Think Wink.

Recently I gave some links to Dr. David Allen of SWBTS and his arguments for the authorship of Hebrews being the traditional Luke who wrote Luke-Acts. This Luke was a diaspora Jew writing to the former High Priest Theophilus in Luke-Acts and a group of priests considering returning to Judaism after they had converted to Christianity. I had watched the lecture entitled Jesus, Scripture, and Sermon as Word of God and found his arguments to be very intriguing. There are two more lectures, Was the Author of Hebrews a Charismatic? and Was the Author of Hebrews a Calvinist?, all of which can be found here at the SWBTS website. I might respond to one particular lecture–I’m sure readers here can guess to which one–if the arguments get really bad. Either way this should be fun!

H/T: Polumeros kai Polutropos: David Allen’s Lectures on Hebrews

Eschatology and Antichrist

Justification

Total Depravity is Totally Biblical

Denny Burk, dean of Boyce College (the undergraduate school at SBTS), poses an interesting question and scenario for the free will debate based upon some reflection from Exodus 3 and prophecy. Read this post and see what you think and how you answer the question he poses.

Test Case for Libertarian Free Will

I cannot tell a lie?

Augustine

Intelligent Design

Here is a 25 minute video from James White responding to Christopher Hitchens’ argument that badly misrepresents Christianity as it is presented in the Bible. He then launches into a defense of the existence of the Christian God (I think apologetics should not try to prove “a god” and then move to “one god” and then to the Christian God, but rather just go to the last step and only try to argue for the existence of the Christian God) from Romans 1. I really enjoyed it and hope you do too!

“Christopher Hitchens” on the Divinding Line

James White on Steve Gregg

James White on John 3:16-17

Doug Wilson hasn’t stopped his review of Wright’s justification book written in response to Piper. Wilson is quite entertaining when he points out things like if Wright is wrong in his outflanking maneuver, he’s like the Confederate Cavalry commander Gen. Jeb Stuart who “outflanked” the Union army at Gettysburg. He rode around behind an army that annihilated his own army. Good job Jeb! Comparisons like that are amusing, even if a person finds Wilson’s review off.

Michael Bird at Euangelion has interacted a bit with Wilson’s review and I really like what Bird has said. While Bird agrees with Wilson’s call to abandon the idea of Jesus having merit (agreeing with Wright no less!) for covenantal obedience, I concur with Bird who says,

What is missing in this discussion by Wilson is reference to “union with Christ” as the mechanism that communications righteousness since we are only justified in Christ. There is no imputation without participation and incorporation into Christ.

I found this quote from Bird to be very enlightening and I am going to give it more thought,

The question is where does imputation fit into the story? Whereas some want to make justification the centre and imputation the centre of justification; I would make imputation a corollary explains the forensic nature of justification, the representative functions of Adam and Christ, the gift of righteousness, etc.

I really like the following two paragraphs from one of Wilson’s reviews and I’ll conclude with them. If they can be reworded into the NT’s “union with Christ” paradigm, I’d like it even more.

On the question of imputation, I don’t think this is an example of me talking past Wright. I think it is an instance of Wright talking past Wright. He clearly believes in penal substitution, but rejects what he calls imputation of righteousness. But unlike a financial fine or debt, the only way to take on the guilt of another is through imputation . . . either that, or another process that is virtually identical to imputation called by another name. It is clear that Wright believes in the imputation of the passive obedience of Christ, to use our vocabulary. Christ paid the penalty for my rebellion, and I am invited to act as though I had paid that penalty . . . which I have done, in Him. I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live (Gal. 2:20).

Wright even believes in the imputation of the active obedience of Christ . . . although he says that he is rejecting it. God’s plan was to put the world to rights through Israel (p. 46). The way He was going to do this was through Israel finally doing it right. Now Israel finally did it right through the perfect, sinless life of Jesus. Jesus in His baptism was Israel. Jesus in His forty days in the wilderness was Israel. Jesus in His conquest of the land, driving out demons, was Israel. Now, how do I get to be in that Israel? How do I get to glory in what He did? Why does the credit of Israel finally “doing it right” accrue to me? The answer to that question is found in the glorious word imputation.

Which leads to my last point. Although he doesn’t say so explicitly here, I believe that Wright is actually kicking against a particular form of the imputation calculus — the idea that somewhere there is a reservoir of merit, and that withdrawals are made from it from time to time in order that we may pay our debts. But let’s forget about merit. Suppose for a moment that we are not talking about the imputation of merit, but rather the imputation of obedience. The former is medieval; the latter is Hebraic and covenantal. Not only do I believe it is fully consistent with what Wright is saying, I believe that it is what he (in essence) is saying.

Click here and here for Bird’s two posts on Wilson’s review and here for the quote from Wilson. Bird has provided links to Wilson’s reviews so you can read more if you are interested.

Reviews of N. T. Wright’s New Book

Thoughts on the Endings of Kings and Chronicles

Justification

This video highlights why I don’t watch the NBA any more. It’s just sad if you ask me.

