Some Interesting Links . . .

I agree whole-heartedly with Buster Olney's take on the Mitchell Report--a collosal failure to deal with the culture of PED throughout all of baseball.  What a waste of 50 million dollars!  I wish someone was willing to give me 50 million bucks for doing a bunch of google searches and interviewing a mere two witnesses, so that Bud Selig could do the ole CYA.  Click here: ESPN.com - Blogs - Buster Olney Blog; Click here: Mitchell Report Revealed Little Original Work - New York Times

Good on Andy Pettitte--not for using HGH, which was stupid and cheating--but for being the first one to come clean.  Click here: Blogging The Bombers - NY Daily News.  Andy's a stand-up guy and a professing Christian.

I still say this is a huge story for baseball fans--Scott Boras' stranglehold on MLB is probably over.  Hopefully, there will be no more 140 million dollar contracts for players like Barry Zito!  Click here: Blogging The Bombers - NY Daily News

Matthew Morgan has a good piece on N. T. Wright's monkeying around with the doctrine of penal/substitutionary atonement.  Click here: Berit Olam: The Wright View of Penal Substitution?

Richard Gaffin's essay on Theonomy and Postmillennialism is now available on-line. Click here: http://newhope2.timberlakepublishing.com/files/Gaffin%20Theonomy%20and%20Eschatology.pdf

Mark Steyn has a great piece on the mutual interests of the pro-choice movement and militant environmentalists--too many babies are bad for the earth.  Click here: Opinion: Children? Not if you love the planet | child, birth, homeless, year, percent - OCRegister.com

Finally, need some material for your home Bible study or Sunday School class?  How about a study of the "Seven Deadly Sins" based on episodes from Gilligan's Island?  My question is this: "does the episode on lust feature Ginger or Mary Ann?"  When I was a kid, every teenage boy had a crush on one or both of them.  Click here: A Little Leaven: Gilligan's Island and the Seven Deadly Sins "Bible Study" 
 

From the Other White Horse Media . . .

Yes, there is another White Horse Media.  The "other" White Horse Media is the ministry of Steve Wohlberg, who mostly deals with end-times stuff from a historicist/Adventist perspective (Click here: White Horse Media - Proclaiming His Salvation, Truth and Triumphant Return)

So, if you run across the book Will My Pet Go to Heaven? and notice that it comes from White Horse Media, please know that it comes from those other guys . . . 

As for Andy?  Sorry, Andy, its "turn or burn."  You might be my loyal friend, but you are headed for dog hell!  Remember all those times you whizzed on my treadmill? 

New Book from Danny Hyde

The Rev. Danny Hyde, who is the pastor of the Oceanside URC, has a new book on the incarnation coming.

Here are the endorsements:

“Why the God-Man?” Athanasius’s question frames the entire complex of Christian faith, piety, worship, and practice. With devotional warmth and doctrinal clarity, Pastor Hyde makes an excellent tour guide through the treasures that lie at the heart of history--indeed, at the heart of God himself. Whatever the stage in the Christian pilgrimage, God with Us will lead readers from meditation to doxology.
—Michael Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics, Westminster Seminary California

Danny Hyde has provided the church with an outstanding study explaining the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is clear, biblically faithful, and impressively comprehensive given its concise length. This book is guaranteed to provide all sorts of people in and outside the church with a better understanding of the Savior and of why understanding who he is, is so important. I highly recommend it.
—David Van Drunen, Robert B. Strimple Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics, Westminster Seminary California

To order God With Us, Click here: Reformation Heritage Books

To find out more about Rev. Hyde and the Oceanside URC,Click here: http://www.oceansideurc.org/ - Pilgrims & Parish (Danny Hyde)

Who Said That?

"Interestingly enough, in this day of traditional family values, this man that we follow was single, as far as we know, traveled with a bunch of men, had a disciple who was known as 'the one whom Jesus loved' and said my family is not my mother and father, my family is those who do the will of God. None of us likes those harsh words. That's who Jesus is, that's who he was at heart, in his earthly life.  Those who would posit the nuclear family as the be all and end all of God's creation probably don't find that much in the gospels to support it."

Who said that?  Leave your guess in the comments section below.  Please, no google searches! 

