For more, check out the recordings of the 2011 Emmanuel Family Conference.

If our churches are warm, unified communities of people who love and care for each other, there’s a good chance that the world will start to realise there’s something special about Jesus. But if, on the other hand, our churches degenerate into hotbeds of gossip and bitterness, it’s hardly likely that the world will be attracted to our Saviour.

Within this context, marriage is perhaps the relationship that matters most. For the unity between a husband and a wife is of a different order from that which exists even between fellow-believers in Christ. If Christian marriages don’t speak to the world about Christ, our other relationships hardly stand a chance.

“Marriage,” you might say, “is the showcase of Christian unity” (For a Glory and a Covering: A practical theology of marriage, p. 6.)

Hear more from Douglas Wilson at the Emmanuel Family Conference, Saturday 7 May. Book now.

Hear more from Douglas Wilson at the Emmanuel Family Conference, Saturday 7 May. Book now.

Hear more from Douglas Wilson at the Emmanuel Family Conference, Saturday 7 May. Book now.

Hear more from Douglas Wilson at the Emmanuel Family Conference, Saturday 7 May. Book now.

Hear more from Douglas Wilson at the Emmanuel Family Conference, Saturday 7 May. Book now.

Hear more from Douglas Wilson at the Emmanuel Family Conference, Saturday 7 May. Book now.

It’s a hectic Sunday morning. The kids are bouncing off the walls, you’re in a rush to get to church. Gradually the marital temperature rises, until it either erupts into a steaming row or descends into icy monosyllables.

Drive to church. In silence.

Then arrive at church, and with a mighty effort of self-discipline, manage to be civil, polite, friendly, warm and encouraging to fifty or so people in the congregation. Laughter, handshakes and hugs.

Then back home again, and once more into the marital hurricane or the emotional freezer.

Why is it that we often find it hardest to be loving to those closest to us? Or, better: What would it take to display in our marriages the same level of give-and-take that we display in all our other relationships?

Well, for a start, remember that your spouse is also your neighbour. “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Mat 22:39).

For more, take a look at Douglas Wilson, For a Glory and a Covering: A practical theology of marriage, pp. xvii-xx.

For even more, book a place at the Emmanuel Family Conference, Saturday 7 May.

“Discontented married people are often former discontented unmarried people … And if you are unteachable, marriage does not alter what you are, but rather amplifies what you are. If you are discontented, marriage will provide you with little more than newer and more complex ways of getting into sin.” (Douglas Wilson, For a Glory and a Covering: A practical theology of marriage, p. xii.)

Hear more from Douglas Wilson at the Emmanuel Family Conference, Saturday 7 May. Book now.

“Many a wife desperately wants her husband to be a ’spiritual leader,’ but only to the extent that he leads where she thinks he should be going. … ‘He is not much of a spiritual leader. I would be submissive if he would start leading right.’” (For a Glory and a Covering: A practical theology of marriage, p. 75.)

Hear more from Douglas Wilson at the Emmanuel Family Conference, Saturday 7 May. Book now.

2. Not Under Law

• This doesn’t mean what you might think.
• Since Torah refers (almost always, in Paul) to the Mosaic law, “under law” means “subject to the Mosaic covenant, in which the Mosaic law held sway.” Consequently, “We are not under law” is a salvation-historic statement, meaning “we are no longer living in the Mosaic order of things.”
• The transition from old order to new order is embodied in Christ. He was born “under the law,” and as “the representative of the old creation” he was “condemned” at Calvary (p. 16). Then, as “the representative of the new creation,” he was “vindicated through the resurrection life of the Spirit” (p. 16). Thus Christ’s death and resurrection represent and accomplish “the redemptive-historical movement from one age to another” (p. 16).
• All those who are in Christ participate with him in the Spirit-empowered resurrection life of this new age. Such participation entails renunciation of the old age, and this requirement lies behind Paul’s critique of the Judaizers in Galatians.

Removal of Torah in Galatians

• Peter’s withdrawal from table fellowship with Gentiles was objectionable not because he was trying to earn salvation by doing good deeds (thought of course that would have been objectionable, and it still is), but because it represented an attempt to cling to the Torah of the old order of things. Exactly how Peter’s actions represented such an attempt is one of the trickier things to understand, since Torah never actually required Jews to eat separately from Gentiles. Perhaps Peter saw his actions as a necessary extension of Torah, given that Gentiles would not have been very bothered about eating Kosher food.
• Paul objected to Peter’s actions because they reflected a denial of the gospel, since they implied that Christ had not, after all, succeeded in putting the old order to death at the cross and inaugurating the new order in his resurrection. Thus this “conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel” (Gal 2:14).
• The underlying thought in Paul’s mind throughout his “anti-Torah argument in Galatians” (see pp. 18-28) is that “Christ and Torah are two mutually exclusive covenants” (p. 27). You can’t just overlay Christ on top of Moses, and any attempt to cling to Moses entails abandoning Christ.

This probably isn’t the book to read if you’re completely new to the debates about Paul and the Law. However, if you’ve read a few things in the past, and if you want a thought-provoking, insightful reading of Paul that moves fast and deals with the text rather than with endless debates about the text, and which doesn’t spend 100 yawn-inducing pages covering all-too-familiar ground, then Tim Gallant’s book is for you.

Foreword (Rich Lusk)

4 great things about this book:

1. Paul’s principle concern with salvation history, and consequently with individual soteriology
2. The application of the “fulfilment principle” to Christian ethics
3. “The law’s place within the eschatological purposes of God comports with sola fide” (p. 4)
4. An exporation of oft-neglected aspects of the doctrine of justification “without giving up any ground the Protestants gained in the Reformation” (p. 5)

Preface; Introduction

“These Are Two Covenants is … an attempt to paint a new portrait of Paul’s view of Torah (the Hebrew for what we call law) with attention to features in his writings that are frequently ignored or misunderstood” (p. 6).

“I have attempted to derive my interpretation from the structure of Paul’s own arguments, rather than through the grid of either a traditional or NPP understanding of first century Judaism” (p. 9).

What Law?

Against the idea of “law” as a timeless, universal principle, “Paul very frequently places the law into temporal contexts, showing that for him, nomos is something that is introduced into history at a particular time” (p. 10), e.g. Gal 3:15-25; Rom 5:13-14.

Nomos “is also placed within ‘national’ contexts … something which Israel is under, but not the Gentiles” (p. 11), e.g. Rom 2. Rom 3:19 doesn’t broaden the focus of the law to include Gentiles; rather, it completes the picture of universal condemnation, presupposing the condemnation of Gentiles established in Rom 1.

