Resurrection - Search - The Staunch Calvinist

...o to when speaking of the Passion of the Christ in the Old Testament. There we are told that the Messiah “was despised and rejected by men” (v. 3), “he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (v. 4), “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” Read this to any unbelieving friend and ask: Of whom does this speak? Anyone with any idea of Jesus will answer that it is speaking of Jesus! Yet it was written some 700 years before His virgin birth! In the Gospels, we read of our Lord speaking about His certain crucifixion and Resurrection. There are no “ifs”, but what is written must come to pass.

Luke 18:31-33 And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. 32 For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. 33 And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”

In no uncertain terms, the Lord foretells His certain death, saying also that it will be the fulfillment of what the prophets wrote, we’ve already taken a look at a couple of examples. From Luke 22:22 and Matthew 26:24 we learn that prophecy is not just “God looking down the corridors of time,” but it’s God actually determining.

Luke 22:22 For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!”

Matt. 26:24 The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”

In this parallel account, we see that “as it is written” means “determined,” referring to the prophecies about the Messiah of Israel. What was written was not wishful thinking or God looking down into history and seeing what (libertarian) free willers will do, but it was God “determining.” In Acts 4:26-28, we get a more straightforward and “at your face” proclamation of God’s sovereignty over the cross. The Holy Spirit says:

Acts 4:26-28 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’—27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

Verse 26 echoes the words of Psalm 2 (as does Acts 4:25). The cross happened as the fulfillment of what was spoken of the great Messiah in Psalm 2. Verse 27 tells us that 1) Herod, 2) Pilate, 3) the Roman soldiers and 4) the Jews, gathered to crucify Christ. One thinks of all the thoughts and motivations running through these people’s minds. Herod wanted to see a miracle from Jesus and didn’t care much about Him (Luke 23:8). Pilate clearly saw that Jesus was blameless (Luke 23:4), but preferred to please the crowd (Luke 23:24-25) rather than serve justice. The Romans did what the Romans did, they crucified and mocked the Lord of glory. The people of Israel wanted Him crucified because of:

The claims that He made. (John 7:48-49)
The deeds that He did. (Matt. 12:23-24)
His threat to their religious system. (John 2:13-17)
His threat to their way of life.
The people with whom He socialized. (Luke 7:39; Matt. 1:9)
The lac...

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5:18, 19 Paul returns to the main thrust of his analogy, namely that there is a parallel between Adam and Christ in that condemnation and justification are the direct fruits of their actions. On the basis of the actions of “one,” “many” are constituted either sinners or righteous. Adam is the representative head as well as the physical root of all, and all sinned and fell when he sinned. In contrast, “by the one man’s obedience” those whom Christ represents are “made righteous” in Him. Christ is their representative Head, as well as the spiritual root of the new humanity, for through His Resurrection they are given new birth and a living hope (1 Pet. 1:3; Eph 2:1-7)

John Gill in his Exposition of the Entire Bible[4]:

Therefore as by the offence of one,.... Or by one offence, as before, the guilt of which is imputed to, and

[judgment came] upon all men to condemnation; which word is used in a legal sense, and intends condemnation to eternal death, as appears from the antithesis in the text; for if "justification of life", means an adjudging to eternal life, as it certainly does, the judgment or guilt, which is unto condemnation, must design a condemnation to eternal death, the just wages of sin: and this sentence of condemnation comes upon all men, all the sons of Adam without exception, even upon the elect of God themselves; though it is not executed upon them, but on their surety, whereby they are delivered from it:

even so by the righteousness of one, [the free gift] came upon all men to justification of life; the righteousness of Christ being freely imputed without works, as it is to all the men that belong to the second Adam, to all his seed and offspring, is their justification of life, or what adjudges and entitles them to eternal life. The sentence of justification was conceived in the mind of God from eternity, when his elect were ordained unto eternal life, on the foot of his Son's righteousness; this passed on Christ at his Resurrection from the dead, and on all his people as considered in him, when they, in consequence of it, were quickened together with him; and this passes upon the conscience of a sinner at believing, when he may, as he should, reckon himself alive unto God, and is what gives him a right and title to everlasting life and glory.

