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.

There is a deep human need for redemption from sin and misery. Writing at the time of the industrial revolution, Bavinck notes that one of the greatest riddles of life is that it becomes shallow for all the cultural benefits streaming from civilization. The same can be said in the wake of a global recession. This is why there has always been religion. The needs of the human heart are greater than what culture can provide. It’s what sent Alexander the Great across Persia and subprime lenders on a similar campaign. All to say there is a wide array of civil and natural evils in the world which science and technology simply cannot hope to solve. As a general starting point, its safe to say that all ancient cultures and primitive peoples addressed the ‘problem of evil’ and the ‘possibility of redemption’ from evil and its affects through keeping laws, ‘divine’ commandments, golden rules and ratios, and above all: sacrifice.

Sacrifice is a universal phenomenon in religions of the world. Sacrifice is a religious act, “in which a person offers a material gift to the deity and destroys it in the service of that deity in order to secure that deity’s favor.” There are plenty of theories as to the origin and meaning of sacrifices. One theory explains that gifts offered to the gods were expiation. A second theory explains sacrifices were tokens of reverence and submission. The mystical-sacrificial theory (sacramental) is closer to primitive beliefs: the meat (and blood) of the sacrifice is ingested filling the participant with the moral and physical properties of the victim, simultaneously bringing in divine favor. There are millions of rites and customs to this effect; the ancient Aztecs wore the skins of their human victims, the Hebrews sprinkled lamb’s blood on the doorposts to save from destruction. The point is, says Bavinck, the idea of sacrifice is the link between religion and the hope for successful cultural activity.

Turing to the Scriptural data raises more questions about the origin of sacrifice than it does solutions. Were there sacrifices prior to the fall? Some like Augustine believe there were and Bavinck agrees. Yet sin changed the nature of sacrifice to the degree that it added an expiatory dimension previously unknown. Further, before being entirely corrupted, sin also established an impression that gratitude and reverence cannot be achieved without atoning for guilt and fear. Somewhere in its long history there arose a special ‘priest-class’ of persons designated to mediate between the people and the deity. As we will see, this special development will ultimately rest in the person and work of Christ who alone fulfilled universal ritual atonement. Now that’s progress.

The Old Testament anticipated the Messiah’s anointing of the Holy Spirit would be very unique (Isa. 61:1). Christ received the Spirit at baptism (without measure); the Spirit led him into the wilderness; gave him powers over spiritual authorities; and glorified his resurrected body (Rom. 1:4). He ascended into heaven, “to manifest himself to his own as life-giving Spirit who is the Spirit and who works by the Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17-19).” This goes to the virgin birth, says Bavinck, for it is not miracle enough to be born of a virgin: it doesn’t prove sinlessness. Christ is not a product of humankind, but sent to humankind. He remained exempt from original sin by the conception of the Spirit, so he was truly the Son of the Father and not a natural descendant from Adam. The great riddle of the Testaments, the Messiah is both David’s son and lord, is solved in Joseph. Joseph is civilly and legally Jesus’ father who was able to contribute the right and titles of David’s pedigree. The conception by the Holy Spirit helps to explain Christ’s sinlessness. But the real beauty is that it was the only way, “in which he who already existed as a person and was appointed head of a new covenant could now also be born in a human way … and remain who he is: the Christ, Son of the Most High” (Polanus).

Bavinck is very adverse to any view remotely connected to pantheism. He sees it in the wings of the modernist movements that make any division between the perfect unity of Christ’s natures, and the unity between the Churches confessions and Pauline theology. Scripture does not exactly speak the language of “later theology” but Pauline Christology is certainly the mainline to the foundational statements of John 1. At the base of pantheism is Gnostic or other similar views* with a dualism pitching spiritual and natural against one another. The vast distinctions are virtually endless and equally subtle. Point is, says Bavinck, you can never have a true unity between human and divine (or scripture and theology) if God is not allowed to become truly human. Pantheism preaches that you have to lose yourself, lose your identity, and dissolve into “the oneness of the All.” Its incarnation in reverse: the divine (Logos) cannot completely fill one human being. Ergo the whole human race is the Christ. Divinity is humanity viewed from above, in this case, and becoming God is something that everyone potentially evolves into. What about sin? It’s a necessity due to the deficiency of matter and time. Hence the shift in emphasis on Christ’s divinity, not deity; Christ’s unity in God then is reinterpreted and understood in a moral sense of fulfilling God’s will and teaching others. Bavinck says it amounts to prototypical humanity and an ectype of divinity: a mere appearance and not the reality Scripture posits.

