the coming Babylonian Exile: the pride of Hezekiah in displaying his wealth to the Babylonian envoys sent by Merodach-Baladan. Hence chapter  39 closes with an ominous prediction of the Chaldean captivity. But even in the prior chapters there are numerous intimations of the coming exile of the nation (cf.  3:24–26; 5:5–6; 6:11–13; 24:11–12; 27:13; 32:13–18 ). Only by the question - begging device of labeling all such references as later interpolations can one evade the impact of this considerable body of evidence that the eighth - century  Isaiah foreknew that the Exile was coming. Furthermore, there is the testimony of  2 Chron. 36:23 and  Ezra 1:2 that Cyrus’s decree of release for the Jewish exiles at Babylon included an affirmation that Yahweh had “charged” him to “build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.” While it is conceivable that recently concocted prophecies were represented to Cyrus as being an authentic prediction from the eighth century, it is far more likely that he was impressed by a genuinely ancient oracle containing his name more than a century before he was born. It is most reasonable to assume that it was this circumstance which convinced him of the reality and power of the God of the Hebrews, and impelled him to take the extraordinary measure of authorizing a mass migration of Yahweh’s worshippers to their ancestral homeland. But at the same time it should be recognized that he also restored some other captive peoples to their native cities (ANET, p. 316), possibly to avoid appearing overly partial to the Jews alone.

     Finally, it ought to be observed that a Babylonian standpoint does not really prevail as extensively through  Isaiah II as advocates of the two  Isaiah theory have maintained. Subsequent to chapter  48, clear allusions to the Exile and Restoration are hard to find. Many of the discourses address themselves to conditions known to have prevailed in Judah in the reign of Manasseh. J. A. Alexander appropriately points out: “How seldom, after all, the book mentions Babylon, the Exile, or the Restoration.… An exact enumeration of all such cases, made for the first time, might surprise one whose previous impressions had all been derived from the sweeping declarations of interpreters and critics.” In other words, the advocates of Deutero -  Isaiah have attempted to find many allusions to the late sixth - century situation which are really susceptible to quite other interpretations. It is also a fact that the name of Babylon occurs with less frequency in chapters  40 – 66 than in  1 – 39. A statistical count shows that there are only four occurrences in the later section ( 43:14; 47:1; 48:14, 20 ), but in chapters  1 – 39 there are nine occurrences, or more than twice as many.

     Internal evidence of the composition of  Isaiah II in Palestine. A most important criterion for dating ancient documents is found in those references or allusions to contemporary events or surrounding conditions which it may happen to contain. The geographical setting which it presupposes, the kind of plants and animals which it mentions, the climatic conditions which it implies as prevailing in the author’s own environment—all these are important data for determining the place and time for the composition of any document whether ancient or modern. A careful examination of such allusions in  Isa. 40 – 66 points unmistakably to the conclusion that it was composed in Palestine rather than in Babylon. We have already seen that Bernard Duhm, on a rationalistic basis, came to the same conclusion in 1892.

     Isaiah 40 – 66 shows little knowledge of Babylonian geography, but great familiarity with that of Palestine. Thus the trees referred to are not found in Babylonia, but are native to Palestine, such as the cedar, cypress, and oak (cf  41:19, 44:14: “He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak … he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it”). The writer’s geographical viewpoint is clearly Palestinian. Thus Yahweh is said to send off His decree to Babylon ( 43:14 ). Israel is called the seed of Abraham which the Lord has taken from “the ends of the earth” (apparently a reference to Babylonia) in  41:9 and  45:22. The same is true with the phrases “from the east” and “from a far country” as employed in  46:11, and “from thence” rather than “from hence” in  52:11 (“Depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing”) — an exhortation to the future exiles to leave Babylon as soon as the invitation has been given them by the coming deliverer, Cyrus.

