Scripture affirms that God is eternal and that his being is not determined by time (Isa. 41:4; Rev. 1:8; Ps. 90:2; 93:2, et. al.) or measured by time. Bavinck defends the Scriptural view against the twin rivals of Deism and pantheism which confuse the concepts of time and eternity as mathematical quantity and not as quality: “gradual, not essential.”  Deism’s own definition of eternity as time infinitely extended in two directions (past/future) is false, says Bavinck, because time serves for God’s existence. Pantheism asserts that eternity is the substantive cause of time which “pulls God down into the stream of time” (Spinoza) causing God’s existence.

Bavinck’s solution to these arguments rests mainly on Aquinas’ and Augustine’s response to Aristotle: the AAA for theological breakdowns. E.P. Heidemann observes that Bavinck sometimes relies too heavily (i.e. conveniently) on Thomas, or Aristotle.[1] Or in this case Augustine. “Time began with the creature” is a more reliable statement than vice versa: Time, whether intrinsic or extrinsic is something that can be measured and used to measure the duration of things in motion. Hence, concludes Augustine and Bavinck, there can be no time in God. Boethius (bk. V) is also brought in as supporting evidence, but, unfortunately for the reader, Bavinck does not (here) treat the Boethian problem that time violates God’s eternality (p. 163). This will eventually flare up into problems with divine foreknowledge and human freedom in Nelson Pike’s classic God and Timelessness and Paul Helm’s ample reply in Eternal God (ch. 6). For some, Bavinck’s discussion of time is out-dated but he does have the one thing that others do not.

God’s eternity is identical with his being and therefore regarded as the fullness and glory of his being. Bavinck does not often employ analogies anywhere in his work, and compared to older classical works e.g. Stephen Charnock, this keeps the discussion fresh and forward moving. Following Thomas’ analogy, God does not inhabit eternity like an idle person suffering from boredom, but like “a cheerful laborer, for whom time barely exists and days fly by.” There is difference between time and eternity but the distinction is a formal one assuming time is innate without self-existence and consciousness. God’s consciousness alone comprehends time, making time subservient to his eternal rule (1 Tim. 1:17).

The human experience of God’s wrath and love, guilt and forgiveness, presence and abandonment coupled with the texts that describe God as being, unchangeable in his own nature have lead to the doctrine of divine immutability. Following a careful exegesis of the divine name(s), Bavinck’s analysis of God’s incommunicable attributes of independence and immutability is harvested from Philo, Irenaeus and Augustine to Bernard, Anselm, and John of Damascus. The Open Theism controversy within the last decade – whose conceptual roots are aligned with ‘process’ theology rather than Arminianism (as is usually claimed within evangelical circles) would be no shock to Bavinck. For Bavinck the most serious challenge does not come within mainline orthodoxy but stems from “pantheistic criticism” from without.

For the orthodox Christian, Pantheism is like being stranded on an island facing a polar bear that over a few seasons vanishes from sight. Eventually the narrative of pantheism breaks down into a confusing labyrinth leading to vague conclusions and disappointment. We must, affirms Bavinck, rejoice in the light of scripture and hold fast the confessions.

Our knowledge of God, patterned after scripture, does not limit God because it is established in him: creation is revelation and scripture affirms it. Pantheism, argues Bavinck, cannot acknowledge God’s independence from the cosmos. They say personality and self-consciousness are contradictory in a boundless being. If so then God’s perfections is the power that holds everything together and directs the cosmic order. That’s not to say God’s power and disposition change with the wind but its close.

Christian theology holds that God’s absolute being is perfect, independent (aseity) and unchangeable – attributes included. If he changed he would diminish or, from an ecological point of view, deplete. Every creature is dependent but has “a distinct existence of its own” (cf. Ps. 24:1). Self-preservation and the free agency of humankind, argues Bavinck, is a weak analogy of God’s independence but proffers enough natural proof to confirm the aseity of God according to scripture. The name of God revealed to Moses (Ex. 3:6) affirms God’s independent immutable being is full of grace: what God was to the patriarchs he will be for his people forever. Pantheism can never arrive at a description of grace or special providence in the believer’s life. When free-will is the highest virtue illumination becomes elusive and nature can only provide so many clues. It’s like a TV show running in syndication. Reruns do not add additional insight: their contents are frozen, doomed to repeat the same scenario over and over. But within the church, the activity of theology and doxology come fresh insight and new strength from the one in whom we live, move, and have our being.