Update on Saturday, December 8, 2007 at 07:24PM by Kim Riddlebarger

How far has the Episcopal Church fallen?  This is not some renegade priest implying that Jesus was gay, this is the presiding Bishop!

This is from a sermon entitled, "Homosexuality and the Body of Christ: Is There a New Way?" at Christ Church of Hamilton and Wenham, Massachusetts.

Can you say apostate? 

Some Interesting Links . . .

IMHO, the most important baseball story of the day was not the Mitchell report, but A-Rod turning on Scott Boras, calling the way Boras handled his contract negotiations with the Yankees "a huge debacle."   Not only is Boras' hold on A-Rod broken, but so is Boras' ability to hold teams hostage during contract negotiations.  When your biggest client busts you this bad, your reputation takes a dive.  Good for A-Rod!  Turns out he wasn't lying about wanting to stay in New York as he claimed all of last year.  It was Boras who lied to A-Rod about the level of the Yankees' interest in him!  Click here: The LoHud Yankees Blog » Blog Archive » A-Rod: “It was a huge debacle”

As for the Mitchell report, I agree with Peter Abraham that while Clemens (who denies the charges) takes a hit, as does Pettitte (to a much lesser degree), the report itself is a complete joke--hearsay and innuendo, mostly from two hangers-on. Click here: The LoHud Yankees Blog » Blog Archive » So, what did we learn today?.  I say if anyone tests positive for any performance enhancing substance, they receive a season-long suspension.  The second positive test should mean a ban for life.  The game has to be cleaned-up by scientific testing.  But busting players on hearsay is a joke.  As for Barry Bonds, his problems are with a grand jury and medical tests introduced as evidence in a court of law.  Not the same as Clemens and Pettitte being ratted out by a shady trainer who has every reason to lie to save his own skin.

For those of you who enjoyed my ranting about sermon subscription series, you'll love this hilarious parody over at Tom in the Box about a sermon writer's strike.  Click here: Tominthebox News Network - Religious Humor/Satire: Sermon Writers Guild Goes on Strike: Churchgoers Face Sermon Re

Finally, I can cut back on my Christmas shopping.  The Pope says too much consumerism a sin.  I think I'll take Andy's gift back to Petsmart.  Click here: Shun excessive materialism at Christmas, Pope says - Yahoo! News

"Man of the Year"

My wife got a circular email with humorous pictures of this year's "Man of the Year" ("chauvinist").  I thought you all would enjoy the winning picture.

The reason why this Irishman won should be obvious!  Such love!  They are even holding hands . . . 

The Canons of Dort, First Head of Doctrine, Article 2

Here's the next installment of my notes on the Canons of Dort.  An introduction to the Canons can be found here -- Click here: Riddleblog - Notes on the Canons of Dort (Introduction) and my notes on the first head of doctrine, article one can be found here -- Click here: Riddleblog - Notes on the Canons of Dort (First Head)
 

Article 2: The Manifestation of God's Love

But this is how God showed his love: he sent his only begotten Son into the world, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
___________________________________

In the opening articles, the Canons are careful to demonstrate that any possible deliverance from our sinful condition (guilt, condemnation and the inability to save ourselves) arises from something good in God--specifically his love for his rebellious creatures--and not because there is something “good” that God sees in the sinner which motivates him to act to save them.

Because of our guilt and sinfulness, God is under no obligation to save anyone.  In fact, the entire human race is already under his just judgment and sentence of death (Romans 5:12, 18; 6:23).  But because of his great love for us, God sends Jesus Christ to secure for us our redemption (Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:10).

This means that it is God who seeks sinners, not sinners who seek God.  We must be clear about this fact.  Jesus himself made it perfectly clear that the essence of his own mission was that “the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10).

But the American religion, on the other hand, understands the manifestation of God’s love to be a response to the goodness and worth that God sees within sinful men and women.  But what is there in us that is good?  The Scripture says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6).  We do not seek God, we do not understand the things of God and every inch of us is tainted, stained, and ruined by sin (Romans 3:9-20).  Indeed, the prophet Habakkuk declares about God, “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong” (Habakkuk 1:13).

This is why we must be careful to realize that the very essence of grace is that it is purely gracious.  As one Puritan divine puts it, “there is no reason to be given for grace but grace.”  The only place to look for an answer to the questions about sin and grace then is in the justice, the love and the mercy of God, not in the supposed "goodness" of sinful men and women.