     The author assumes that the cities of Judah are still standing. Compare  40:9: “Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!” This verse implies that Zion and the other cities of Judah are in actual existence at the time of writing, rather than being uninhabited sites in the wake of Chaldean devastation. The same is true of  62:6: “I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem.” Anti-supernaturalists cannot explain this away as an ideal anticipation of cities which are some day to be rebuilt. Such a defense would violate a cardinal maxim of their own, as expressed by Driver, “The prophet speaks always, in the first instance, to his own contemporaries; the message which he brings is intimately related to the circumstances of his own time.… The prophet never abandons his own historical position, but speaks from it.”

     It is only to be expected that if the cities are still standing, the Israelites themselves are assumed to be dwelling in Palestine by the author of these prophecies. Thus in  58:6 we read: “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?” This would be very strange language to address to a people who were groaning under the bondage of the Chaldeans as a captive people. It is very evident that the Jews are still dwelling in their own land and are competent to hold their own law courts. Only thus would it be possible for corrupt judges to pervert the administration of the law to the disadvantage of the less privileged classes of society.

     Evidence for the pre-exilic composition of  Isaiah II. We have seen there is no good support for a Babylonian origin of  Isaiah II. The internal evidence as it has been detailed above has shown how indefensible was this element in the theory of Deutero -  Isaiah, as it was propounded by Doederlein, Eichhorn, and Rosenmueller. More recent scholars tend to regard  Isaiah II as having been composed either in Palestine or in the region of Lebanon to the north. They nevertheless insist that chapters  40 – 66 were composed late, either in the exilic or post - exilic period. It remains to be shown that this theory also fails to account for the data of the internal evidence.

     In the first place, many of the same evils which prevailed in the time of the eighth - century Isaiah are evidently still current in the generation of the author of  Isaiah II. Note for example  Isa. 57:7, “Upon a high and lofty mountain you have made your bed. You also went up there to offer sacrifice.” Bloodshed and violence are denounced in  1:15: “Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood,” and they are still being denounced in  59:3, 7: “For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.… Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood.” In both parts of the book, the prophet inveighs against the prevalent falsehood, injustice, and oppression which were practiced in Judah. Compare  10:12 “Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless” with  59:4 – 9, where the indictment is very similar: “None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.”

     Both in  Isaiah I and II, a revolting hypocrisy characterizes the religious life of the nation. Compare  29:13: “Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men” with  58:2, 4: “Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.… Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.” Moreover, in both sections of the book the Jews are assumed to be practicing their orgiastic rites in the sacred groves. (In  1:29: “They shall be ashamed of the oaks which they have desired”; and in  57:5: “Ye that inflame yourselves among the oaks, under every green tree,” ASV.)

     Although the same types of sin are assumed to be prevalent by the author in both parts of  Isaiah, it should be observed that there is a difference. In  40 – 66 the author refers to an extreme degeneracy and breakdown of morals which accords with no known period of Jewish history so closely as with the age of Manasseh, who “shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another” ( 2 Kings 21:16 ). One has only to read  2 Kings 21 and  Isa. 59 to see the close correspondence. Thus  59:10: “We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.” So also verses  13 – 14: “In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.”

     A most decisive objection to a post-exilic date for the composition of  Isaiah II is to be found in the numerous passages which refer to idolatry as a wide and prevalent evil in Israel.  Isaiah 44:9 – 20 contains a long diatribe against the folly of making graven images for worship, as if this were a major problem in contemporary Judah. This passage cannot be dismissed as a mere challenge to contemporary pagan nations, for there are too many other passages which speak of idolatry being practiced by the author’s own countrymen at that time (cf.  57:4 – 5, “Against whom do ye sport yourselves?… Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?”).

     Not only is ritual prostitution here referred to, but also the sacrificing of babies to Molech and Adrammelech, an infamous practice carried on during the reign of Manasseh in the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom ( 2 Kings 21:6; 2 Chron. 33:6 ). And again,  Isa. 57:7: “Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set thy bed; even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice.” This is an obvious allusion to worship in the high places (bāmôt), a type of worship which flourished in the pre-exilic period, but never thereafter. Again,  65:2 – 4: “I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people … a people that provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens, and burning incense upon bricks; that sit among the graves, and lodge in the secret places; that eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels” (ASV). In the very last chapter we find that idolatry is still being practiced. In  66:17: “They that sanctify themselves and purify themselves to go unto the gardens, behind one in the midst [or, one asherah], eating swine’s flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, they shall come to an end together, saith Jehovah” (ASV). Plainly these things represent vicious evils and degenerate pagan abominations which were going on at the time the prophet composed these words.