What Charles H Spurgeon had to say about Romans 5:17-18[5]:

All who are in Christ are justified by Christ, just as all who were in Adam were lost and condemned in Adam. The “alls” are not equal in extent —equal as far as the person goes in whom the “alls” were found. And this is our hope — that we, being in Christ are justified because of his righteousness.

This content is taken from this document

[1] ESV Study Bible, 2008 (Crossway). Taken from the Online Version at www.esvbible.org

[2] John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible 2010, Crossway. Taken from the online version at www.esvbible.org

[3] R.C. Sproul, The Reformation Study Bible ESV 2005, Ligonier Ministries. Taken from the free online version at BibleGateway

[4] John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible on Romans 5:18-19. Taken from the Bible software The Word. See “Resources.”

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1689 Baptist Confession Chapter 2: Of God and of the Holy Trinity - Commentary

Simon Wartanian | 23,932 views | 28,880 words | 2:33:55 hours | 04 March 2015 20:55

The Second Baptist Confession Of Faith Confession Commentary Chapter 2 God Trinity Attributes Of God Immutability Repentance Of God Love Of God Justice Of God Spirituality Of God Monotheism

...g physical aspects, e.g., hands, eyes, feet, mouth, face, etc., we understand these things as merely baby-talk—God communicating to us in ways which we could understand, and not describing the reality of what He truly is. In the last verse, Paul says that God is immortal. In 1 Timothy 6:16, Paul says that God “alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.” Immortality is the quality of being unable to die. God has this by virtue of His nature, on the other hand, humans have immortality by virtue of God granting them that. See chapter 31 for a little bit more on this. God alone, by virtue of being God, has no possibility of either not existing or ceasing to exist. God, by virtue of His being and nature, must exist and He cannot not exist.

Divine Impassibility is defined by Samuel Renihan as “God does not experience emotional changes either from within or affected by His creation.” Webster defines it as “Incapable of pain, passion or suffering; that cannot be affected with pain or uneasiness. Whatever is destitute of sensation is impassible.”^[22] This is a subject which I still have to read on, but the idea is basically that just like God uses physical and human things to describe Himself, so likewise He uses human emotions and feelings to describe Himself to us. In many ways, we humans, are controlled by our passions and feelings, but God is not like us. His “emotions” or “feelings” are nothing like ours, but since God wants to communicate with us, He uses the vocabulary of feelings and emotions which we are familiar with, just like He does that when speaking of His hand, eyes, mouth, feet, wings, Him being a husband, a father, etc. God is incapable of suffering since He is all-sufficient and all-glorious. This should not be confused, as it is often done, with the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is God and man. Since the Son became man in Jesus Christ, He also shared in “flesh and blood” (Heb. 2:14) and partook of our nature, including our feelings, passions, and emotions, not to mention other things which are excluded from God including hunger, tiredness, sleep, physical form, pain, blood, etc. There are some good resources on impassibility that have recently come from Samuel Renihan which I have not studied.

The Infinity of God

The infinity of God is asserted in the words “who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute”. The attributes of God are to their utter perfection with God. Although we are holy, He is most holy; although we are wise, He is most wise; although we are free, he is most free; although we are finite, He is infinite and so on.

To say that God is immense is to declare that He fills heaven and earth as the Scriptures say (Jer. 23:24). There is not an inch in the Universe that the Lord of heaven and earth does not fill. He is immeasurable and unlimited not only in His being but also in His perfections. Solomon, after building the Temple of the LORD in Jerusalem, admits that even “heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built” (2 Chron. 6:18). His greatness is immeasurable and unlimited. To say that God is immense is also to say that He is Omnipresent. Louis Berkhof defines the immensity of God as “that perfection of the Divine Being by which He transcends all spatial limitations, and yet is present in every point of space with His whole Bei...