Torah (in Paul, as distinct from Gospels / Acts) cannot easily refer to oral tradition. Cf. Paul’s polemic against circumcision – a Torah requirement; Torah as covenant; Paul’s solution to “the problem of nomos” (p. 13).

“Nomos in Paul, then, generally refers to the Mosaic law,” though not “every appearance of nomos in the Pauline epistles is identical” (p. 13). In particular, law as Scripture; law as covenant.

Rom 2:12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.

15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them

17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God

18 and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law;

20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth-

23 You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.

25 For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

26 So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

27 Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law.

Rom 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-

27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.

28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Rom 4:13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring- not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

Rom 5:13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

Rom 6:14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

Rom 7:1 Or do you not know, brothers- for I am speaking to those who know the law- that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?

2 Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.

3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law, sin lies dead.

9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,

23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Rom 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.

Rom 9:31 but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.

Rom 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

5 For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.

Rom 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

1Co 9:8 Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same?

9 For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned?

20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.

1Co 14:21 In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.”

34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says.

1Co 15:56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

Gal 2:16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.

21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Gal 3:2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith-

10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”

11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”

12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.”

13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us- for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”-

17 This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void.

18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.

Gal 4:4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,

5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?

Gal 5:3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.

14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Gal 6:2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

13 For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.

Eph 2:15 by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,

Phi 3:5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;

6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness, under the law blameless.

9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-

1Ti 1:8 Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully,

9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers,

Here’s a quick taster. Having observed the faith-hope-love triad in Heb 10:22-25 (p. 286), he says:

One of the first indications of a lack of love toward God and the neighbor is for a Christian to stay away from worship services. He forsakes the communal obligations of attending these meetings and displays the symptoms of selfishness and self-centredness. (p. 290)

Having considered what justification is, let’s think now about what it means to say that justification is only by faith. Then we’ll think about what it means to say that justification is not by our own goodness.

The problem with understanding the meaning of ‘justification by faith’ is that it’s hard to pin down what ‘by’ means.

Some have tried to clarify matters ‘by saying that faith is the condition of justification’ (p. 152). Though this is true in one sense, it doesn’t get us very far, because the word ‘condition’ is itself ambiguous. It can mean subtly different things in different contexts, and these differences can cause great confusion.

For example, in one sense, ‘Christ alone performs the condition of our justification’ (p. 151). So how can our faith be a further ‘condition’ of justification?

More confusingly still, if we take ‘condition of justification’ to mean ’something indispensable, without which we shall not be justified, and with which we shall be justified’, then lots of other things could legitimately be called ‘conditions of justification’ as well. The Bible says that ‘love to God’, ‘love to our brethren’, ‘forgiving men their trespasses’ (p. 152), and many other things besides, are also conditions of justification in this sense. Clearly the phrase ‘condition of justification’ is inadequate to describe the ‘particular influence that faith has’ (p. 153) in justification.

Others have tried to clarify the relationship between faith and justification by calling faith ‘the instrument of our justification’ (p. 153). Unfortunately, this explanation has been misrepresented and ridiculed by others, who have wrongly understood it to mean that faith is the instrument God uses to justify us, rather than the instrument we use to receive justification.

On the other hand, perhaps some confusion is understandable. For those who describe faith as the instrument by which we receive justification also identify faith as the act of receiving justification. That doesn’t work. It’s a bit like confusing your journey to work (the act) with the car you drive in (the instrument).

In any case, even those who describe faith as an ‘instrument’ speak of it, strictly speaking, as ‘the instrument by which we receive Christ’ rather than ‘the instrument by which we receive justification’ (p. 153). But we’re in danger of getting ahead of ourselves.

So then, what does ‘by’ mean in the phrase ‘justified by faith’? Let’s take a step back for a moment. God has sent ‘a Mediator’, Christ, who ‘has purchased justification’ (p. 153). Surely the most obvious thing to say is this: Faith is the thing that makes it right in God’s sight that some people (i.e. believers; those with faith) rather than others (i.e. unbelievers, those without faith) should have justification assigned to them. Faith is the ‘qualification’ (p. 153) that makes it appropriate in God’s sight that ‘we should be justified’ (p. 154).

God doesn’t do anything randomly. Everything in the way that God has set up the world fits together perfectly in line with his wisdom. And God in his wisdom says that faith and justification ‘match’. They fit together, so to speak, such that it is right (i.e. ‘proper’, ‘meet’, ‘fit’, p. 154) for those who have faith to be justified.

This distinguishes faith from all the other things which can rightly be described as conditions of justification (love for God, love for other believers, and so on). For though all these things are ‘inseparably connected with justification’ (p. 154), only faith qualifies us for justification in this special and unique sense.

We are justified only by faith in Christ, and not by any manner of virtue of goodness of our own.

In the following pages we’ll explore this statement in five steps:

1. Explain what this statement means.

2. Prove that this statement is true.

3. Show what place ‘evangelical obedience’ (p. 149) has in justification.

4. Answer objections.

5. Reflect on why this issue matters.

Let’s begin with what justification is. ‘A person is said to be justified when he is approved of God as free from the guilt of sin, and its deserved punishment, and as having that righteousness belonging to him that entitles to the rewards of life’ (p. 150).

Justification has both positive and negative aspects. Negatively, it means that a person is regarded as being not guilty of sin. Positively, it means that a person is righteous in God’s sight, and is therefore ‘entitled to a positive reward’ (p. 150).

Justification therefore includes the forgiveness of sins, but it’s more than this. After all, Scripture says that a person can be ‘either justified or condemned’ (p. 150) – there’s no middle ground. Justification leaves us in the right with God, not in some kind of neutral moral ground.

For an illustration, consider Adam. In order to be justified, he would have needed to ‘[finish] his course of perfect obedience’ (p. 150). Only then would he have ‘fulfilled the righteousness of the law’ (p. 150). He wasn’t justified when he was first created, and it would not have been enough for him to hang around doing nothing!

Or, for another illustration, consider Christ. He ‘was not justified until he had done the work the Father had appointed him, and kept the Father’s commandments, through all trials’ (p. 150-151). He was finally justified ‘in his resurrection’ (p. 151).

Let’s think a bit more about the resurrection as Jesus’ justification. 1 Peter 3:18 says that Jesus was ‘quickened by the Spirit’; 1 Timothy 3:16 says he was ‘justified in the Spirit’ (p. 151). This was the moment when Jesus’ suffering and humiliation ended, when his exaltation began, when God granted his ‘reward’ (p. 151).