     Let us carefully consider the implications of this prevalence of idolatry in Judah. The hilly or mountainous terrain referred to completely excludes the possibility of idolatrous worship being carried on in Babylonia, which was a flat, alluvial terrain. The types of worship alluded to are precisely those which are described as having been cultivated in the reign of Manasseh. So far as the post-exilic period is concerned, it is agreed by scholars of every persuasion that the returning Jews who resettled Judah from 536 to 450 brought back no idol worship with them. The terrible ordeal of the Babylonian captivity had brought about a complete rejection of graven images on the part of the Jewish remnant. This complete freedom from idolatry in post-exilic Judea is proved beyond all reasonable doubt by the writings of the admittedly post-exilic authors, notably the prophets  Haggai, Zechariah, and  Malachi, and the historians  Ezra and  Nehemiah. Many and various were the evils which arose in the Second Commonwealth during the century which elapsed between  Zerubbabel and  Malachi, and these evils are clearly described and earnestly denounced both by  Ezra and  Nehemiah. The book of  Malachi contains a list of sins into which his countrymen had fallen. Yet none of these suggests the slightest practice of idolatry. There was intermarriage with foreign women of idolatrous background; there was oppression of the poor by the rich; there was desecration of the Sabbath; there was a withholding of tithes — but none of these authors ever mentions the reappearance of idolatry in the land of Judah. There was also acceptance of blemished, defective animals for sacrifice,  Mal. 1:12–14. The only possible conclusion to draw is that the worship of graven images there was unknown. Not until the age of Antiochus Epiphanes in the second century B.C. was any real effort made to introduce it once more among the Israelite people. Therefore, in the light of this evidence, it is impossible to hold that  Isaiah II was composed at any time after the exile, or indeed after the fall of Jerusalem.

     Some Liberal scholars have felt compelled to make slight concessions in this direction and admit the possibility of late pre-exilic strands in  Isaiah II. Thus Bentzen notes that “in like manner  63:7 – 65:25 may be connected with the events of 587 B.C.” W. H. Brownlee likewise comments: “It is not impossible that there are some pre-exilic prophecies among the oracles of Volume II. Note especially  56:9 – 57:13; 58:1–9 as of possible pre-exilic origin.” It can easily be seen how damaging to the theory of  Isaiah II are such admissions as these. If such considerable passages on the basis of their contemporary allusions are to be dated prior to the fall of Jerusalem, the possibility arises that many other sections which do not happen to contain contemporary allusions may also have been of pre-exilic origin. In other words, if portions of these twenty-seven chapters demand a time of composition prior to the downfall of the Jewish monarchy, and there are no other passages which demand an exilic or post-exilic origin (except upon the basis of a philosophic a priori that all fulfilled predictions are vaticinia ex eventu), then the only reasonable deduction to draw is that the entire work was composed prior to 587 B.C. This means that the whole case for Deutero- or Trito -  Isaiah falls to the ground, simply on the basis of the internal evidence of the text itself.

A Survey of Old Testament Introduction

The Continual Burnt Offering

By H.A. Ironside - 1941

April 30

Lamentations 2:5  The Lord has become like an enemy;
he has swallowed up Israel;
he has swallowed up all its palaces;
he has laid in ruins its strongholds,
and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah
mourning and lamentation.   ESV

He chose this path for thee,
Though well He knew sharp thorns would tear thy feet,
Know how the brambles would obstruct the way,
Knew all the hidden dangers thou wouldst meet,
Knew how thy faith would falter day by day,
And still the whisper echoed, “Yes, I see
This path is best for thee.”