If theology has any object other than God for its starting point it loses its character. Bavinck has been saying this all along: the subjectivity of modern theology led to an untenable mysticism and pantheism that could not be supported by scripture or the confessions. Across the street from the Reformed, Rome has the view that grace compliments nature leaving Christ on the sidelines waiting to enter into the world and be useful. Other views are usually anthropocentric or create a dualism between God and the world that pushes him and his follower’s right out the door. This cloud is unknowing.

But God has revealed himself to humankind, argues Bavinck, sin notwithstanding. Grace has permeated the world (uniquely through Christ) and is sustained by the creator as easily as a potter shapes clay. The church is certain of this from scripture and her constant testing and validating scripture doctrine. So long as Christian dogmatics retains God as her main objective, the church will thrive in worship and in truth (Heb. 12:1-2).

Tie it all together and you have the bedrock underlying the problems between Pelagius and Augustine, Calvin and Pighius, works and imputed righteousness, repentance and participation, Christ and the world. What do you get for knowing God? Pursuing God? The answer is finding God and enjoying him, putting to bed the uncertainty that comes with not knowing if he’s ‘out there’ or finding him only in a brief moment of crisis or something like that. Put another way, pursuing God with the expectation of anything other than finding him is immediately off track and a recipe for disillusionment. What Bavinck is essentially saying is that the loss of objectivity in theology is the thing responsible for much of the confusion, disorganization and apathy that have plagued the modern era church. Yet for all that Bavinck is unmoved. God’s name and character have been revealed in scripture and testified to in nature. Next time we will undertake Bavinck’s exegesis of the Lord’s Name and a formidable challenge to the pursuit of God.

Gleason starts out with the pious background of the Bavinck family. The story centers predominantly on Herman’s father Jan and his pastoral vocation. Gleason’s sympathetic narrative reads like many classic evangelical biographies such as Iain Murray on Pink and Edwards or William Arnot’s Life of the Rev. James Hamilton. Gleason occasionally glosses over some detail with high praise for the strong ideals and values of the Bavincks ministry and home life but the ample footnotes keep the reader on task. Yet Gleason does not go entirely overboard either, presenting the differences between the HK and CRC in a fair and accurate light. Gleason’s ability to remain objective throughout when presenting sensitive issues such as Bavinck’s transition to Kampen, the Bavinck / Kuyper debate on presumptive regeneration and the fallout of the Groningen Synod (1899) is impressive.

Bavinck is all about balancing tensions and so is Gleason. One of the chapters that I felt personally closest to was Bavinck’s first and only pastorate at Franeker (Chapter 4). Bavinck faced all the dilemmas awaiting a young pastor: the work load, congregation politics, and faithfulness to scripture in a dry, positivist climate. According to Gleason, Franeker had a string of pastors that did virtually nothing to benefit the spiritual wellbeing of the congregation yet Bavinck handled his situation with remarkable grace and humility, which I found surprising.. Gleason’s depiction of Bavinck as scholar and pastor is well rounded and multi-dimensional; presenting a man of high principles and a guy you could have coffee with.

“Bavinck has been for me,” writes Gleason, “an inspiration and a challenge. His grasp of theology in all its dimensions, his thoroughness and fairness in dealing with those whom he did not agree … his architectural gift in perceiving doctrine in its correlation with the Christian view as a whole … are some of the excellencies that characterize his work throughout.” Gleason has certainly captured the character and career of this essential theologian in a rare non-stuffy, non-boring lucid biography. We highly recommend this book especially to young pastors and seminarians worried about the great divide between the academy and the church, evangelism and a gospel-centered family. Gleason’s book is available May 31, 2010 from P&R Publications. Pray for hardcover.