Now, what happens when a believer is justified? Simply this: we share in the justification of Jesus. We are ‘admitted to communion’ (p. 151) with him, and so we share in his reward. For Jesus did not die and rise merely as a private individual; he is the head and representative of all who believe in him. So he was raised to life not merely for his justification, but also ‘for our justification’ (p. 151; Romans 4:25).

It’s tempting to think that exercises like this are really only for ‘desperate cases’ – Christians suffering under really serious trials, or stuck in patterns of really destructive ungodliness. But this is a mistake. It would do none of us any harm to chew over questions like these from time to time.

Here’s an example.

1. What do you love? Hate? (p. 130)

So, what’s the first thing that pops into your head? Honest, now. Love – proper cappuccino with an extra shot; hate – cheap instant with powdered UHT. Or maybe (this’d probably be better): love – talking to people who really understand me? Playing with the kids at church? Or maybe better still: love – a good solid sermon; the book of Ephesians. All good things. Great things. Really great Christian things.

And then you look up the Bible references.

And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ (Matthew 22:37-39)

It’s not that we don’t believe it. It’s not that we don’t really love God. It’s just, well, we just didn’t think of it. Mention ‘love’, we don’t immediately think ‘the Lord our God’. We think ‘creation’; the Bible says ‘Creator’. We think ‘provisions’; the Bible says ‘Provider’. We think ‘good Christian stuff to enjoy and do and be blessed by’; the Bible says ‘The One who gives to all people life and breath and everything else’.

And then the ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ bit. Here ‘love’ means something subtly different from ‘love’ when we say ‘I love coffee’ or ‘I love Ephesians’. When I ‘love’ Ephesians, I love what I receive from/through/in it. Not bad, obviously – that’s what it’s there for. But when I love my neighbour, I’m giving what (s)he needs from me. In the one case, I love to get; in the other, I love to love.

Powlison’s book Seeing with New Eyes is unsettlingly insightful. It’s basically about bringing the Bible to bear on our all-too-human messed-up-ness.

He’s brutally honest in the way he refuses to ignore the issue of human sin, even when addressing the trials of the Christian life. This sets apart genuinely Christian counselling from every secular alternative. Here he is quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. (Powlison, Seeing, p. 12)

Painful. But ultimately liberating. Once we face our hidden ungodliness head-on, we’ll be able to start thinking clearly about living as disciples of Jesus in what is, after all, a fallen world.

It’s not that there’s some simplistic connection between sin, on the one hand, and trials, unhappiness, or whatever on the other (You’re having a hard time, so you must have done something really bad). Nope (Luke 13:2-5; John 9:2-3).

Rather, the point is that Jesus Christ is always trying to re-shape us more in his image. Our heavenly Father loves us so much, and loves us so wisely, that he values our sanctification infinitely more than our comfort. He ‘disciplines the one he loves’ (Hebrews 12:6), and occasionally discipline hurts a bit. But if we’re alert to what God is doing, then we’ll be best placed to take advantage of even the most painful situations to grow more like Jesus, which wouldn’t be a bad thing (James 1:3-4).

Written in 1738 to counter the growing threat of Arminianism in New England, it is a work of theological genius. It combines many of Edwards’s greatest gifts – theological precision, philosophical sophistication, thoughtful exegesis – with an additional trait not displayed in some of his other works: it’s short. Well, short-ish.

You can even read it free online at the Jonathan Edwards Center.

In this and a few future posts, we’ll be working through Edwards’s work by paraphrasing/summarising a chunk at a time. Text in quotes is taken directly from the Yale edition; page references in brackets.

‘To the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness’ (Romans 4:5).

Four important things flow from this verse:

1. When God justified a person, he doesn’t have regard for any moral goodness in that person. For God ‘justifies the ungodly‘ (Romans 4:5). So, ‘immediately before’ (p. 147) God justifies us, he obviously isn’t looking at us and thinking, ‘Hey, look at how godly (s)he is!’ It’s like when God gives sight to the blind: immediately before they receive their sight, they can’t see.

2. When this verse talks about ‘the one who does not work’ (Romans 4:5), it not just talking about the ceremonial law. It’s talking about all ‘works of morality and godliness’ (p. 148), because ‘the ungodly’ and ‘the one who does not work’ clearly mean the same thing.

3. The ‘faith’ (Romans 4:5) spoken of here is not just another word for obedience. Striving for obedience in order to be justified is a very different from trusting in a God who justifies the disobedient.

4. The very fact that the justified person’s faith is ‘counted’ (Romans 4:5; i.e. ‘imputed’) ‘for righteousness’ (p. 148) demonstrates that God regards the justified person as having no righteousness in himself. Yet the consequences of this imputation for the justified person ‘are the same as if he had righteousness’ (p. 148). The context points in precisely this direction (v. 4 – the ‘gift’; v. 6 – ‘righteousness apart from works’; vv. 7-8 – ‘blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven …  against whom the Lord will not count his sin’).

This all boils down to a simple one-liner: ‘We are justified only by faith in Christ, and not by any manner of virtue of goodness of our own‘ (p. 149).

Chapters 8 to 12 crank up the pace about 3 gears, as Lennox moves from DNA and genetics to the science uniquely equipped to analyse it – a science for which he, as a mathematician, is admirably equipped as a guide – the science of information.

For a living cell is not merely matter. It is matter replete with information. (p. 126).

Or again, Bernd-Olaf Küppers (yup – his real name):

The problem of the origin of life is clearly basically equivalent to the problem of the origin of biological information. (p. 139).

And that information, says Lennox, must have come from somewhere.

Particularly striking is Lennox’s potent demonstration of the question-begging so rampant in many contemporary analogies for evolution (pp. 156ff.).  Richard Dawkins, for example, in his book The Blind Watchmaker, attempts to demonstrate how evolution can produce incredibly improbably biological structures by drawing an analogy with a team of monkeys typing at random to produce a ‘target phrase’, in this case Shakespear’s ‘Methinks it is like a weasel’. Dawkins succeeds, at a first glance, in showing how the probability of producing this phrase can be reduced from 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (yup – 40 zeroes) to around 1 in 43. Neat, huh? Suddenly writing plays for a living looks like a workable career option.

Well, not quite – don’t give up your day job. Listen to Lennox:

What … does he mean by introducing a target phrase? A target phrase is a precise goal which, according to Dawkins himself, is a profoundly un-Dawinian concept … the very information that the mechanisms are supposed to produce is apparently already contained somewhere within the organism, whose genesis he claims to be simulating. The argument is entirely circular. … For their plausibility, then, Dawkins’ analogies depend on introducing to his model the very features whose existence in the real world he denies. (pp. 158-159).