The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Translated by Henry Beveridge

     2. "We have come into the way of faith," says Augustine: "let us constantly adhere to it. It leads to the chambers of the king, in which are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. For our Lord Jesus Christ did not speak invidiously to his great and most select disciples when he said, I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now,' (John 16:12). We must walk, advance, increase, that our hearts may be able to comprehend those things which they cannot now comprehend. But if the last day shall find us making progress, we shall there learn what here we could not," (August. Hom. in Joann). If we give due weight to the consideration, that the word of the Lord is the only way which can conduct us to the investigation of whatever it is lawful for us to hold with regard to him--is the only light which can enable us to discern what we ought to see with regard to him, it will curb and restrain all presumption. For it will show us that the moment we go beyond the bounds of the word we are out of the course, in darkness, and must every now and then stumble, go astray, and fall. Let it, therefore, be our first principle that to desire any other knowledge of predestination than that which is expounded by the word of God, is no less infatuated than to walk where there is no path, or to seek light in darkness. Let us not be ashamed to be ignorant in a matter in which ignorance is learning. Rather let us willingly abstain from the search after knowledge, to which it is both foolish as well as perilous, and even fatal to aspire. If an unrestrained imagination urges us, our proper course is to oppose it with these words, "It is not good to eat much honey: so for men to search their own glory is not glory," (Prov. 25:27). There is good reason to dread a presumption which can only plunge us headlong into ruin.

3. There are others who, when they would cure this disease, recommend that the subject of predestination should scarcely if ever be mentioned, and tell us to shun every question concerning it as we would a rock. Although their moderation is justly commendable in thinking that such mysteries should be treated with moderation, yet because they keep too far within the proper measure, they have little influence over the human mind, which does not readily allow itself to be curbed. Therefore, in order to keep the legitimate course in this matter, we must return to the word of God, in which we are furnished with the right rule of understanding. For Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which as nothing useful and necessary to be known has been omitted, so nothing is taught but what it is of importance to know. Every thing, therefore delivered in Scripture on the subject of predestination, we must beware of keeping from the faithful, lest we seem either maliciously to deprive them of the blessing of God, or to accuse and scoff at the Spirit, as having divulged what ought on any account to be suppressed. Let us, I say, allow the Christian to unlock his mind and ears to all the words of God which are addressed to him, provided he do it with this moderation--viz. that whenever the Lord shuts his sacred mouth, he also desists from inquiry. The best rule of sobriety is, not only in learning to follow wherever God leads, but also when he makes an end of teaching, to cease also from wishing to be wise. The danger which they dread is not so great that we ought on account of it to turn away our minds from the oracles of God. There is a celebrated saying of Solomon, "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing," (Prov. 25:2). But since both piety and common sense dictate that this is not to be understood of every thing, we must look for a distinction, lest under the pretence of modesty and sobriety we be satisfied with a brutish ignorance. This is clearly expressed by Moses in a few words, "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us, and to our children for ever," (Deut. 29:29). We see how he exhorts the people to study the doctrine of the law in accordance with a heavenly decree, because God has been pleased to promulgate it, while he at the same time confines them within these boundaries, for the simple reason that it is not lawful for men to pry into the secret things of God.