There are many names given for God across an array of folk and scientific thinking and experience. God does not need a name because there’s no comparison. Citing W. Robinson Smith’s classic work on Semitic religion, “the Semites loved to call God “Lord or King” because they felt completely dependent upon him; names were not used for philosophical theory but were relational. The revelation of the tetragrammaton to Israel proves that God is more than the “one who is.” He is the “Unchangeable One, (faithful), the eternally Self-consistent One, who never leaves or forsakes his people but always again seeks out and saves his own.” His grace, love, and assistance are unchanging because he is so in himself.

Next time we will look pause to consider what Bavinck is up to.

The space between pantheism and rationalism is a description of God as absolute personal being. “Absolute being, who alone has being in himself,” says Bavinck, is the best description of God and preferable above “personality, love, fatherhood and so forth, because it encompasses all of God’s attributes in an absolute sense.” Such a statement affirms God is perfect in wisdom, knowledge, holiness, love, and justice. According to pantheism, God loses distinction between himself and the cosmos. In rationalism God is often reduced to the ‘Y’ carried over in an equation. Neo-platonists sometimes switch between the masculine and neuter pronoun for God because he is a variable without definite character. If scripture is true, says Bavinck, Christian theology can discuss God’s being and attributes with certainty. The enormous problems and questions Bavinck raises here on knowing God is the stuff of personal growth. Next time we will explore Bavinck’s analysis on the Scripture names for God and their interpretation within and without Christian dogmatics.

Karl Barth said that “back to,” is not a good slogan for dogmatics. All science must move forward. Problem is how to do it in a positive climate that rejects all metaphysical investigation. The rationalism in favor of innate ideas confuses the light of reason with revelation. We have potential to grow in knowledge (all of which is mediate) but the concepts themselves are not innate. Granted, argues Bavinck, things are grasped because they are apprehended only in God (Malebranche) and in the soul by recollection (Plato). Natural theology cannot equal ‘revealed’ religion (illumination/inspiration) because it’s a reflection of the work of God in creation: if it’s natural it cannot be the product of human reason. In that limited sense the world does not take us away from God but leads us to him.

Bavinck’s analysis is dense but his ability to navigate wildly competitive views of is profound. If God’s incomprehensibility without the Church leans towards pantheism; within the Church an overemphasis on contemplation assumes the highest value as authentic religious experience. For Bavinck the priority on the inner life leads to mysticism and withdrawal from the world. Yet when Christians perform theology they are rooted firmly in the understanding that God’s essence is unknowable and that all figures of speech borrowed from experience speaks to higher things (John of Damascus). Next week Bavinck begins his investigation into the names of God.

Theology since scholasticism lost the impact of God’s incomprehensibility. Philosophy took it up especially in the thinking of Kant and Hegel. For Kant, God’s being is lost in the critique of pure reason because, “the soul, the world, and God cannot be objectively demonstrated.” Attributing intellect and will to God is “practical knowledge” but adds nothing to the volume of human science. Hegel attempted to strip the concept of God from all sense-related forms but ran aground in the claim that, “a sense-related representation could never be overcome in the idea of God and therefore (Hegel) ended up in atheism.” Atheism usually retreats to agnosticism, says Bavinck, because Hegel reasoned that “our God-consciousness is nothing other than God’s self-consciousness. God exists to the extent that he is known by us.” Man, the measure of all things infinite. So what’s the solution?

Bavinck suggests that negative predicates (“God is unknowable, beyond comprehension, etc.) carry real weight but they “prove too much.” The world is, after all, knowable and positive predicates of God’s character and personality are grounded in revelation. Can Christians ascribe to God a personality and maintain that he is absolute? Bavinck says yes, “Our knowledge does not limit God because 1. It is grounded in him, 2. Can only exist through him,” and if absoluteness of God’s being (according to pantheism/rationalism) precludes all limitation, “it is equally wrong (for rationalism) to call him absolute, unity, good, and essential being.” God’s self-consciousness is as deep and rich as his being, meaning that his self-consciousness is not dependent on non-being or the competent grasp of finite beings to maintain existence. Mystery is not the same as ‘self-contradiction.’