This is why God sent his Son into this world, not because we are worthy, but because he is gracious.  And this love is most clearly visible in this—"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16).

Yes, the Canons of Dort actually quote John 3:16 in the second article!  Imagine that?

"What Do You Mean When You Speak of the `Lens of the Old Testament?'"

Joe asks the following question (October 29, 2007):

"I am reading your messages on Revelation (Click here: Riddleblog - Sermons on the Book of Revelation (pdf), and right at the beginning something jumped out at me. You say that we must interpret this book through `the lens of the Old Testament'. Isn't this the position that dispensationalists use to justify their interpretation. That is, all prophesy in the New Testament must be interpreted by the Old Testament. Can you elaborate, please?"

___________________________ 

 
My Answer:

Joe, thanks for the chance to clarify this.  I believe that the Book of Revelation is, in one sense, God's answer to all the redemptive-historical loose ends of both the Old Testament and the first advent of Christ.  I see the scope of Revelation's various visions as covering the entire inter-advental period, each from a different perspective.  Dennis Johnson quite helpfully describes this phenomenon as different camera angles on the same event.

When I say that we need to see Revelation through "the lens of the Old Testament," I simply mean that when John uses some particular symbol (say "locusts") the reference is to the Old Testament--in the case of locusts to the Book of Joel.  My sense is that those who heard the Book of Revelation read in the churches, and who were steeped in the Old Testament, would have immediately understood what John was talking about, because they knew to find the explanation of the symbol in the Old Testament. 

For many of our dispensational friends, however, this is not the case.  They take John to be trying to describe some modern technology which did not exist in the ancient world.  Hal Lindsey, for example, thinks John saw a Bell UH-1 Huey helicopter and since such a thing was beyond his comprehension, John described this amazing flying thing as looking like a locust--which, in a way, it does.  But is John trying to describe an as yet unknown technology?  Or is he using an image drawn from the Old Testament to make a point about the suffering of God's people before Christ comes back?

I would say that the key to understanding John is to go back to the Old Testament and see what locusts do when they swarm--they destroy everything.  Joel presents locusts as a form of judgment.  Lindsey, on the other hand, says this is a picture of a modern technology unknown to the ancients.  But it is obviously a judgment motif, because that is how the figure appears in the Old Testament.

One of my primary concerns with the dispensational hermeneutic is that the Old Testament "interprets" the New Testament, a concern which lies at the heart of your question.  The title of John Walvoord's famous commentary on Daniel makes my point--Daniel:  The Key to Prophetic Revelation.  According to dispensationalists, Daniel lays out the basic prophetic pattern and then John follows along behind in the Book of Revelation. 

Reformed amillennarians hold that Daniel was told to seal up the scroll, because he could not understand these things before the coming of Christ.  John is ordered to open that same scroll in the Book of Revelation because he will tell us--in the clearer light of the coming of Christ--about those things to which Daniel had been referring, but which were still hidden in type and shadow until Christ came.  Now that Jesus has indeed come, and has died for our sins and was raised from the dead before ascending on high, John is given this vision to explain to God's persecuted people how Christ's triumph over death and the grave impacts the future course of history so as to bring all things to their final consummation.

This is why I think Walvoord and the dispensationalists have it backwards.  The Apostle John tells us what the prophet Daniel means, not vice-versa.

I hope that helps! 

Count Yourselves Dead to Sin, But Alive to God -- Romans 6:1-14

The Thirteenth in a Series of Sermons on Paul's Epistle to the Romans

Paul has made the point as clearly as he can:  God justifies the wicked through faith in Jesus Christ.  The ground (basis) of our justification is not our own works, but the merits of Jesus Christ–including his death for our sins, his one act of obedience through which the many made are made (declared) as righteous–received through faith alone.  Therefore, we are not in any sense justified because of God’s work in us.  Rather, we are justified because of God’s work for us.  But in Romans 6:1-8:39, Paul will now make the point that all those justified will also be sanctified.  Indeed, the apostle cannot conceive of someone who is freely and instantaneously justified by the merits of Christ who is not also undergoing the process of sanctification.