4. I admit that profane men lay hold of the subject of predestination to carp, or cavil, or snarl, or scoff. But if their petulance frightens us, it will be necessary to conceal all the principal articles of faith, because they and their fellows leave scarcely one of them unassailed with blasphemy. A rebellious spirit will display itself no less insolently when it hears that there are three persons in the divine essence, than when it hears that God when he created man foresaw every thing that was to happen to him. Nor will they abstain from their jeers when told that little more than five thousand years have elapsed since the creation of the world. For they will ask, Why did the power of God slumber so long in idleness? In short, nothing can be stated that they will not assail with derision. To quell their blasphemies, must we say nothing concerning the divinity of the Son and Spirit? Must the creation of the world be passed over in silence? No! The truth of God is too powerful, both here and everywhere, to dread the slanders of the ungodly, as Augustine powerfully maintains in his treatise, De Bono Perseverantiae (cap. 14-20). For we see that the false apostles were unable, by defaming and accusing the true doctrine of Paul, to make him ashamed of it. There is nothing in the allegation that the whole subject is fraught with danger to pious minds, as tending to destroy exhortation, shake faith, disturb and dispirit the heart. Augustine disguises not that on these grounds he was often charged with preaching the doctrine of predestination too freely, but, as it was easy for him to do, he abundantly refutes the charge. As a great variety of absurd objections are here stated, we have thought it best to dispose of each of them in its proper place (see chap. 23). Only I wish it to be received as a general rule, that the secret things of God are not to be scrutinized, and that those which he has revealed are not to be overlooked, lest we may, on the one hand, be chargeable with curiosity, and, on the other, with ingratitude. For it has been shrewdly observed by Augustine (de Genesi ad Literam, Lib. 5), that we can safely follow Scripture, which walks softly, as with a mother's step, in accommodation to our weakness. Those, however, who are so cautious and timid, that they would bury all mention of predestination in order that it may not trouble weak minds, with what color, pray, will they cloak their arrogance, when they indirectly charge God with a want of due consideration, in not having foreseen a danger for which they imagine that they prudently provide? Whoever, therefore, throws obloquy on the doctrine of predestination, openly brings a charge against God, as having inconsiderately allowed something to escape from him which is injurious to the Church.

5. The predestination by which God adopts some to the hope of life, and adjudges others to eternal death, no man who would be thought pious ventures simply to deny; but it is greatly caviled at, especially by those who make prescience its cause. We, indeed, ascribe both prescience and predestination to God; but we say, that it is absurd to make the latter subordinate to the former (see chap. 22 sec. 1). When we attribute prescience to God, we mean that all things always were, and ever continue, under his eye; that to his knowledge there is no past or future, but all things are present, and indeed so present, that it is not merely the idea of them that is before him (as those objects are which we retain in our memory), but that he truly sees and contemplates them as actually under his immediate inspection. This prescience extends to the whole circuit of the world, and to all creatures. By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death. This God has testified, not only in the case of single individuals; he has also given a specimen of it in the whole posterity of Abraham, to make it plain that the future condition of each nation lives entirely at his disposal: "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance," (Deut. 32:8, 9). The separation is before the eyes of all; in the person of Abraham, as in a withered stock, one people is specially chosen, while the others are rejected; but the cause does not appear, except that Moses, to deprive posterity of any handle for glorying, tells them that their superiority was owing entirely to the free love of God. The cause which he assigns for their deliverance is, "Because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them," (Deut. 4:37); or more explicitly in another chapter, "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people: for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you," (Deut. 7:7, 8). He repeatedly makes the same intimations, "Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them," (Deut. 10:14, 15). Again, in another passage, holiness is enjoined upon them, because they have been chosen to be a peculiar people; while in another, love is declared to be the cause of their protection (Deut. 23:5). This, too, believers with one voice proclaim, "He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob, whom he loved," (Ps. 47:4). The endowments with which God had adorned them, they all ascribe to gratuitous love, not only because they knew that they had not obtained them by any merit, but that not even was the holy patriarch endued with a virtue that could procure such distinguished honor for himself and his posterity. And the more completely to crush all pride, he upbraids them with having merited nothing of the kind, seeing they were a rebellious and stiff-necked people (Deut. 9:6). Often, also, do the prophets remind the Jews of this election by way of disparagement and opprobrium, because they had shamefully revolted from it. Be this as it may, let those who would ascribe the election of God to human worth or merit come forward. When they see that one nation is preferred to all others, when they hear that it was no feeling of respect that induced God to show more favor to a small and ignoble body, nay, even to the wicked and rebellious, will they plead against him for having chosen to give such a manifestation of mercy? But neither will their obstreperous words hinder his work, nor will their invectives, like stones thrown against heaven, strike or hurt his righteousness; nay, rather they will fall back on their own heads. To this principle of a free covenant, moreover, the Israelites are recalled whenever thanks are to be returned to God, or their hopes of the future to be animated. "The Lord he is God," says the Psalmist; "it is he that has made us, and not we ourselves: we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture," (Ps. 100:3; 95:7). The negation which is added, "not we ourselves," is not superfluous, to teach us that God is not only the author of all the good qualities in which men excel, but that they originate in himself, there being nothing in them worthy of so much honor. In the following words also they are enjoined to rest satisfied with the mere good pleasure of God: "O ye seed of Abraham, his servant; ye children of Jacob, his chosen," (Ps. 105:6). And after an enumeration of the continual mercies of God as fruits of election, the conclusion is, that he acted thus kindly because he remembered his covenant. With this doctrine accords the song of the whole Church, "They got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them; but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favor unto them," (Ps. 44:3). It is to be observed, that when the land is mentioned, it is a visible symbol of the secret election in which adoption is comprehended. To like gratitude David elsewhere exhorts the people, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance," (Ps. 33:12). Samuel thus animates their hopes, "The Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake: because it has pleased the Lord to make you his people," (1 Sam. 12:22). And when David's faith is assailed, how does he arm himself for the battle? "Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causes to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts," (Ps. 65:4). But as the hidden election of God was confirmed both by a first and second election, and by other intermediate mercies, Isaiah thus applies the terms "The Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel," (Isa. 14:1). Referring to a future period, the gathering together of the dispersion, who seemed to have been abandoned, he says, that it will be a sign of a firm and stable election, notwithstanding of the apparent abandonment. When it is elsewhere said, "I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away," (Isa. 41:9), the continual course of his great liberality is ascribed to paternal kindness. This is stated more explicitly in Zechariah by the angel, the Lord "shall choose Jerusalem again," as if the severity of his chastisements had amounted to reprobation, or the captivity had been an interruption of election, which, however, remains inviolable, though the signs of it do not always appear.