Oops.

You know how it is when someone says something that sticks with you?

Well, we were talking about science and Christianity, and Bruce said something like this: ‘I think William Paley’s work on design in nature would be worth another look. I have a feeling there’s more to it than some people think.’

William Paley was an 18th-century theologian and naturalist, who argued that the appearance of design in nature implied the existence of a Designer, just as the intricate engineering of a watch implies the existence of a watchmaker. He has been criticised – ridiculed even – by many modern scientists, who have argued that evolution can account for the apparent ‘designed-ness’ of the natural world.

Well, finally someone has brought Paley back to life. And would you believe it, the caricatures painted by unbelieving scientists are, well, caricatures. Paley’s argument from design is just a little more sophisticated than you might think. A lot more sophisticated, actually.

God’s Undertaker, pp. 78-84.

Accordingly, many unbelieving scientists who spend time thinking about such matters cannot explain why the universe should be intelligible at all. Here’s Eugene Wigner (yes, that’s right, that Wigner – let the reader understand), for example:

The enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious, and there is no rational explanation for it … it is an article of faith. (God’s Undertaker, p. 60, italics added)

Chapters 5 to 7 focus more specifically on evolutionary biology – conceding ground where appropriate while simultaneously asking some probing questions – on the fossil record, irreducible complexity, and especially the origin of life (as opposed to its subsequent development). Here’s Stuart Kaufmann, for example:

Anyone who tells you that he or she knows how life started on the earth 3.45 billion years ago is a fool or a knave. Nobody knows. (p. 126)

• the roots of science in Christian theism (pp. 19-22).
• crystal clarity about the distinctions between naturalism and materialism (pp. 27-28)
• scientific method (pp. 31-34)
• materialism’s talent for begging the question (pp. 34-37)
• Laplace (pp. 44-45)
• against the ‘God of the gaps’ (pp. 46-47)
• God as Creator, and primary and secondary causation (pp. 47-51)
• the utterly mind-boggling improbability of our universe coming into being by chance (p. 70)

On being asked by Napoleon where God fitted into his mathematical work, Laplace, quite correctly, replied: ‘Sir, I have no need of that hypothesis.’ Of course God did not appear in Laplace’s mathematical description of how things work, just as Mr Ford would not appear in a scientific description of the laws of internal combustion. But what does that prove? That Henry Ford did not exist? Clearly not. (pp. 44-45)

Austin Farrer puts it wonderfully:

Laplace and his colleagues had not learned to do without theology; they had merely learned to mind their own business. (p. 45)

But just occasionally a truly remarkable book appears. To my mind, John C. Lennox’s God’s Undertaker falls into that category.

A long time ago I used to be a scientist. Yeah, a long time ago. But, still, I quite often get asked to speak on ‘Science and Christianity’ and similar subjects, so I’ve read a fair bit on the subject. This one is something really special. Every chapter manages to say something new, and existing arguments are re-stated with greater clarity and cogency than I’ve ever seen before. With this book, John Lennox stomps into the heavyweight division of this rather tired old debate and flattens the opposition.

Any scientifically-minder Christian who doesn’t read this book is missing out. Any unbelieving scientist who hasn’t read it can safely be ignored.

One widely-held conclusion was that it is very difficult to write such a history of a ‘movement’ so soon after the event, when it’s far from clear what events/people/etc have had long-term significance. Consequently, such histories tend to overestimate the significance of the author’s own (small?) circle, practically ignoring other (possibly very significant) parts of the ecclesial landscape.

For example, the main text mentions John Stott three times, each time only in passing, and twice in relation to his public disagreement with Lloyd-Jones in 1966. Lloyd-Jones, on the other hand, is the focus of two entire chapters. Obviously, the great Doctor had a massive (and wonderful) influence in 20th-century Reformed evangelicalism, but one wonders whether Murray has got the balance quite right.

There’s an important lesson here for all of us contemporary evangelicals. We must not identify the growth/strength/fruitfulness of Christ’s church solely with those (socially defined?) streams of evangelicalism that we happen to be familiar with. Too often we get stuck in our own small corner, vastly overestimating our own significance and vastly underestimating the wondrous work the Lord is doing far beyond the circles represented by alumni of our University Christian Union.

The fact that yesterday I was introduced to a number of godly, wise, experienced ministers in thriving evangelical churches that I’d never heard of served to underscore this point. Thankfully, the Kingdom of Christ is larger than, and is growing faster than, any of our little networks.

Paul Ellingworth, Hebrews (NIGTC). Lots of technical detail. Hard to read. Sometimes hard to see the wood for the trees. But, on the other hand, trees are often helpful.

F. F. Bruce, Hebrews (NICNT). Useful, though less detail than Lane and Ellingworth, and sometimes a bit more help with the flow of the argument would be useful. Evangelical.

John Owen, Hebrews (7 vols). Vast, slightly (!) overwhelming. Preterist reading, which may be unfamiliar to some. But I dare you to dismiss his interpretation without reading it. All of it. Or else he’ll not be happy when he catches up with you…

They are boys … in their youthful folly and adolescent bravado … Rehoboam’s folly is a characteristic folly of a ‘boy,’ a young man who chooses advisors full of youthful pride, cockiness and crudity, the type of companion against whom Proverbs warns repeatedly (13:20; 28:7; cf. Ps. 119:63). (Leithart, 1 and 2 Kings, p. 92.)

Christian men must heed this warning, or we shall very likely repeat Rehoboam’s stupidity. Unless we pay careful attention to our godliness, it’s possible to still be boys in our early forties, being ‘men’ only in the sense that we’re now big enough to do damage. Boys will be boys; men must not be. But the example of Rehoboam and ‘the boys’ reminds us that this won’t happen automatically. No one ever drifted into maturity.

Chapter 4, ‘Between Narration and Dialogue’ explores how the biblical writers do their business ‘when the narrative tempo slows down enough for us to discriminate a particular scene’ (p. 63). In contrast to ‘Greek epics and romances and … much later Western literature’ (p. 64), the Hebrew writers make extensive use of direct speech. Just read some Austen, then read 1 Samuel 21. Weird.

Chapter 5, ‘The Techniques of Repetition’, explores an oft-cited feature of the Bible, whose presence is generally obvious, but whose significance is often missed.

Chapter 6, ‘Characterization and the Art of Reticence’ shows how the Bible manages to say so much by saying so little.

