therightkairos

Time and time again I am reminded of a Jesus that can physically touch us, even after thousands of years. Christ has a body. He has a human body, which is alive and glorified. And although he is ascended, this body breathes, moves, and speaks according to the will of the Father. It is a stunning and powerful picture of the way in which God has decided to communicate to us in grace; and a reminder of what took place here on earth. After meditating on heavy handed verses I am awestruck by the magnitude that confronts our earthly world; those verses include Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” and Hebrews 1:3, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (English Standard Version).

During these times I’m filled with a sense of my worldliness, recognizing a vast disconnect that exists between eternal perfection and a frail, finite and corrupted vessel. This past Sunday, however, I was reminded of a God who wants to touch my ears and spit on my tongue just to prove a point. Christ became a man in order to touch me, in order to talk to me, in order to die for me. Jesus Christ, the man, overcomes the estrangement that sin causes us to feel, and brings us close. Some may think that when Jesus puts his finger in someone’s ear, and puts spit on someone’s tongue, it may be a little too close. The point here, however, is that Jesus wants us to feel this awkwardness, in order for us to know that no estrangement is too strange.

There is no fleshly weakness that is too repulsive, no sin so disgusting for Jesus to turn away and leave us with our sinful earwax, and rebelliously bad breath.  So I meditated on Mark 7:33, and was humbled by a God that can and will do anything to bring me close, even if it’s a little too close: “And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue” (ESV).

I have debated with myself whether or not to write a piece explaining why I am a Calvinist. The Calvinist side of me eventually defeated Hobbes.  So, here it is. Of course, before proceeding, I must explain what I mean when I say I’m a Calvinist. For the most part, I don’t talk to an anthropomorphic stuffed tiger about the philosophical plight of the universe, or wax lyrical about the travesties of parental oversight. For the most part. Beyond the caricature of comic strips, a good definition is in order. When I say I’m a Calvinist, I mean to say that my theological convictions are similar to that of the 16th century protestant reformer, John Calvin. Similar, not exact.

Theologians like definitions, they give them a sense of direction much like a compass and a map does when navigating the wilderness.  And theology is a wilderness, a vast and open domain that can be treacherous and difficult to traverse without understanding your instrumentation.  That being said, when one studies God he likes to know what someone else means when he says: I’m a Calvinist. It helps one to know where you are, and where you are going. This, however, is as far as it goes. I do not follow Calvin as if he was Christ, as Paul warned the Corinthians not to follow him as if he were their Lord.[1]

I knew little of theology before encountering my brother’s struggles with a strange doctrine called Calvinism in early 2006.  I was content with Scripture, and it was all that I needed to help me understand the God of the Bible.  What I did not understand was that my personal construal of Sola Scriptura was more akin to that of cults who claim only Scripture to support their beliefs.  It is here that I wish to explain what led me to believe in the systematic theology known as Calvinism.  A system of theology has many parts; and for the sake of brevity I will describe three that affected me the most: hermeneutics, historical-redemptive considerations and the biblical data.

When a person hears the word Calvinism they may automatically think it synonymous with presdestinarianism.  Or some perhaps understand it as fatalism, much like the Calvin and Hobbes motif.  For instance, when Calvin happily constructed tiny snowmen in his front yard, and then with a diabolical look on his face turns into a T-Rex, and chaos ensues.  This aspect of theology is hotly debated, and I would reduce this piece to a regurgitation of past arguments that do not accurately describe why I believe Calvinism to be the most faithful description of the biblical narrative.  Therefore, I start with the hermeneutical principle that Scripture interprets Scripture.  What I mean by this is that the New Testament writers are the authoritative interpreters of the Old Testament scriptures.

For example, I do not believe the Mosaic Law, given to the Israelites at Mount Sinai to be timeless principles upon which our acceptance with God is established.[2]  The Old Testament does not stand alone; it must be interpreted in light of the person and work of Jesus Christ.  The apostle Paul interprets the moral law, i.e. the covenant stipulations given at Mount Sinai via Christ in Galatians 3:23-29, and 4:21-31.  This is where the historical-redemptive considerations come into play.  In the ancient Near East, covenants were made to establish relationships between a greater party commonly known as a suzerain or great king, and a lesser party known as a vassal or subject.