Don’t Waste Your Pulpit

John Piper on Justification and “Don’t Waste Your Life”

The Craziest Play

Douglas Wilson reviews Wright’s new book, Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision. I really enjoyed this review and it reminds me of that old saying, “There’s nothing new under the sun” (or is it “Son”?). Wilson sees a lot of what Wright argues in other authors such as B.B. Warfield, Jonathan Edwards and others ranging from the year 1550 to 1900. Denny Burk notes in his review of the preface and the first chapter, that the book does not start out with the irenic tone that it is touted to have. Both men agree that Wright needs to read more of his American opposition, Lord knows what Wright is saying is very conservative in his own backyard of Anglicanism and academia, because he would have less objections to what they are saying if he would.

For those of you who don’t know, this latest work by Wright is his book-length response to John Piper’s work The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright where Piper seeks to defend the more traditional view of justification against the views found in the various streams of the New Perspective(s) on Paul (aka NPP), with a twist that comes from Piper’s Edwardsian worldview. Before reading Wright’s book, you should read Piper’s book. It probably would be better to read the works Wright has put out on Paul prior to The Future of Justification as well as Piper’s work The Justification of God, a work that has basically exegetically set Piper on the path that has put him where he is today and forms the foundation for how he understands certain words like “righteousness.”

I find it very exciting to see such titans of theology debating like this. It kind of reminds me of the Luther-Erasmus debate from the Reformation! I really hope this does a lot to help people nail down just what is justification?

More Thoughts On N. T. Wright’s Justification

Michael Horton’s Review of N.T. Wright

James White on William Lane Craig and Molinism

Marvel.com now has the new trailer to the sequel to the mega-hit Marvel Ultimate Alliance (MUA). Where as MUA had its own original storyline that had its own original storyline that incorporated elements of the regular Marvel universe and the Ultimate universe, MUA2 will use two existing storylines from the comics and they seem to go panel for panel, Secret War and Civil War. I like it a lot. Here’s the trailer.

I don’t think the current Captain America will be in this story for two reasons: a.) he wasn’t Captain America but rather Winter Soldier and b.) his role was major to the Captain America title but I’m not certain he appeared in the main Civil War title. If he is in the game–and I hope so–he better not be that…words allude me…annoying character that was in MUA that did not reflect who the Winter Soldier was in Burbaker’s comic. If you play the game and read the comic, there is a major disconnect that just cannot be repaired. However I think MUA2 will be amazing if they do a good job explaining Hulk and Thor’s presence–Thor was dead and a clone appeared in the book while Hulk had been sent to another planet–and follow Bendis’ (Secret War) and Millar’s (Civil War) titles. The Civil War title in particular was really good despite of the delays in publication. Hopefully the current Captain America costume will be an alternate to Steve Rogers or to Bucky if he appears as the Winter Soldier.

Ultimate Ultimatum Trailer

Iron Man Trailer

New Iron Man Trailer

The other day I was listening to Dr. Sam Waldron defend the doctrine of Limited Atonement or Particular Redemption at the 2007 Building Bridges Conference that the SBC and Founder’s Ministry put together. One thing he said about Limited Atonement is that it makes him sing. He said that our doctrine should make us sing more than anything else. I couldn’t agree more. One doctrine that I think makes me sing more than any other is that of justification and imputation. Read more

Some Things of Note

Justification

Dating OT using BH

I stumbled across the following two posts by Michael F. Bird. The first post is on Covenant Theology and the Adam/Christ paradigm found in passages like Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:20-22. Bird interacts with Covenant Theology and specifically Michael Horton’s presentation of this paradigm. Bird offers three points of critique to Covenant Theology. The first point the idea of the covenant of works that is used to interpret Genesis 1-3–which is later reaffirmed with Abraham and Moses–does not mention covenant at all. The second point is that one has to be careful to not reduce Jesus obedience and faithfulness to just gain merit to impute to sinners. I like how he concludes his critique of Covenant theology in point number three:

3.) In my mind, one can preserve the unity of salvation executed by the triune God and recognize the unitive nature of “covenant” in salvation-history, but do by using the Bible’s own story-line as the guide as opposed to depending on a framework about covenants inferred from the Bible’s story-line.

The second post is on Pauline theology. I’ll just let Bird explain what he means because I really like it.

I am gradually becoming convinced that Paul’s theology must be understood as a mixture of salvation-history and apocalypticism. That is to say, that Paul’s theology presumes a certain telling of history from Creation to Abraham to Israel to Christ and to the Church. Yet at the same time, in the coming of Jesus Christ there is a staccato burst of God’s power that invades human history and this event is singular and discontinuous from all that has gone before. In other words, Paul narrates an invasive story of God’s dealings with the world through Jesus Christ.

You can see this in the text he cites from Galatians 1. I have recently become more and more inclined to read the Bible in terms of salvation-history. The whole Bible makes more sense that way, especially in how the NT writers understand the OT.

Michael Horton’s Review of N.T. Wright

The Law in Galatians 3 from a Redemptive-Historical Perspective

My Comfort in Romans 9