The trick here is to illustrate what Bavinck is saying without using an unhelpful analogy. Suppose that agnosticism is saying, ‘Look. You theologians are giving God a personality which you can’t do anymore than you can give a personality to gravity or math.’ But [Reformed] theology is not ascribing personality to God in the same way personality is applied socially to other humans. We are not looking at God’s personality the same way we look at and admire a good actor who’s played the hero, the villain, and the comic relief. It’s like saying God has to be famous to exist. But this would mean God’s celebrity has to fit the mold of celebrity culture which drags God down to the level of finite being. The tension here between faith and rationalism is very important because it’s about redirecting the love of the creature to the love of God. Next week Bavinck tackles the problem of innate ideas and the faint notions of greater things.

The greatest dangers to theology are words and a devaluation of mystery. If theology becomes an exercise of rhetoric or replaces its objective vision (revelation) for the subjective impression (positivism) theology degenerates into anthropology (Fichte). The evolutionary theory in Bavinck’s day, for example, held that YHWH was a Hittite mountain God adopted by the Hebrews and localized on Mt. Sinai. But God is represented as the Creator (Gen. 2:4b) and “descends” from heaven at the scene of Babel (Gen. 11:5, 7) and “accompanies” Abraham and Jacob on their journeys. Point is, concludes Bavinck, that Old Testament revelation is preparatory, external in nature, “it does indeed furnish true and reliable knowledge of God, but not a knowledge that exhaustively corresponds to his being.” Signs of his presence are darkness (Ex. 20:21; Deut. 4:11; 5:22; 1 Kg. 8:12; 2 Chron. 6:1) possibly to show that natural light does not represent his brilliance.

Who is lost in the cloud of unknowing? From Plotinus to Erigena negative expressions of God’s being are more accurate though less satisfying. Scholasticism expressed God’s attributes in great detail but lost incomprehensibility in the shuffle. The Lutheran and Reformed, says Bavinck, lost sight of the significance of the doctrine yet the Remonstrant/Socinian wing did much worse, “Eternal life, they maintained [Rationalism/Socinianism] does not consist of knowing God but in doing his will.” Who God is becomes unimportant.

Next week we will look at Bavinck’s analysis of God’s incomprehensibility in the shift from theology to philosophy.

The tensions between modern life’s this-world scientific orientation and the pietistic other-worldly contemplation was a concern Bavinck was a pains to address. These two worldviews have inherent dangers to genuine faith; the former slips easily into asceticism and solitude while the other degenerates into, “cold Pelagianism and unfeeling moralism.” These issues, warns Bavinck, directly affect worship and the quality of religious life for those around us.

Bavinck writes with the conviction that God has certainly spoken and revealed himself to the creation from within and without. This is no mere academic exercise: God’s revelation is personal, inviting faith and communion with him through Christ and the Spirit. Our series continues with Bavinck’s view of God’s incomprehensibility right here, next week.

So if we get ten positive  responses from those interested in more Herman Bavinck we will bring back the series. Please post “yes” to the comment field on this post between now and Friday for continued articles on Bavinck’s Doctrine of God (vol. 2). Cheers

When the economy took a nose dive early last year so did we. I found myself out of work and our future plans decidedly uncertain. You can see where this is going. One of the greatest things about Christianity is its hope and encouragement when things look bleak. And it’s far too easy to criticize the message of the Gospel as a ‘hope for the best’ pat answer when life doesn’t go your way. This is a little different. The question I was facing was not so much ‘why is God putting me through this rough patch’ but rather, ‘do I really know what it means that God has spoken, sin notwithstanding?’ I began comparing my circumstances and my faith like so many believing Christians to “find God” somewhere in the mix. The meaning of ‘find God’ was what most professing Christians usually mean in the broad sense: finding the way out of the rough and striding on down the fairway. But I found something a little different.

For the true Christian, writes Bavinck, faith precedes certainty. Faith is never a shot in the dark. Faith is not irrational or random, or floating around in the air. One must first say ‘I believe’ before they can say ‘I understand.’ The object of faith is God: Knowing God as God. How is Bavinck so confident of this? so dogmatic about it? God’s revelation has permeated the world as deeply and as far reaching as sin has marred and obscured it. In other words the question for Bavinck is never ‘does God exist?’ but rather, ‘what is my relationship to him?’