Chapter 7, ‘Composite Artistry’, explores the conundrums arising from apparent or alleged ‘internal contradictions’ (p. 135) in the biblical narrative. Alter is less pessimistic than most scholars about the number of such ‘insoluble cruxes’ (p. 133) in Scripture. Personally, I’m less pessimistic still – I don’t think anything in the Bible is ‘insoluble’ in principle, though I readily grant that there are plenty of things that are ‘hard to understand’ (2 Peter 3:16). Credit to Alter for at least throwing a spanner in the works of liberal OT scholarship; shame he didn’t go all the way.

Chapter 8, ‘Narration and Knowledge’, explains how and why the biblical narrator keeps us in the dark about something he knows, or tells us something the characters in the story don’t know, or plays some other trick on us. Shame he keeps banging on about ‘fiction’. Sigh.

Interesting, though. For example, at what point in the story of Ehud are we supposed to realise that Eglon is going to meet a messy end (Judges 3:12-30)? Dunno, but we certainly find out before the King’s attendants – much to their embarrassment, and our amusement (vv. 24-25). Again, why don’t we discover that Adam was standing right next to Eve until after the conversation with the serpent had finished (Gen 3:6)? And so on.

Finally, Alter devotes an entire chapter (9, ‘Conclusion’) to helping the man in the street work out how to make practical use of the book in reading and understanding Scripture. Now there’s a rare thought.

Did you notice how all the action seems to take place at a well in a foreign land?

‘We must keep in mind’, he insists, that this is ‘not merely the technical manipulation of a literary convention for … sheer pleasure’; it is also intended to convey ‘a larger pattern of historical and theological meaning’ (pp. 59, 60). The Bible is beautiful; but beauty does not exclude utility.

It’s just a shame Alter wrote as a non-Christian. A believer might have recalled another account of a Man meeting a foreign woman at a well. And before long they, too, were talking about marriage.

It would be unfair to suggest that Alter denies the historicity of the Bible. His discussion is more nuanced than that. There is, however, an underlying methodological issue that I want to take issue with.

Alter seems to assume that there is a trade-off between a narrative’s literary artistry and its historical accuracy. The more a writer seems to embellishes details, portrays the psychological features of the protagonists, draws attention to word-play and repetition, alludes to other narratives and so on, the more (it seems) we are forced to concede that he has fiddled the facts. We can admire his elegance and subtlety, we can be drawn my them more deeply into the story, but we cannot finally believe that it all actually happened this way. Literary beauty and historical veracity is a zero-sum game.

This assumption evaporates completely once we step back for a moment and ask ourselves who the real storyteller is. God can not only write a story with the literary beauty that Alter describes; he can make it all come alive. Men and women write books; God creates worlds. Why should the literary beauty of the Bible not be a precise reflection of God’s sovereign power?

I find that strangely encouraging.

One of the best things about this book is Chappo’s sheer infectious enthusiasm. Here’s one of my favourite moments:

Several years ago we in the department of evangelism for which I work considered making some television programmes. The cost of the proposal was so high that our budget for the whole year would have been used in the first month.

We sought the advice of a specialist in marketing, and were told: ‘No one who had the manpower which you have available would ever spend money on television advertising. They would use the money to train people to talk to other people about the product.’

What a good idea.

Beginning with an illustration from the account of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38, Alter loses no time in showing the riches that may be uncovered through literary readings of Old Testament narratives. Alter expounds much of his theory through such examples, making the book a delight to read.

The second half of the chapter is a historical survey of the present state of the field, amply justifying the author’s contention that (in the early 1980s, at least), ‘literary analysis of the Bible … [was] only in its infancy’ (p. 12).

Setting the agenda for the rest of the book, he concludes the chapter with the claim that:

What we need to understand better is that the religious vision of the Bible is given depth and subtlety precisely by being conveyed through the most sophisticated resources of prose fiction. (p. 22)

God is the Master Storyteller, and we need to learn how to read his story.

But it’s not all wine and roses. Alter is a Jewish scholar, not a Christian. He therefore doesn’t call the Old Testament by this name, preferring the description ‘Hebrew Bible’, or even just ‘Bible’, because the term ‘Old Testament … implies that the Old is completed only in the New and that they comprise one continuous work’ (p. ix). Understandable, perhaps, but it rather begs the question.

Furthermore, it’s not clear how much Alter respects the historicity of the OT narratives, which he describes ‘as historicised prose fiction,’ or at best ‘fictionalized history’ (pp. 24-25, italics original). He emphasises that he does ‘not mean to discount the historical impulse that informs the Hebrew Bible,’ but nonetheless claims that ‘under scrutiny, biblical narrative generally proves to be either fiction laying claim to a place in the chain of causation and the realm of moral consequentiality that belong to history … or history given the imaginative definition of fiction’ (p. 32).

The historicity issue looms large in many of the best works on narrative art in Scripture, partly, perhaps, because evangelicals have been absent from the forefront in this field. Fortunately, V. Philips Long’s The Art of Biblical History has gone some way towards setting the record straight here. There’s no reason why the Bible’s literary subtlety should call into question its historicity.

Above all, lure of office … stultifies a better performance of government. The bureaucrat dreams of promotion, higher officials want to extend their reach, legislators and the chief of state want re-election; and the guiding principle in these pursuits is to please as many and offend as few as possible. (p. 386-387)

Consequently, normally intelligent people abandon the dictates of reason in pursuit of self-aggrandisement, self-advancement and protection of vested interests by attempting to please those thought to hold the keys to power. In the process, they bring disaster both on themselves and on the institutions under their governance.

Sadly, the phenomenon has all too often found its way onto the political stage, which is largely why Tuchman’s account of America’s ’self-betrayal’ in Vietnam runs to almost 150 pages. In short:

For a chief of state, admitting error is almost out of the question. The American misfortune during the Vietnam period was to have had Presidents who lacked the self-confidence for the grand withdrawal. (p. 384)

When I become bitter or unforgiving toward others, I’m assuming that the sins of others are more serious than my sins against God. The cross transforms my perspective. Through the cross I realize that no sin committed against me will ever be as serious as the innumerable sins I’ve committed against God. When we understand how much God has forgiven us, it’s not difficult to forgive others. (Living the Cross-Centered Life, pp. 154-155)

Some insightful questions from C. J. Mahaney’s Living the Cross-Centered Life, to help us diagnose the problem:

Do you relate to God as if you were on a kind of permanent probation, suspecting that at any moment He may haul you back into the jail cell of His disfavor?