As we have seen in previous sermons, the literary hinge between Paul’s discussion of justification and sanctification is Romans chapter 5, especially verses 12-21.  In the last ten verses of Romans 5 Paul sets out the panorama of redemptive history in very broad terms while also identifying the two main figures in the administration of the covenants, Adam and Jesus.  Setting these two figures in contrast to one another, Adam is both the biological and the federal head of the human race.  Under the terms of the covenant of works– “do this and you shall live”–Adam is the federal representative of the entire human race.  Because of Adam’s one act of disobedience, Paul says, the entire human race is rendered guilty and comes under the curse of sin, which is death.  In Adam we all sin.  In Adam, we all die.

But Jesus Christ, the second Adam, is the head of the covenant of grace.  Through his act of obedience (which stands in marked contrast to Adam’s act of disobedience), all those whom Jesus represents are regarded as righteous.  Through the disobedience of the one man (Adam) the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of Jesus Christ, the many were made righteous.  As in Adam we were made sinners and subject to death, so in Christ we are reckoned as righteous, now set free from the tyranny of sin and death, so that in Christ we might live.  As Paul puts it, where sin abounds, grace super-abounds.

The analogy between Adam and Christ, federal or representative heads of the covenant of works and grace respectively, becomes the basis for understanding much of Paul’s discussion of sanctification.  Throughout Romans 6-8, all those in Adam, are said to be under the dominion of sin, the law and death.  But all those in Christ are said to be set from the dominion of sin and the law, and now live with Christ.  The analogy Paul sets out in Romans 5 between what Adam’s fall has brought about and what Christ’s obedience undoes, becomes the key to understanding what follows when Paul discusses sanctification.  Doug Moo puts this in eschatological terms, speaking of a transfer of realms–from Adam to Christ.  This eschatological focus also fits within the structure of so-called federal theology.  Under the realm (dominion) of Adam we are condemned, because Adam is our representative under the covenant of works.  We are justified when we are moved (transferred) by God’s grace from the realm (dominion) of Adam to the realm (dominion) of Christ under the covenant of grace.

To read the rest of this sermon, click here

The Books Were Opened -- Revelation 20:11-15

The Twenty-Ninth in a Series of Sermons on Revelation

No subject strikes terror into the human heart like the thought of standing before God on judgment day, knowing that we must each give a full account of all those things we have done.  But this is exactly what we find in the latter part of Revelation chapter 20, when John describes a very sobering scene before the throne in heaven.  The books will be opened and the dead will be judged according to what they have done, whether that be good or evil.

We complete our discussion of Revelation chapter 20, as we move into the final section of this book dealing with the eternal state.  The eternal state is that period of redemptive history which comes after human history as we know it, is no more.  To put it in basic terms, in the balance of Revelation, John is describing what we commonly speak of as “heaven.”  But before we enter the eternal state, John reminds us that there is a final judgment yet to come.  The very thought of facing God on judgment day gives us reason to pause. 

Last time, we read the last 5 verses of Revelation 20 in connection with our discussion of the millennial age.  We did so to make the point that the second coming of Jesus Christ and the final judgment occur after the millennial reign of Christ, demonstrating that the Bible does not teach premillennialism.  But these few verses also serve as a very climatic and final turning point in redemptive history.  Therefore, they deserve our full attention, especially when we look back at the ground we have covered in the Book of Revelation so far.  In a sweeping survey of the messianic age, John has taken us from the first century to the time of the end and beyond, describing the course of redemptive history between the two comings of Christ from a number different camera angles, so to speak, using apocalyptic symbolism drawn from the Old Testament and set against the backdrop of the first century Roman empire.

In order to fully appreciate the importance these verses play in redemptive history, we need to briefly survey that which has gone before.  In the first three chapters of Revelation, we covered John’s vision of the resurrected Christ walking among his churches, as well as the seven letters to the churches of Asia Minor, in which John was speaking to those issues facing Christians in his original audience.  As we have seen, these are issues which Christians will face throughout this present evil age.  John has told us something of the persecution Christians were facing at the hands of Roman empire.  We have also read of false teachers slipping into these churches, dividing them through false doctrine and deceptively leading people away from Christ.  In speaking directly to the seven historic churches about the nature of Satan’s assaults, John is warning Christians throughout this present age of those things they can expect from their great enemy, the Devil, a defeated foe who rages against us because his doom is sure.

To read the rest of this sermon, click here