For Bavinck and the Reformed, this is all works itself into the language of self-improvement, salvation through education and social-redemption. Not to discount any good coming from it but as a view of salvation the divine and human never really connect. It’s like treating God as a policeman in your rearview mirror; you see him pass by and slow down, muttering, ‘yeah, yeah, I see you,’ and then off you go. The scriptural idea of redemption is completely undermined. But the Lord knows those who are his (2 Tim. 2:19). Assuming we know who he is, says Bavinck, we can proceed next to understand what he does.**
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* Cf. Apollonarianism, Arianism, Cabbalism, Marcionianism, Neo-Platonism, Nestorianism – through to Hegel, Kant, and Schleiermacher: Bavinck’s command of the literature is masterful.
** Be sure to catch our twin series on Wilhelmus á Brakel as a devotionally driven supplement to the rigors of dogmatic inquiry. It can also be viewed here .

The doctrine of Christ is the center of dogmatics. Bavinck’s view of the Christological field is magisterial. The results are, that most all Christological issues stem from the problem articulating the divine/human nature of Christ.* But there is certainty backing the church’s creedal statements: God himself had come in and taken humanity into fellowship with himself. While the early church worked to formulate an understanding of Christ’s deity, it was always assumed that Christ is the content of Christianity, not a mere figurehead. Christ has been idealized and expressed in a variety of ways: the Christ of ascetics (De Wette); the symbolic Christ (Kant); the ideal Christ (Hegel); the moral (rationalism). However much his humanity or historicity is idealized in these varied expressions, says Bavinck, they presuppose Christ as a human personality only, not the object of faith. Old Thomas Goodwin (1600 – 1680) spoke to the point when he said, “This is as much to praise a dead benefactor for a trust fund.” There is no real (or potential) relationship with the living God in an expression that assumes Christ’s divinity in any other sense than his “characteristic essence.” In other words, the title of “God incarnate” can be formality used from an inverse perspective as e.g. Julius Caesar when he assumed the title of Jupiter, Bertrand Russell’s first impressions of Wittgenstein, all the way down to Nelson Pike’s cat. It gets worse.

The Christology of Protestantism (the infinite cannot occupy the finite) defends Christ’s eternal person from the pantheistic mixing of creator-creature in mysticism and the Romanist deification of the human being (veneration) as well. Why is it so ridiculous, asks Bavinck, for God to become incarnate, but humans can elevate themselves and others to the rank and dignity of the deity? Once this question is dropped, all eyes fall on the Virgin Mary, theotokos, the mother of God. She deserves the honor as God’s elect, chosen to bring the savior into the world. But the efficient cause is the Holy Spirit. This special union does not stop after forming Christ’s human nature; the process of sanctification continues to glorification. What’s at stake here? Bavinck thinks that any Christology that does not maintain the supernatural birth of Christ, or destroys the personality of either the human or divine (pantheism) eventually leads to a view of the indwelling of the Spirit as a temporary, superficial, occasional ecstasy rendering the true Image of God in human beings impossible. Again, a confusion of the divine and human lends itself to deification and a loss of personality; a reductionist split in the historical Christ, and a misunderstanding of Christ’s sinlessness. It’s all a recipe for legalism. What is born of flesh is flesh (Rom. 1:3; 9:5) and Christ received the Spirit without measure. If the person of Christ did not assume the flesh, then one may well conclude with Paul that we are spiritually dead to the life of God, and we can assume the divine and the earthly will never attain communion.

Well, says Bavinck, we need to do some accepting. Either dogmatics upholds Chalcedon and accepts the expressions of Christology, as they affirm and articulate those of the early church, established according to the New Testament, or we run wild in the streets.

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* See our last post ‘Experience Necessary’ also Bavinck vol. 1: ch. 3 [42].

The incarnation of Christ has been a debate since the apostolic era. The subject is endless due to its very premise: the infinite God of the universe became a finite human being, how? Scholastics following John of Damascus attribute the divine nature occupying the human as heat does iron: it animates the human nature allowing it to participate in divine wisdom, power and glory. Lutherans differ a little, but the Reformed are looking to something with a more consistent explanation.