I had wrestled with these questions in the classroom and now I was wrestling with them at home, at church, in the market place, and in my heart of hearts as well. Was I praying for deliverance for the sake of my career and place in the world, or was I praying to know God the redeemer and truly find his character in my actions and my attitude? Bavinck says true faith is always tested. Psalm 107 confirms it.

The contrast with faith and certainty is not always reason and ambiguity. These short meditations over the last attempted to cover a lot of the core content in Bavinck’s theology in the areas of faith, certainty, scripture, forgiveness of sin in Christ, and growth in faith and praise to God. I hope that in many ways the content of these articles last year was not the result of an intellectual exercise for its own sake, but is deeply concerned with contrasts: the contrast of faith and action, belief and understanding, theology and doxology, the stuff of life (Eph. 2:10).

One of the most uncomfortable thoughts for believer and non-believer alike is the possibility that regeneration could take place without one’s knowing it. Or perhaps one’s approval. Those absolutely terrified at the thought described regeneration was obtained mainly though knowledge and mysteries. These mysteries, according to Gnosticism, are a threefold baptism of the elements that protected from evil spirits and even made one a partaker in the divine nature. Neoplatonism also “cut all earthly ties” in striving to achieve contemplation: the soul becomes one with God through illumination. Bavinck wrote at a time when psychology attempted to solve these problems with the riddles of the unconscious. That realm was full of deep impressions, experiences, powers, hidden forces and so on. Once this power was tapped a superhuman potential was unleashed transforming the consciousness.

The problem, says Bavinck, is that these views cannot get into the inner nature of regeneration from an unbiased scientific view. It is always religious and cannot help to have presuppositions of one kind or another which guides its investigation. Dogmatics, similarly, uses confessional language to describe the concepts found in divine revelation. The change in the conscience is often called ‘regeneration’ after a profession of faith. Sometimes regeneration is automatically connected to justification and in the progress of sanctification is understood as repentance and renewal. Essentially, says Bavinck, regeneration is an ethical change brought about by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; it does not change the physical makeup of the human (theosis) but occurs between the heart and the intellect (Calvin).

One cannot begin soteriology with regeneration. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the covenant of grace, the church, means of grace, and external rule of Christ must be treated first. “For if regeneration were objectively detached from the Word,” writes Bavinck, “one would not only no longer be able to make any judgments about the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit, but might also draw the obvious conclusion that actually Christ’s person and work are not necessary to salvation, and that God may equally well regenerate the sinner aside from Christ by the Holy Spirit alone.”

The Holy Spirit is the cause of regeneration. He is not the instrument, say as a pen, but he is the author, say as the creator of the concept and the reality. The Gospel is preached and offered to human beings not as ‘elect’ or ‘reprobate’ but as ‘sinners’. This creates many conceptual problems which are not intellectual mind-games, but genuinely impact the quality of an individual’s faith in the life of the church body (or community). Bavinck’s treatment of the doctrinal development of baptism on this point is well worth consulting, especially as baptism physically represents all these issues in one tub.

There is more to life and salvation than just a Pelagian antithesis to saved by grace alone. In modern culture, perhaps in post-modernity as well, there will always be the notion that salvation, strictly speaking, is cultural improvement and social redemption. Self-aware spirituality is in many ways the height of being whereas Bavinck and the reformed see it as the minimal qualification defining a human being. Bavinck’s quote with a citation from Euken deserves to be presented in full:

When Christianity acts as a religion of redemption, it by implication assumes the existence of a sharp contrast between what humans are and what they ought to be. It expresses their inability to reach the summit by gradual self-improvement, and proclaims a transformation by elevation by an immediate intervention of the divine [Holy Spirit]. And this is confirmed by the general experience of the spiritual life. For it shows, “how the Spiritual Life is unable to find its necessary self-reliance in the world of ordinary experience; we have seen a breach between genuine spirituality and the world taking place; and we have seen how the effects of all this … toil in vain without an inner elevation through the energy of an absolute life.”