When you come to worship to you maintain a ‘respectful distance’ from God, as if He were a fascinating but ill-tempered celebrity known for lashing out at His fans?

Are you more aware of your sin than you are of God’s grace, given to you through the cross? (p. 125)

And finally, a quick reminder:

Don’t buy the lie that wallowing in your shame is pleasing to God. (p. 126)

A legalist is anyone who behaves as if they can earn God’s forgiveness through personal performance. …. It says to God, in effect, ‘Your plan didn’t work. The cross wasn’t enough and I need to add my good works to it to be saved.’ …. Legalism is essentially self-atonement for the purpose of self-glorification and ultimately for self-worship. It is the pinnacle of pride for me to assume that by my good works I could ever morally obligate God to forgive me, justify me, or accept me. (Living the Cross-Centered Life, pp. 113-114)

Regardless of how dark a day becomes, regardless of the severity of the anguish we’ll experience, He’s always present… and that is sufficient. (p. 101)

It was a crowded morning in Starbucks. I was standing with several customers who formed two parallel lines leading toward the counter.  As my turn came to step forward and order coffee, the young man serving me smiled and said, ‘Hey, how are you?’ …. ‘Better than I deserve,’ I answered. (Living the Cross-Centered Life, p. 59)

The humble are those whose first response to objective truth from God’s Word is not to ask, ‘How do I feel?’ but to say, ‘I’m not going to let my faith be determined and directed by the subjective and the experiential. Instead I confess before God that I will believe the objective truth of His Word, regardless of how I feel.’

I need to warn you that reading this book will not be a safe and static experience. After all, the cross isn’t about playing it safe; it’s about being found safe in Christ. (p. 9)

The voices of sanity were numerous, but sadly ignored. For example:

Lord Chatham: ‘You cannot, I venture to say it, you CANNOT conquer America’ (p. 215).

Charles Fox: Conquest of America was ‘in the nature of things absolutely impossible’ (p. 216).

Edward Gibbon: ‘The thinking friends of the Government are by no means sanguine’ (p. 215).

So why did the Brits persist? In a word, pride.

The British wall of superiority precluded knowledge and promoted fatal underestimation. Meeting it during the peace negotiations, John Adams wrote, ‘The pride and vanity of that nation is a disease; it is a delirium; it has been flattered and inflamed so long by themselves and others that it perverts everything.’ (p. 229).

It’s worth pausing for a moment to ask why such pragmatism is such a bad idea. In one sense, pragmatism per se is OK. It’s fine to do things that work. The problem lies with pragmatism as a guide to moral decisions, resting on the (often unstated) dichotomy between ends and means, which in turn relies on the assumption that ends are morally significant whereas means (in themselves) are not.

This dichotomy, together with the assumption that underlies it, are unbiblical because the Bible speaks with complete authority and sufficient clarity on all the moral aspects of every decision we ever face. To deny this is to imply that God has left us in the dark about moral issues that matter to him. It is an attempt to ‘fence off’ some areas of human existence from the lordship of Christ, to claim that there are large slices of our lives where we can do what we like, where our Creator can safely be ignored.

The Bible knows no moral distinction between ends and means. A sinful action can never be justified on the grounds that it was a means to some other end, however laudable that end might be. The Bible just says, ‘Don’t sin’, and that’s the end of it.

In practice, this kind of pragmatism rejects Scripture as a guide to conduct, replacing it with whatever-we-think-works. In effect, it is a form of traditionalism, for it allows the word of God to be displaced by human conventions, human experience and human wisdom. And Jesus had some pretty uncompromising things to say about that.

The world will no longer invade the vineyard; the vineyard will invade the world … Here at last will be the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3. (p. 113).

Membership of the international people ‘people of God’ comes with ‘the acknowledgement that salvation is found nowhere else than in the God is Israel (45:22)’, as we bow in worship before him (p. 115).

Such worship is not an escape from reality but a return to it, and it is in returning to reality that the world, so long out of joint, will finally be made whole (66:22-23). (p. 115)

That the British were invincibly uninformed – and stayed uninformed – about the people they insisted on ruling was a major problem of the imperial-colonial relationship. (Tuchman, March of Folly, p. 194)

For example, the infamous ‘Quebec Act’, which proposed to extend ‘Canada’s boundaries to the Ohio river, where Virginia and other colonies had territorial claims’ aroused the comment from Governor Johnstone that there appeared to be ‘a great disposition in this house to proceed in this business without knowing anything of the constitution of America’ (pp. 198-199).

More ominous than such simple ignorance of facts were the ignorant moral judgments routinely passed by influential British thinkers. Dr Samuel Johnson, for example, opined that the Americans were ‘a race of convicts and ought to be grateful for anything we allow them beyond hanging,’ and declared, ‘I am willing to love all mankind except an American’ (pp. 203, 213). Not an attitude calculated to engender respect for one’s leaders.

Even more destructive in practical terms was the British underestimate of the American fighting spirit. Most apparently shared Lord Sandwich’s view that the Americans were ‘raw undisciplined cowardly men,’ who would either ‘run away’ at the first sign of trouble or else ’starve themselves into compliance with our measures’ (p. 206). Perhaps that explains why Sandwich, as First Lord of the Admiralty, had ‘done nothing to prepare the navy … in fact, he had reduced its strength by 4000 men’ (p. 207). Well, what do you expect when the British government relied on this appointment process?

In the end, it fell to John Wesley to speak some sense:

From the reports of his preachers in America he knew that the colonists were not peasants ready to run at the first sight of a redcoat or the sound of a musket, but hardy frontiersmen fit for war. They would not be easily defeated. ‘No, my Lord, [he wrote to Lord Dartmouth] they are terribly united … For God’s sake,’ Wesley concluded, ‘Remember Rehoboam!’ (p. 207)

Aside from ‘fixation on personal gain’ and a false ‘illusion of permanence’ (pp. 125-126), one feature stands out above all others, namely ‘disregard of the movements and sentiments developing around them’ (p. 125).

In other words, they just weren’t listening.

They were deaf to disaffection, blind to the alternative ideas it gave rise to, blandly impervious to challenge, unconcerned by the dismay at their misconduct and the rising wrath at their misgovernment, fixed in refusal to change, almost stupidly stubborn in maintaining a corrupt existing system. (p. 126)

Sadly, these traits ‘are all independent of time and recurrent in governorship’ (p. 126).