The unity of Christ’s divine and human nature is maintained rigorously, Bavinck adds, by the rule, “the finite is not capable of [containing] the infinite.” This explains the purely human development of Christ and a real distinction between his humiliation and exaltation. Accordingly, this explanation of the incarnation never falls back on the problem of the divine nature which tends to suffer the most risk in the mind as unbelievable. Between Gnostics, Neo-Platonists, Arians, and Chalcedon, many good people suffered from the how-did-he game: If he’s God (starts every question) how did he get tired and hungry? How did he suffer and die? How did he perform miracles? It’s a road to nowhere. So the Reformed stressed that it was the person of the Son who became flesh- not the substance [the underlying reality] but the subsistence [the particular being] of the Son assumed human nature. This idea of Christ, though with a sharper distinction between the natures, is unalterable, yet the “conscious personal life of Christ” stands out in its brightest and most glorious hues. There is however a problem.

Not everyone appreciates the boundaries of the Chalcedon symbol. There were other traditions that followed the mess of folk religion under the umbrella term Gnosticism, and the ‘old Ebionitism’ which inform everything from mysticism to rationalism. Bavinck’s analysis of modern Christology advanced by Kant, Schleiermacher, and Ritschl speaks right into the latest chapters of the quest for the historical Jesus, the new perspective on Paul, and the postmodern fall out of ethical metanarratives in history. Add the credit crisis and you have everything. But we are concerned with Christ. If he is an ordinary person only, who nonetheless founded the kingdom as the highest form of ethical teaching in history, the kingdom is then a moral experience and a personal experience started by Christ’s amazing knowledge of God (Harnack). Worse than a kind of Christianity on autopilot, it created a (false) dichotomy between the historical and apostolic Christ, leading people down a reductionist path to a mere human being.

Supposing it’s all a works-based righteousness it would be false to pray, ‘Thine is the kingdom.’ Christ’s teaching and not his person become the kingdom, and is subject to the subjects. It strips away New Testament unity, the resurrection, his mediatorial office, and ends in a variety of religious feelings. Some say, that’s it! But for the moment we will pause again before Bavinck explains the centrality of the incarnation in reformed dogmatics.

Bavinck’s analysis of the covenant of grace is quite moving. He stops several times to marvel at the beauty, the continuity, and it’s hard not to get choked up with him. So far Bavinck has mapped out the groundwork needed to be done by a mediator to God on man’s behalf: guarantee an incalculable debt of moral righteousness to the sovereign, restore the old covenant promises (life, eternal life), and pay for it all with an impeccable life and death. Of all the applicants for the position of God’s gift to humanity, there is only one man right for the job.

The doctrine of Christ is central for dogmatics, writes Bavinck, and it has its foundation and presupposition in the Trinitarian being of God. The Trinity makes it possible for the existence of a mediator who participates in the divine and human nature. A divine mediator is nothing new to world religion or popular culture from Gilgamesh to Neo. When Bavinck was writing nearly a century ago, he argued that an exclusive ‘history of religions’ approach overlooks the election of Abraham – the distinction that marks off Israel’s covenant relationship with God that eventually saw the Messiah into the world. The oversight results in looking around at various cultural myths of messianic figures. Bavinck argues this is the modernist way of kicking around the original literary form of Christ’s body from one culture to the next like a football. He’s right. Postmoderns do the same thing when they read the Old Testament descriptively rather than prescriptively.* Where did the idea for a divine mediator originate? The Medes? Assyria? Ancient Babylonia? Israel? The goal of dogmatics is to maintain the universal need for a mediator as self-evident. The rest, so to speak, is up to God.

Universal expectation of a savior leads in two directions: a high and a low road. Messianic fulfillment is usually always tied to (or backloaded with) the political aspirations of the culture. Apocryphal and other parabiblical literature anticipates political redemption well into the Pharisaical age. The low road has more to do with a religious-ethical dominion which in contrast with the former is usually dismissed as unrealistic. Some of this is deserved. There are those who have maintained a certain extreme theological anticipation of the otherworldly Kingdom of God, only to cast the spirituality of the Kingdom in the most material terms possible. How would the twenty-four elders legislate sanitation to keep the streets golden? But Christ did indeed usher in a kingdom based on the covenant made with Israel in Abraham which the Law did not supersede. The kingdom is not spiritual only, nor material only: “The Kingdom of God is the sum of all spiritual and natural benefits. It simultaneously brings repentance and return.” Therefore, says Bavinck, it is present in a religious-ethical sense; it is coming in an eschatological sense.