The New Testament presentation of rebirth and resurrection is summed up in hope. Bavinck writes, “Hope characterizes [the believer’s] whole lifestyle … it is not a static possession, but living, active, and strong.” Baptism represents faith and renewal of the inner-person as conducted by the person of the Holy Spirit. There is a new perspective in the believer: they walk in newness of life obtaining justification, adoption, and gain the assurance of adoption through the witness of the Spirit (Rom. 8:15-16; Gal. 4:6; 2 Cor. 1:22). Rebirth has less of a connection to calling in John than found in Paul. In John’s Gospel, rebirth is a work of the Father, “who gave his own to Christ … even before his incarnation.” Christ was, after all, the Logos though not everyone recognized him or received him (John 1:5, 9-11). Now, if regeneration is a response to a call -a receiving of faith from God- and not a ‘work’ performed to merit eternal life, how does that work?

I believe, help me in my unbelief

The sinful will of humans is responsible for unbelief. Pelagianism does not work in practice, nor any similar view that ascribes the final cause of salvation to the human will; it introduces grace merely as the restoration of volitional choice. Unless the right choice is made there is no salvation for that person: one minute they are capable, the next minute they are not. And it’s more exclusionary than one would imagine. To say that salvation consists in the choosing excludes infants who die prematurely. From the perspective of the congregation, the interest of faith (choice) rests entirely in the competency of the minister to present the gospel. What if, one Lord’s Day, at the critical moment the message of the gospel was bungled and the meaning confused? The chance to choose was lost. So it is far better and correct to say that God grants his grace freely to sinners he chooses out of his holiness, mercy, and infinite wisdom. I am willing, said our savior, be cleansed, is the gracious attitude of the New Testament.

Sin had disrupted the world and wrecked havoc but humankind continued to exist. We owe it to the ‘external call’ of the law (vocatio realis), says Bavinck, that families, society, religion, arts and sciences have kept the human race from sinking into utter self-annihilation. But in terms of real salvation and divine calling, a calling unto fellowship in life eternal, this is only the bare minimum. The world, says John, did not know the Logos nor did it receive Christ (John 1:3, 10). The Gospel call (vocatio verbalis) of Christ does not cancel out the law mediated by nature and history but transcends it. How, you ask Bavinck? The Gospel is an invitation to faith in the grace of God, not an invitation to obedience to the law but is fully is accompanied by the witness of the Holy Spirit at work in the members of the church.

The tensions between law and gospel, faith and reason, accepting and rejecting, works, righteousness and so on will always be with us. On the broad spectrum between Reformed and Universalists one thing is certain: “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.” The trick, says Bavinck, is how to turn that faith into a reality. A problem is immediately raised once the God-appointed order becomes reinterpreted or flipped: preach a message that faith is produced in the choosing (created through human activity) and the gospel looses its certainty and definite character. Christ made salvation possible for anyone but not actual for no one. The imperative of salvation sinks to a moral example. Either God gives his grace or it evolves out of a long process of keeping rules and morals.

Can a pastor tell a dying man he has all the time in the world to believe in God’s grace? On the other hand not everyone accepts the message of the cross but rather reject it. Our next post will examine this willingness or unwillingness to faith in Bavinck’s masterful treatment.

The one thing biblical theology is sure of is, “The Triune God produces all things in creation and new creation by his Word and Spirit.” The puzzler is how the call to faith has not achieved universal results. The outcome is in God’s hands, says Bavinck, which is not to say salvation is random or exclusivist. Far from it. The Gospel is delivered to sinners, not the ‘elect’ or ‘reprobate.’ When a person acknowledges the mystery of God’s will in salvation they gain insight into God’s glory. And like all spiritual knowledge, it must be given of God.