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

One underlying cause can probably be identified as the process of parlimentary appointment. Far from being selected from the people, by the people, and for the people, Members of Parliament 250 years ago gained their seats in a similar manner to the papal officials of pre-Reformation Rome – largely on the basis of personal connection. It’s not what you know, but who you know.

British Ministers, says Tuchman,

knew each other from school and university, were related through chains of cousins, in-laws, stepparents and siblings of second and third marriages, married each other’s sisters, daughters and widows and consistently exchanged mistresses (a Mrs. Armstead served in that role to Lord George Germain, to his nephew the Duke of Dorset, to Lord Derby, to the Prince of Wales and to Charles James Fox, whom she eventually married), appointed each other to office and secured for each other places and pensions. (p. 134)

Hardly the way to guarantee a high calibre intake to a vocation wherein lay the power to decide the future of the nation.

The Old School Tie was apparently among the most significant passorts to political office:

Of some 27 persons who filled high office in the period 1760-80, twenty had attended either Eton or Westminster, went on either to Christ Church or Trinity College at Oxford or to Trinity or Kings at Cambridge, followed in most cases by the Grand Tour in Europe. (p. 134)

Blood may be thicker than water; but Pimms on the Isis or champage on the Cam is apparently thicker than either.

Sadly, Julius was ‘as oblivious as his three predecessors to the extent of disaffection in the constituency he governed’ (p. 92). He combined this myopia with a gritty determination to get to the top and fix the papal mess by whatever means necessary in order to pursue the reform which, in his view, the papacy so badly needed. After all, ‘virtue without power … will only be mocked’ (p. 103).

Unfortunately, as Julius discovered, the pursuit of good ends (let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, OK?) by corrupt means has a tendency to screw you up:

It is the persuasive argument of realpolitik, which, as history has so often demonstrated, has a corollary: that the process of gaining power employs means that degrade or brutalize the seeker, who wakes up to find that power has been possessed at the price of virtue – or moral purpose – lost. (p. 103)

Alexander was apparently a thoroughly competent administrator: ‘probably the ablest of the cardinals … there was nothing about the workings and opportunities of the papal bureaucracy that he did not grasp’ (p. 76). But competence is no substitute for godliness. The Dominican prior Girolama Savonarola protested loudly:

Popes and prelates speak against pride and ambition and they are plunged in it up to their ears. They preach chastity and keep mistresses, [making the church] a house of ill-fame … a prostitute who sits upon the throne of Solomon … whoever can pay enters and does what he wishes, but he who wishes for good is thrown out. (p. 83)

Eventually, Alexander was brought to his senses by the brutal murder of his son, Juan, whose body was found one morning floating in the Tiber. Resolved to reform the church and nation that had perpetrated such an outrage, he appointed a commission to curb the immorality of the clerical hierarchy.

The commission set to work, setting new rules for ‘greater restraint at table’, demanding that ‘musicians and actors’ were ‘to be replaced by reading of Holy Scriptures’, and that cardinals may no longer ‘employ miscellaneous “youths” as body servants’ (pp. 85-86).

However, perhaps realising that their own interests might be compromised by the reforms they were charged to enact, the members of the commission shrewdly added one final measure known to be close to the Popes own heart: ‘all concubines were to be dismissed within ten days of publication’ of their proposed report (p. 86).

Startled at the alarming notion that reform might, after all, begin at home, the Pope suddenly lost interest in cleansing the household of God.

The proposed Bull, In apostolicae sedis specula, was never issued and the subject of reform was dropped. (p. 86)

One prevailing lowlight was the apparent inability of many of the cardinals to realise that reform, not mere preservation of the old boys’ network, was the real need. Blind to the increasing unrest among street-level Catholics, the Popes were ‘elected out of the Sacred College, and in turn [appointed] cardinals of their own kind.’ Consequently,

Folly, in the form of absorption in shortsighted power struggles and perverse neglect of the Church’s real needs, became endemic, passed on like a torch from each of the Renaissance six to the next. (p. 70).

Thus an underlying feature of the papacy that made revolution a virtual necessity (since gradual reform was a virtual impossibility) was the existence of a ‘closed circle’ of ecclesiastical power-mongers, all with a vested interest in perpetuating the status quo.

Indeed, perhaps the most remarkable thing about this episode is the sheer dopiness of those Trojans who, despite the repeated, urgent pleas of (some of) their fellows, were apparently unable to believe what is blindingly obvious to every 8-year-old child who’s ever heard the story: this ‘horse’ was a Greek plot.

As an example of folly in government, then, the Trojan horse is not particularly subtle; rather, it’s the archetype of the raw stupidity of governmental folly. People – including people with considerable power – sometimes do the daftest things.

It’s not often you find such an insightful historical text written from a non-Christian perspective as Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly.

Folly, in Tuchman’s definition, is ‘the pursuit of policy contrary to the self-interest of the constituency or state involved’ (p. 5). Though many of her examples are drawn from follies at the national level, the principles are by no means restricted to this.

To qualify as folly, a policy must meet three further criteria (p. 5):

1. ‘It must have been perceived as counter-productive in its own time, not merely by hindsight’.

2. ‘A feasible alternative course of action must have been available.’

3. ‘The policy in question should be that of a group, not an individual ruler, and should persist beyond any one political lifetime.’

With that in place, Tuchman’s chapter 1 rumbles through a bewildering catalogue of political stupidity from King Rehoboam of Israel’s decision to increase the burden on his father’s workforce to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

Some highlights:

The peculiarity of the whole affair [Louis XIV's persecution of the Huguenots] was its needlessness, and this underlines two great characteristics of folly: it often does not spring from a great design, and its consequences are frequently a surprise. The folly lies in persisting thereafter. (p. 23)

A principle that emerges … is that folly is a child of power. We all know, from unending repetitions of Lord’s Acton’s dictum, that power corrupts. We are less aware that it breeds folly; that the power to command frequently causes failure to think; that the responsibility of power often fades as its exercise augments. (p. 32)

Misgovernment … qualifies as folly when it is a perverse persistence in a policy demonstrably unworkable or counter-productive. It seems almost superfluous to say that the present study stems from the ubiquity of this problem in our time.

Crystal clear, relentlessly logical, delightfully understated. How can anyone not love John Frame?