1689 Baptist Confession Chapter 6: Of the Fall of Man, Of Sin, And of the Punishment Thereof - Commentary

Simon Wartanian | 18,294 views | 7,955 words | 0:42:14 hours | 04 March 2015 21:18

The 1689 Second Baptist Confession Of Faith Confession Commentary Reformed Baptist Chapter 6 Fall Of Man Sin Condemnation Total Depravity Total Inability Original Sin Federal Headship

...ng of God’s decision. He is righteous in all His ways and is never “unfair” (Deut. 32:4; Gen. 18:25; Job 34:10). None of us would have done otherwise if we were in their shoes, being tempted by the deceiver. Because of Adam and Eve’s transgression of God’s Law, the guilt of sin is imputed (attributed) to all their posterity and also the punishment, hence even children die (that’s the punishment of disobedience). This is not to imply that all children go to Hell anymore than to say that the reason that Christians die is that God is punishing them (see chapter 31 for more on this subject and chapter 10 on infant salvation). The corrupted nature was carried over, transmitted, transported and imparted to all his descendants coming by “ordinary generation” (excluding the Lord Jesus Christ, Who was the seed of the woman, not man and conceived by the Holy Spirit).

This doctrine of Original Sin or the Federal Headship of Adam is best seen in Romans 5:12-21. Let’s take a look at Romans 5:12:

Rom. 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Here we see the entrance of sin into the world through Adam and by the breaking of God’s law, came the punishment upon sin–death (Gen. 2:16-17). Because of that disobedience and having Adam as the representative, all sinned. This is not referring to people actually committing sin, but this refers to all who were in Adam or had Adam as their covenant head. In the mind of God, when he sinned, they sinned. This is confirmed by the fact that people die not (necessarily, or always) because of their personal sin, but because of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:15). Death was the penalty for Adam’s transgression and thus it is imputed and transferred to all his descendants. This is seen in the tragic death of many infants who have not yet sinned themselves, but are born sinful in Adam and receive his punishment–death. The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), why would “sinless” babies die? Some may want to say that death is just natural in the world, no, it’s not. From a secular point of view, it obviously is, but not from a biblical view. Death came through man. It was not there when God created a “very good” creation (Rom. 5:12, 15, 17; Gen. 1:31). The verse is best understood to refer to the fact that when Adam sinned, we sinned in him. Wayne Grudem notes the following:

The aorist indicative verb hēmarton in the historical narrative indicates a completed past action. Here Paul is saying that something happened and was completed in the past, namely, that “all men sinned.” But it was not true that all men had actually committed sinful actions at the time that Paul was writing, because some had not even been born yet, and many others had died in infancy before committing any conscious acts of sin. So Paul must be meaning that when Adam sinned, God considered it true that all men sinned in Adam.^[2]

John MacArthur says the following on Romans 5:12 –

5:12 just as sin came. Not a particular sin, but the inherent propensity to sin entered the human realm; men became sinners by nature. Adam passed to all his descendants the inherent sinful nature he possessed because of his first disobedience. That nature is present from the moment of conception (Ps. 51:5), making it impossible for man to live in a way that pleases God. Satan, the father of sin (1 John 3:8), first brought temptation to Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:1-7). through on...

1689 Baptist Confession Chapter 12: Of Adoption - Commentary

Simon Wartanian | 10,833 views | 2,439 words | 0:12:42 hours | 04 March 2015 21:56

The 1689 Second Baptist Confession Of Faith Confession Commentary Reformed Baptist Chapter 12 Chapter Twelve Adoption Children Of God

...on, rather His intention is that we become more holy (Heb. 12:10). See also chapter 17 on The Perseverance of the Saints where we will, Lord willing, make a case for that doctrine and also a Scripture List supporting the Perseverance of the Saints.

The Future Aspect of Adoption

While all that we listed above about our adoption concerns the present (1 John 3:2), yet there is still a future and final aspect of our adoption, namely the Resurrection of our bodies. In Romans 8:23, Paul connects our adoption to the redemption of our bodies. Our redemption and adoption with all its privileges and graces will be final and complete on the last day when the Lord raises us up unto glory, to have a body like His (1 John 3:2; Phil. 3:21). Our adoption will be known to everyone on the last day and we will receive our glorified body when our redemption is final and complete.