Soteriology has as many intellectual problems as the doctrines of the Trinity and two-natures of Christ. Regeneration proceeds faith is the correct explanation, but there are ethical considerations. For one, overemphasis on regeneration can lead people to feel uncertain about their faith. Infant baptism, for another, could be a presumption if personal faith takes priority. Arminian based views assuming that some grace is given to motivate the human will, or that the will can ascent to faith in God, ultimately deem the concept or regeneration unnecessary. This is a dangerous position in the modern era, says Bavinck, where concepts of moral empowerment gradually evolve from improved human character assume the meaning of ‘renewal’ and ‘rebirth.’ It sounds appealing, but it reduces God’s glory and sovereignty into the elephant in the room.

These theological problems are not intellectual fodder but go directly to faith as the principle of renewed life. For Bavinck, such theological assumptions affect the life of faith, and the quality of that life in direct, intimate communion with God in the Spirit. The mystery of God’s prerogative in salvation is as sticky as freedom, liberty and love. God’s grace is irresistible but is not coercive. It frees from the power of sin and it is created in love.

The theoretical knowledge of a doctor is doubtlessly very important, but his worth and the worth of his science only comes into its own when he heals people. Similarly, theology must prescribe medicine for the ailments of the soul. It must be able to say how and in what way we can be freed from our guilt, reconciled to God, attain to patience and hope amidst life’s tribulations, and find reason to sing praises in the face of death. A  theology that does not concern itself with these things and only dedicates itself to critical and historical studies is not worthy of the name theology. And a theologian who is acquianted with all the latest issues of science but who stands speechless at a sickbed and knows no answer to the questions of the lost sinner’s heart isn’t worthy of his title and office.

After studying the sacrifices of the Old Testament one might wonder if more ink has been spilled on the topic than blood. Christ’s sacrifice was puzzled over from Irenaeus to Anselm, and especially with the latter, no one followed without revision. The great theme behind the OT sacrifices is mercy. The sacrifices did not cover the whole of life, says Bavinck, they only served as a reminder of sin and typologically pointed to another, better sacrifice. How so? The Prophets (and those speaking in a prophetic spirit) teach the spiritual nature of sacrifice (1 Sam. 15:22; Hos. 6:6) and promise the Messiah (Ps. 110; Jer. 23:6). Prophetic testimony, in the estimation of the New Testament, prescribes the Messiah’s human nature, humiliation, sufferings, and the priesthood in Christ’s sacrifice: the Old Covenant is fulfilled in him.

The New Testament’s view of Christ’s humiliation is multifaceted. He is, “the law and the gospel in his own person.” Christ is the message himself, “not inspiration, but incarnation.” God didn’t speak to Christ as with Moses, says Bavinck, but spoke through him. Christ paid a ransom as the paschal lamb; he was the means of the expiation of sin, a sacrifice of atonement, and the ‘curse’ which removed the curse of the law. Supposing Christ’s active and passive obedience to God in his humiliation, together with the testimonies of the law and gospel uniting in his person, it stands to reason that his substitutionary life and death produced complete redemption: thus unifying the Church body to the head. It has. But not without a wrinkle.

There is a long standing tradition in Christian theology that pitches the law against the gospel as bi-polar opposites. The God of love is virtually wholly other next to the God of justice. These Marconian views have always been rejected for splitting the unifying concept of salvation from sin and from the punishment of sin via the law. Modern theology’s divinization of humans (Hegel) and the attaining the God-consciousness of Christ (Schleiermacher) is not far off, insisting that Christ’s obedience and faithfulness maintained perfect communion with God and not by vicarious atonement. When the law and gospel are split religious certainty maintained by distinction is lost in the muddle of pantheism. Accordingly, the “not-yet-being” of humanity progresses toward becoming divine with the Father’s ‘automatic’ forgiveness for those who attempt (with utter seriousness) to live up to the moral ideals of religion. Bavinck’s response is simply magnificent:

“If sin does not deserve punishment, there is no grace either. In fact, there is no need for forgiveness at all. God wills that we love him and his law, even apart from sin, as the norm of our lives.”

There are many views concerning Christ’s testimony, person, and work. Most of them have a core of truth, unless they marginalize the value of the incarnation and the atonement. And we must be weary, Bavinck would say, of those who assume the filthy rags of human righteousness can be changed for a garment of light on extended credit.