Lane gave me a helpful nudge the other day. What with end of school year frenzy, and a trip back east, I lost track of where we were. I will try to get us caught up here — but that will mean that my responses will be kind of a ragbag and briefer than they usually are, and hence they will not rise to their usual levels of compellingness.
1. Lane says, “In other words, in the Pauline sense of the word ‘justification,’ works and obedience play no part.” This is part of his discussion of my distinction between a Pauline understanding of obedience and a Pauline understanding of works. Probably the best way to illustrate this distinction, and one I should have pointed to before, is the fact that “working to earn the gospel” would be an incoherent concept for Paul, a soteriological square circle. But Paul does not mind speaking of obedience to the gospel, and does so naturally.
2. I think Lane and I worked to an agreement on the issues of Calvinism, pactum merit, and so forth. If Lane and I were the only two Reformed ministers in town, and there were no larger controversy raging, the differences between us on this one would be negligible. Nevertheless, Lane asks if by autonomous obedience I mean rebellious obedience, and the answer is yes. In reply to the point that this is a contradiction, I agree — and point out that contradictions in the presence of God is something that sinners love to attempt. I agree with Augustine’s posse peccare et non peccare, so long as we are looking at it from Garden-level, at the level of the creature. At the level of the decrees, the Fall was going to happen because God freely and unalterably ordains whatsoever comes to pass. This means, at that level, it was not possible for Adam to not sin.
Lane says, “What I am uncomfortable saying is that Adam would have had to thank God for the obedience itself on the level of secondary causation.” But nobody is asking anyone to thank God for displacing the creature. That is not the point. The point is that in our discussions of this we are to move, the way the Bible does, between the secondary causes of secondary agents and the ultimate cause of everything — for in Him we live and move and have our being. In short, the only thing I care about with regard to the covenant of creation in the Garden is that we not exclude the decrees of God undergirding everything — not even to make a system of theology go.
3. Lane brings up the question of whether a covenant is an “agreement” or a “relationship.” TRs tend to emphasize the former, and FVers the latter. I actually think that this is a false dilemma. One of the things that people in relationships do is generate agreements. By synecdoche, I am certainly comfortable speaking of a covenant as agreement.
4. Lane also mentions the discomfort he believes that FV types with regard to systematic theology. Not only have I repeatedly defended the necessity of systematic theology, I have also repeatedly pointed out the failures of certain vocal TR advocates to understand and follow their own systematic tradition. What are the “good and necessary consequences” of a phrase like “exhibits and confers”?
5. No, not all amills are historical pessimists. And neither are all premills (think Spurgeon). But the issue is optimism or pessimism about the course of history — not the post-resurrection state. All Christians are ultimately optimists. But very few are optimists about the course of the gospel in history. Prior to the return of Christ, will the world be Christian or not? The optimist answers yes, the pessimist no.
6. Lane does not really have a problem with our call for public Christianity. At the same time, he is nervous that we do not emphasize private piety enough, wondering if this is just an imbalance of presentation, or if we think public piety is all God wants. “What is a bit disconcerting about this is that I haven’t exactly seen FV guys pushing for private piety in other contexts. It seems to me to be underplayed at best, ignored at worst.” I can only defend myself here by defending myself, which I will now proceed to do. One of the central strands of our ministry here in Moscow has been a jumping up and down emphasis on the disciplines of personal piety — confession of sin, freedom from bitterness, godly life in the home, and so on. I feel like Paul did when the Jerusalem elders asked him to continue to remember the poor, which was the whole reason he was there in the first place, for Pete’s sake.
7. The reason we said that the nations were to submit to the yoke of Christ through baptism is because we were quoting Scripture, and that’s what Scripture said. We were echoing the words of the Great Commission. We did not speak of an invisible faith there because Jesus did not speak of it when He gave His Church our marching orders. The Bible does speak of invisible faith elsewhere, and we affirm it gladly, in a rowdy and robust manner. But Jesus told us to disciple the nations — comma, series of participles explaining how this was to be done — baptizing and teaching obedience. Objections to the language need to be taken up in another quarter. I used to object to the language about remission of sins in the Nicene Creed until I realized that the fathers were quoting the book of Acts. Oops.
8. And last, I agree that the Church is required to teach more than the world is willing to learn, and I would go on to say that we should maintain that willingness until the world has dropped her objections, and is willing to learn.