6. We must add a second step of a more limited nature, or one in which the grace of God was displayed in a more special form, when of the same family of Abraham God rejected some, and by keeping others within his Church showed that he retained them among his sons. At first Ishmael had obtained the same rank with his brother Isaac, because the spiritual covenant was equally sealed in him by the symbol of circumcision. He is first cut off, then Esau, at last an innumerable multitude, almost the whole of Israel. In Isaac was the seed called. The same calling held good in the case of Jacob. God gave a similar example in the rejection of Saul. This is also celebrated in the psalm, "Moreover he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah," (Ps. 78:67, 68). This the sacred history sometimes repeats that the secret grace of God may be more admirably displayed in that change. I admit that it was by their own fault Ishmael, Esau, and others, fell from their adoption; for the condition annexed was, that they should faithfully keep the covenant of God, whereas they perfidiously violated it. The singular kindness of God consisted in this, that he had been pleased to prefer them to other nations; as it is said in the psalm, "He has not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them," (Ps. 147:20). But I had good reason for saying that two steps are here to be observed; for in the election of the whole nation, God had already shown that in the exercise of his mere liberality he was under no law but was free, so that he was by no means to be restricted to an equal division of grace, its very inequality proving it to be gratuitous. Accordingly, Malachi enlarges on the ingratitude of Israel, in that being not only selected from the whole human race, but set peculiarly apart from a sacred household; they perfidiously and impiously spurn God their beneficent parent. "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau," (Mal. 1:2, 3). For God takes it for granted, that as both were the sons of a holy father, and successors of the covenant, in short, branches from a sacred root, the sons of Jacob were under no ordinary obligation for having been admitted to that dignity; but when by the rejection of Esau the first born, their progenitor though inferior in birth was made heir, he charges them with double ingratitude, in not being restrained by a double tie.