Conclusion

Dr. Waldron defines adoption as—

Adoption is a change in legal status from that of slave to that of son of God which takes place by faith at the moment of union with Christ, but will be publicly revealed at the Resurrection. It is an act of God’s free grace flowing from the electing love of God and Father in eternity and the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit in time, and immediately confers the Spirit of adoption and the privilege of being one of God’s heirs, as well as other privileges, obligations and liabilities.^[2]

Thank You, Father, for Your marvelous and amazing grace toward us, who were children of wrath and now made children of the living God.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

(1 John 3:1)

Footnotes

^ Many Scriptural references have been supplied by Samuel Waldron’s Modern Exposition of 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith which was apparently supplied by the Westminster Confession of Faith 1646.
^ Sam E. Waldron. A Modern Exposition Of The 1689 Baptist Confession Of Faith. (Darlington: Evangelical Press, 2013). p. 208, footnote references removed.

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1689 Baptist Confession Chapter 26: Of the Church - Commentary

Simon Wartanian | 30,042 views | 38,282 words | 3:19:22 hours | 06 March 2015 23:00

The 1689 Second Baptist Confession Of Faith Confession Commentary Reformed Baptist Chapter 26 Church Church Government Elders Deacons Members Universal Church Local Church Congregationalism Polity

...universal church until they are gathered into Christ. Christ is the head (Col 1:18) and the church is the spouse (Eph. 5:25), the body (Col 1:18) and the fullness (Eph. 1:23) of Christ.

The word “catholic” means universal and hereby, our forefathers are agreeing with the last part of the Apostles’ Creed:

I believe in the Holy Spirit, 9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, 10. the forgiveness of sins, 11. the Resurrection of the body, 12. and the life everlasting. Amen.

Neither the Nicene Creed nor the Confession refers to the Roman Catholic Church in the word “catholic”, but to the universal Christian Church of Jesus Christ. This church is the universal invisible church. This designation refers to true believers, who were chosen before the foundation of the world, are members of the New Covenant and not merely members of a local church. They are true believers and part of the New Covenant in Christ’s blood. This is what the New Covenant consists of and this is what makes up the invisible church, which only God infallibly knows its members. There will be professing believers in our churches, even members or on the staff, who are not true believers and thus not part of the invisible church, but they are part of the visible church. The invisible church becomes visible. The universal church becomes local. John Dagg defines these distinctions as follows:

By the church invisible, they [theologians] mean all true Christians; and by the church visible, all those who profess the true religion. The invisible consists wholly of those who are sons of light; and the visible includes sons of light and sons of darkness in one community.^[3]

The Presbyterian Louis Berkhof defines the distinction in the following way:

the invisible Church is the Church as God sees it, a Church which contains only believers, while the visible Church is the Church as man sees it, consisting of those who profess Jesus Christ with their children and therefore adjudged to be the community of the saints.^[4]

We see in this definition the distinction between paedobaptist covenant theology and 1689 Federalism carried out to the church. As the Covenant of Grace, in paedobaptist conception, includes believers and their children, so also the church. In chapter 7, we’ve questioned this constitution and argued that the Covenant of Grace was made with the elect in Christ. We will rehearse a few points below, no doubt, but for a longer discussion on the basis of these points, see chapter 7.

The New Covenant consists only of believers. This is one of the major points which 1689 Federalism stresses. The New Covenant, which is wholly salvific, is only for the elect. In other words, all the members of this covenant, unlike all previous covenants, are redeemed and elect of God from eternity. All the members of the New Covenant are truly regenerate and Spirit-dwelt believers. This is seen, for example, from Hebrews 8:6-13 where all members of the New Covenant, from the oldest to the youngest know the LORD. Not merely know about Him, but truly know Him. Furthermore, this New Covenant is unlike the Mosaic Covenant which had members who were unbelievers and members who were believers. This New Covenant is one which will not be broken like the Mosaic was and thus, apostasy is impossible in the New Covenant (see chapter 17 and our exposition of texts used to argue for actual apostasy from faith). So basically, the universal or the invisible church consis...

Review of Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology

Simon Wartanian | 17,328 views | 1,938 words | 0:010:06 hours | 19 July 2015 19:18

Wayne Grudem Systematic Theology Book Review Calvinism Baptist Continuationist Premillennialism

...rciful.

We are not “robots,” as many non-Calvinists would accuse Calvinists of making man, we make responsible choices, but these choices are absolutely under the control of God.

See my commentary on chapter 3 (Of God’s Decree) and chapter 5 (Of Divine Providence) on the 1689.

The Person of Christ

The treatment of of the Person of Christ is excellent. His two-fold natures in one Person, His effective and definite atonement, Resurrection and ascension. All these he handles in part 4 with great care and persuasive biblical argumentation.