It’s interesting to see where Bavinck places his discussion of the Kingdom of God. He places it between the waning of OT prophecy, and the incarnation. It’s encouraging to see it considered as antecedent to the incarnation and not shoved at the end after anthropology, soteriology, and ecclesiology have been exhausted. To be continued.

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*See Bruce Watlke’s introduction to Genesis, A Commentary (Zondervan: 2005). Cf. also Walter Bruggerman’s Theology of the Old Testament (Fortress Press, 2004).

The best of all free advice in the world is always read the fine print before signing . This has saved many from the pitfalls and headaches of purchasing everything from lemons to credit. Many not most. But with the Covenant of Grace one should pay special attention to the details for a different reason. There are more blessings and benefits in the details than one might expect. How many? How much? Bavinck himself would say you won’t believe the price .

The cost of human redemption from the divine perspective is incalculable. “He sent his only Son” has been preached, recited, and sung in many churches the world over. But what does it mean? For Bavinck and the Reformed, it means that the covenant of grace made with Adam, Abraham, Moses and David was fully accomplished in Christ. God did not start over from scratch or cook up a whole new arrangement when the covenant of works was broken: he is unchangeable. With the entrance of sin, the breaking of God’s word, humankind could not repay the moral debt due to God. Nor is this debt simply canceled. In fact it is doubled. Bavinck says that after the fall God laid a ‘double claim’ of satisfaction and obedience upon humanity: repayment for evil and perfect obedience to the law. The moral debt owed to God does not expire after death. These imposing conditions of the law can never ultimately be fulfilled for a variety of reasons with enmity towards God at the top of the list. When asked what the most powerful force in the universe Einstein answered compound interest . This is more.

The key difference, says Bavinck, between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace is that the ‘double demand’ is not charged to humanity in Adam, but to humanity in Christ. This is essentially the only architectural difference. There is ample New Testament evidence yet Bavinck cites Galatians 3:16-18 as the most signal reference demonstrating the Abrahamic covenant was not nullified by the law (Mosaic) but is related to and fulfilled in Christ. What of humanity in Adam, how do they get a second chance to earn eternal life? Eternal life with God can never be earned or merited. The covenant of works was presented to and maintained by unfallen humanity, the covenant of grace to fallen humanity. What of election and reprobation? Why impose laws on those ‘doomed’ from the start? For one, the debt is not canceled; for another this world is not hell but is governed by law. It’s for humankind to accept that we must love our neighbor as ourselves, and to love the Lord with more. Election, after all, is rooted in love.

Critics might argue that the covenantal approach to redemption sounds very legalistic. Some (Cocceius) have ventured to say that grace destroys nature: we’ve been ‘freed’ from the law; grace has destroyed the old covenant. Others (this writer) winced at Bavinck’s statement that grace is the “restoration” of the covenant of works. It almost sounds like reinstatement . This is not what Bavinck is saying. Christ takes the burden of the covenant of works as the guarantor of its fulfillment. He takes our debt as surety. Christ then inaugurates the ‘new’ covenant of grace as mediator.* He buys our bad debt and through the Eternal Spirit dispenses those gifts to men leading to life everlasting. So what does it mean that ‘God alone’ is the sole agent in salvation? “He sent his son,” Bavinck joyfully replies. The Father’s prerogative to establish this remarkable offer of grace, entrust it to the Son as mediator, and to the Holy Spirit to apply the benefits of this covenant: rebirth, faith and repentance. Some like Cocceius may worry –with some good reason– the covenantal approach to salvation is backloaded with legalism. Does legalism follow? What are the alternatives?

Bavinck maintains that covenantal theology has the clearest view of God’s majesty, grace, and glory in salvation. It is balanced between two extremes: the legalism of Rome, and the legalism (separatism) of the Anabaptists. The natural world has laws and instincts same as human society. Whatever might be said, “the gift is not like the trespass.” The covenant of grace does not kill human freewill, but liberates from sin. It does not destroy their power, but removes the impotence. The Apostle Paul found no other solution to the problem of sin and impotence than Christ Jesus, the Lord (Romans 7:24, 25). Still, some might argue that the covenant of works and that of grace does not solve the problem of the origin of evil. True, but it is the solution to the problem of evil that is so persistent in the human heart. It’s all in the acceptance.

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* Bavinck affirms this scheme is infralapsarian, see RD, 3: 227.