Scripture does not contain a definition of culture. (p. 854)

We use the term culture to describe anything that human beings work at to achieve. (p. 854)

We should make an important distinction between creation and culture. Creation is what God makes; culture is what we make. … Or, somewhat better: creation is what God makes by himself, and culture is what he makes through us. (p. 854)

Culture is not a creation, but something that God has commanded, or “mandated,” us to make. … (Gen. 1:28). … the “cultural mandate”. … This command governed everything Adam and Eve would do thereafter. It defines the very purpose of human life. (p. 854)

As we go back and look again at the various definitions of culture that people have offered, we can see that there is almost always a value element, a normative element. (p. 856)

Culture always involves evaluation, a common understanding, not only of what is, but also of what is good and right. (p. 857)

So now we can see how culture is related to religion. When we talk about values and ideals, we are talking about religion. … Culture and cult go together. (p. 858)

Every worldview, every philosophy, even if it professes to be nonreligious, has this totalitarian influence on human life, and, followed consistently, will dictate a certain kind of culture. Culture, therefore, is never religiously neutral. Everything in culture expresses and communicates a religious conviction; either faith in the true God or denial of him. (p. 858)

There are some kinds of goodness even in pagan culture. [These are products of] common grace, nonsaving grace. (p. 860)

The other source of goodness, of course, is God’s special grace, his work of saving the world through Christ. This work of God goes far beyond common grace. (p. 861)

Does God’s saving grace make an impact on culture? Certainly it does. When you believe in Jesus, your whole life changes direction … Whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, you seek to do it for God’s glory. (p. 861)

The gospel, you see, is not only a message for individuals, telling them how to avoid God’s wrath. It is also a message about a kingdom, a society, a new community, and new covenant, a new family, a new nation, a new way of life, and, therefore, a new culture. God calls us to build a city of God, a New Jerusalem. (p. 861-862)

But let’s be clear: such love feels unreasonable only because we are irrational. Distorted by sin, we’re perfectly capable of justifying even the most perverse sins. Only the transforming grace of Christ can empower us to think straight and see sin for what it really is.

The perverse nature of man, corrupt with sin, and destitute of God’s word and grace, thinketh it against all reason that a man should love his enemy; and hath many persuasions which bring him to the contrary. Against all which reasons we ought as well to set the teaching as the living of our Saviour Christ, who loving us when we were his enemies, doth teach us to love our enemies. (The First Book of Homilies, pp. 64-65)

And if we consider that he which hath offended us deserveth not to be forgiven of us, let us consider again that we much less deserve to be forgiven of God. (The First Book of Homilies, p. 65)

As St. John saith, ‘Hereby manifestly are known the children of God from the children of the devil; for whosoever doeth not love his brother belongeth not unto God’. (First Book of Homilies, p. 64, quoting 1 John 3:10)

He loved not only his friends, but also his enemies, which in their hearts bare exceeding great hatred against him, and with their tongues spake all evil of him, and in their acts and deeds pursued him with all their might and power, even unto death. (The First Book of Homilies, p. 63)

And forsomuch as almost every man maketh and frameth to himself charity after his own appetite; and, how detestable soever his life be both unto God and man, yet he persuaded himself still that he hath charity. Therefore ye shall hear now a true and plain description or setting forth of charity, not of men’s imagination, but of the very words and example of our Saviour Jesus Christ. (The First Book of Homilies, p. 61)

Accordingly:

Charity is also to love every man, good and evil, friend and foe, and whatsoever cause be given to the contrary. (The First Book of Homilies, p. 62)

What do you do?

Easy. You write a whole pile of Sermons, Appointed by the Queen’s Majesty, to be Declared and Read by all Parsons, Vicars, and Curates, every Sunday and Holiday in their Churches; and by her Grace’s Advice Perused and Overseen for the Better Understanding of the Simple People.

Enter, if you would, The First Book of Homilies (online version slightly different from my printed edition, but pretty close).

Here’s a taste from the ‘Sermon of Christian Love and Charity’.

Of all things that be good to be taught unto Christian people, there is nothing more necessary to be spoken of, and daily called upon, then charity. (The First Book of Homilies, p. 61)

A Jonah lurks in every Christian heart, whimpering his insidious message of smug prejudice, empty traditionalism, and exclusive solidarity. He that has ears to hear, let him hear and allow the saving love of God which has been outpoured in his own heart to remold his thinking and social orientation. (p. 235)

If you’re a parent, I ask you to consider carefully your influence on your children and your responsibility for them. What are your ambitions for them? … Are any of your ambitions for your child more important to you than their cultivation of humility and servanthood – the basis for true greatness as biblically defined? … Am I an example to my children of true greatness as defined in Scripture? … Here’s a recommendation: If you’re a parent, don’t celebrate anything else more than you celebrate godly character in your children … Let’s make sure we are highlighting that which really matters in the eyes of God. (pp. 157, 159, 160-161)

I admit, you may be intimately familiar with painful suffering to a degree that I personally can’t relate to, and if so, you might be saying, ‘Who are you to talk to me about suffering?’ … Here’s what Habakkuk learned: Those who know true joy in the midst of suffering are those who recognize that, in this life, our suffering is never as great or as serious as our sins. As Jonathan Edwards wrote, ‘How far less [are] the greatest afflictions that we meet with in this world … than we have deserved!’

Phillip Cary, Jonah (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible). Hilarious, insightful, glittering prose. Easy to read. Non-evangelical.

Douglas Stuart, Hosea-Jonah (Word Biblical Commentary). Solid, informative, though sometimes under-reads the subtlety of the text. Technical. Evangelical.

Where there’s worry, where there’s anxiousness, pride is at the root of it. When I am experiencing anxiety, the root issue is that I’m trying to be self-sufficient. I’m acting independent of God. What’s the solution? Humble yourself, God says. (Humility: True Greatness, p. 75)

Sin – including especially the sin of pride – is active, not passive. Sin doesn’t wake up tired, because it hasn’t been sleeping.

Consider your own life for just a moment. Where would you be today if He hadn’t ransomed you, if He hadn’t liberated you? I’ll tell you where. You would be self-sufficient, seeking to cultivate self-confidence for the purpose of self-glorification. (Humility: True Greatness, p. 58)

Spot on. So why do we regard self-sufficiency and self-confidence as virtues? Unbelievers live like that. Steer clear.

He’s plundered the spiritual Greats for great one-liners, like this one, from John Stott:

At every stage of our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend. (p. 29)

Or this, from John Calvin:

God cannot bear with seeing his glory appropriated by the creature in even the smallest degree, so intolerable to him is the sacrilegious arrogance of those who, by praising themselves, obscure his glory as far as they can. (p. 33)

Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. (James 3:13)

Listen to Thomas Manton:

Men of abstracted conceits and sublime speculations are but wise fools; like the lark, that soareth high, peering and peering, but falleth into the net of the fowler. (Thomas Manton, James, p. 299)