Before reading his treatment on the Person of Christ, I thought that Christ now was only divine and not man. God graciously used Dr. Grudem to persuaded me otherwise.

In the incarnation the Word took on flesh (Jn 1:1, 14). He did not lay aside His divinity, but added humanity to His divine Person (Phil 2:5-11). He was resurrected with a human body and went into heaven with that glorified body, nothing actually convinces us that the Lord Jesus ceased to be human at the moment of His ascension. In fact the Bible tells us that it is the man Christ Jesus who is our Mediator:

1Tim 2:5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

The Application of Redemption

Part 5 is entitled The Doctrine of The Application of Redemption. Therein Dr. Grudem handles among other things:

Common Grace
Election and Reprobation
The Gospel Call and Effective Calling
Regeneration
Conversion (Faith and Repentance)
Justification (Right Legal Standing Before God)
Adoption (Membership in God’s Family)
Sanctification (Growth in Likeness to Christ)
Death and the Intermediate State
Glorification (Receiving a Resurrection Body)
Union with Christ

These chapters are excellent like the rest and if you didn’t know, Dr Wayne Grudem is a full-fetched Calvinist and in these chapters, what is called “Calvinism” is argued and shown to be the system of the Bible itself. He follows Romans 8:29-30 in laying out these doctrine sin this way:

Rom 8:29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

The Doctrine of the Church

Part 6 of this treatment deals with Ecclesiology. I’ve learned a ton in this part, because it wasn’t something that I’ve read about before.

Being a baptist, he argues for a congregational and independent type of church and makes the case for the consistent plurality of elders in NT congregations.

What I also liked was the distinction that he made with with more and less pure churches. He admits that in the present time there will not be a church which is perfect in doctrine, but there will be churches which are more or less pure churches. There are no perfect churches.

Being a Reformed Baptist myself, I loved his treatment of Baptism (chapter 49) and his interaction with Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology on Protestant Infant Baptism. I though that his case for Credobaptism was strong and he was gracious toward our Padeobaptist brethren.

An important doctrine which he got me more thinking about was the Gifts of the Spirit. He being a continuationist and I...kinda undecided, but was practically a cessationist, but couldn’t make up my mind from the Scriptures ...

A Review Of Robert Martin's The Christian Sabbath

Simon Wartanian | 4,318 views | 553 words | 0:02:49 hours | 21 July 2016 16:43

Paul Martin The Christian Sabbath The Lord's Day SundayFourth Commandment Book Review Reformed Baptist

... observing one day out of seven as a Sabbath already established at Creation. He then moves on to consider Hebrews 4:9 wherein we are clearly told that there is still, for the New Covenant people of God, an obligation of Sabbath-keeping.

Until now he had not made a case for the change of the day. His book was about the Christian Sabbath, but what he argued for until now was the seventh-day Sabbath. To be sure, he made passing remarks on the change of the day. But he treats the change of the day in two chapters. The first one is dedicated to "the Apostolic Witness" where he examines the Resurrection and the Resurrection appearances as the prime reason for the change of the day, the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1), the gathering of the church on the first day to break bread and have Paul preached to them (Acts 20:7), the gathering of alms on the first day (1Cor 16:1-2) and finally, the Lord's Day (Rev 1:10). In my opinion, he makes a good case for the change of the day from these passages and also from his treatment of the abiding Sabbath from Hebrews 4:9.

Then he moves to the post-apostolic testimony to the Lord's Day. He notes that often the word Sabbath was retrained for the Jewish Sabbath and was not frequently used for Sunday. Rather, from the earliest times, the expression "the Lord's Day" was used for the first day of the week on which Christ rose.

Finally, he moves on in the last part (3) to teach us how we should observe the Sabbath. He is careful in his suggestions and what He may say and deduce from God's Word. His desire is not to bind consciences where God has not bound them, but carefully give guidelines and suggestions.

Overall, I very much enjoyed reading this book and I used it a lot in my own study for the 1689 Baptist Confession's chapter 22 on the Sabbath (sections 7-8). It is detailed, it is biblical and it is written in a loving and respectful tone. What more can we expect? Get it and read it already!

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