7. Although it is now sufficiently plain that God by his secret counsel chooses whom he will while he rejects others, his gratuitous election has only been partially explained until we come to the case of single individuals, to whom God not only offers salvation, but so assigns it, that the certainty of the result remains not dubious or suspended. [495] These are considered as belonging to that one seed of which Paul makes mention (Rom. 9:8; Gal. 3:16, &c). For although adoption was deposited in the hand of Abraham, yet as many of his posterity were cut off as rotten members, in order that election may stand and be effectual, it is necessary to ascend to the head in whom the heavenly Father has connected his elect with each other, and bound them to himself by an indissoluble tie. Thus in the adoption of the family of Abraham, God gave them a liberal display of favor which he has denied to others; but in the members of Christ there is a far more excellent display of grace, because those ingrafted into him as their head never fail to obtain salvation. Hence Paul skillfully argues from the passage of Malachi which I quoted (Rom. 9:13; Mal. 1:2), that when God, after making a covenant of eternal life, invites any people to himself, a special mode of election is in part understood, so that he does not with promiscuous grace effectually elect all of them. The words, "Jacob have I loved," refer to the whole progeny of the patriarch, which the prophet there opposes to the posterity of Esau. But there is nothing in this repugnant to the fact, that in the person of one man is set before us a specimen of election, which cannot fail of accomplishing its object. It is not without cause Paul observes, that these are called a remnant (Rom. 9:27; 11:5); because experience shows that of the general body many fall away and are lost, so that often a small portion only remains. The reason why the general election of the people is not always firmly ratified, readily presents itself--viz. that on those with whom God makes the covenant, he does not immediately bestow the Spirit of regeneration, by whose power they persevere in the covenant even to the end. The external invitation, without the internal efficacy of grace which would have the effect of retaining them, holds a kind of middle place between the rejection of the human race and the election of a small number of believers. The whole people of Israel are called the Lord's inheritance, and yet there were many foreigners among them. Still, because the covenant which God had made to be their Father and Redeemer was not altogether null, he has respect to that free favor rather than to the perfidious defection of many; even by them his truth was not abolished, since by preserving some residue to himself, it appeared that his calling was without repentance. When God ever and anon gathered his Church from among the sons of Abraham rather than from profane nations, he had respect to his covenant, which, when violated by the great body, he restricted to a few, that it might not entirely fail. In short, that common adoption of the seed of Abraham was a kind of visible image of a greater benefit which God deigned to bestow on some out of many. This is the reason why Paul so carefully distinguishes between the sons of Abraham according to the flesh and the spiritual sons who are called after the example of Isaac. Not that simply to be a son of Abraham was a vain or useless privilege (this could not be said without insult to the covenant), but that the immutable counsel of God, by which he predestinated to himself whomsoever he would, was alone effectual for their salvation. But until the proper view is made clear by the production of passages of Scripture, I advise my readers not to prejudge the question. We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction. We maintain that this counsel, as regards the elect, is founded on his free mercy, without any respect to human worth, while those whom he dooms to destruction are excluded from access to life by a just and blameless, but at the same time incomprehensible judgment. In regard to the elect, we regard calling as the evidence of election, and justification as another symbol of its manifestation, until it is fully accomplished by the attainment of glory. But as the Lord seals his elect by calling and justification, so by excluding the reprobate either from the knowledge of his name or the sanctification of his Spirit, he by these marks in a manner discloses the judgment which awaits them. I will here omit many of the fictions which foolish men have devised to overthrow predestination. There is no need of refuting objections which the moment they are produced abundantly betray their hollowness. I will dwell only on those points which either form the subject of dispute among the learned, or may occasion any difficulty to the simple, or may be employed by impiety as specious pretexts for assailing the justice of God.

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[494] Thus Eck boasts that he had written of predestination to exercise his youthful spirits.

[495] On predestination, see the pious and very learned obsesrvations of Luther, tom. 1 p. 86, fin., and p. 87, fin. Tom. 3 ad Psal. 22:8. Tom. 5 in Joann. 117. Also his Prefatio in Epist. ad Rom. and Adv. Erasmum de Servo Arbitrio, p. 429, sqq. 452, 463. Also in Psal. 139.

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