God is a covenant making God, and there are two types of covenants in the biblical narrative, a covenant of promise and a covenant of law.  Calvin’s imagination of Hobbes’ personality is typological, it helps the reader understand Calvin’s fantastic world.  So, when Paul writes that the Law was our guardian in Gal. 3:24 or that the Law was like Hagar, similar to Mount Sinai in Gal. 4:24, we see that the Law only helps us to understand our situation.  And the situation is bleak.[3]  Fortunately we are justified before God by faith alone in God’s promise alone.  So, what is the covenant of promise, and how does that relate to Calvinism?

The story of Abraham in Genesis 15 defines this covenant of promise.  It was ceremonial, also known in the ancient Near East as a royal grant in which the greater Party gives the lesser an unconditional vow of loyalty.  The greater Party, the Suzerain, the great King makes a solemn oath; literally in the Hebrew language it means to cut an oath.  Abraham falls into a deep sleep in vs.12, and then sees the Lord pass through pieces of animals Abraham had sacrificed by instruction on both sides, alone.  This is shocking because this ritual was traditionally meant for two parties.  The lesser would follow the greater through the pieces and both would affirm that if either broke this covenant of peace then they would end up like these animals, strewn in two.

So how does the New Testament interpret this promise?  Previously in Genesis 15, God had promised Abraham that his offspring would be like the stars in the heavens, and Abraham believed Him.  God counted or imputed to Abraham righteousness that before this moment was not his, and at which time he was ungodly.[4]  A sovereign God bestowed a gracious gift, through Jesus Christ the one and only covenant keeper who passes through the pieces.  This is biblical continuity, the New Testament interpreting for us what the Old reveals.  The biblical data makes it clear that only the person, and work of the God-man, Jesus Christ can keep a covenant perfectly.  It is this fundamental truth that makes me a Calvinist: I can never receive anything but the grace of God in my relationship to him through faith in Jesus Christ.

So, when I read Calvin and Hobbes, I remember that I’m not at the mercy of a child’s imagination.  I am in a loving and unbreakable covenant with a merciful God who does for me what I could never do for myself.

Why is Christ so fundamental to our redemption? Why is His humanity so necessarily linked to our own? The story of redemption as outlined in the Scriptures tells us that a man must be the one to stand before God perfect in obedience. In the creation event God put the first man on probation, by a covenant of works that would establish him as the permanent viceroy of his divine Kingship.[1] After working to establish God’s kingdom in creation the first man would enter into the divine rest, or Sabbath.  It would be state of everlasting righteousness and peace.

As viceroy, the first man would rule in the place of God as his representative and cultivate the planet.  But, before Adam was to enter into the Sabbath rest, he would plunge his posterity into a state of despair.[2]  Instead of working in peace, he would work in toil by the sweat of his brow.  In this work he would not receive his reward but would return to the dust from which he came, not fulfilling life but death.[3]  Not only would Adam die instead of live from the Tree of Life, it would remain impossible for him after having sinned to fulfill the covenant of works.  Also, Adam’s children were left with the impossibility of covenant fulfillment in a cursed world, and a body dependent not on the Tree of Life, but their own works.

Instead of standing in the place of God as his representative in the earth, Adam let sin stand in the place of this covenant relationship.  The world was now subjected to punishment, and still groans in agony for a man to redeem it.[4] Sin is a vice; it stands in the place of what God would have for humanity.  But God, in his foreknowledge, would not let this covenant of works go unfulfilled, and gave to the first man the promise of the Second.[5]  This man would fulfill the covenant of works necessary to bring about the everlasting peace with God.[6]  This man, the Christ, would also have children that would receive the reward based upon his obedience and not their own, just as the children of Adam would have if he remained perfect.

The promise of Christ is the promise of a man that brings life and not death.  In this we can finally rest.