Biblical Theology and the Session—Part 1
Redemptive History and the Church’s Confession of Faith
James S. Gidley
Extracted from Ordained Servant vol. 9, no. 2 (April 2000), pp. 35-38 [1]
Introduction
Many centuries ago, Tertullian posed the question, "What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?" When you think of the answer that Tertullian gave to that question, you might think that it is also the answer to the question, "What has Biblical Theology to do with the Session?" —Nothing.
After all, isn't Biblical Theology an impractical, scholarly pursuit, and isn't Session work the epitome of hands-on practicality? What do they have in common? Worse yet, some might even conclude from the alleged impracticality of Biblical Theology that a devotion to it would be positively inimical to faithful Session work.
I maintain that the truth of the matter is far otherwise. In prosecuting the case for the mutual strengthening that Biblical Theology and sound Session work contribute to each other, I will be addressing the following question: "What difference does it make to a Session that the ministry of the Word is committed to a redemptive-historical[2] hermeneutic?" To state the question another way: "What should a congregation and Session look like that is shepherded by a redemptive-historical ministry?"
It is not that we should look for something radically different from what the Reformed Churches have exhibited at their best. Much less should we expect something eccentric or bizarre. Rather, the characteristics of a redemptive-historical ministry, consistently carried out, will be just the characteristics that we should expect from a faithful Reformed ministry. Any ministry, not consciously redemptive-historical, yet otherwise faithfully Reformed, will exhibit these same characteristics. But I am claiming that the redemptive-historical ministry has an inner strength that conduces well to faithful Reformed ecclesiastical life.
Likewise, we must recognize that not everything that claims to be a redemptive-historical ministry really carries out its intentions well. Given the criticism that is leveled against redemptive-historical ministry in some quarters of the Reformed household of faith, one of my aims today is to encourage you to the sort of faithfulness that will be the most effective rebuttal of such criticism.
Redemptive History and the Church's Confession of Faith
First, the redemptive-historical ministry should be devoted to the Confession and Catechisms. In my experience of eighteen years sitting under two redemptive-historical ministries, I have found this to be so. I have come to believe that this is not an anomaly, but a requirement and a natural outgrowth of the redemptive-historical approach.
At first glance, it may seem that a concern for Biblical theology and a concern for the Confession and Catechisms would be unrelated or even antagonistic. After all, it can be argued that the Confession and Catechisms are systematic statements of the faith. Wouldn't it be more natural to expect a devotion to the Confession and Catechisms in a ministry that was committed to systematic theology? And devotion to systematic theology is often associated with careful and precise treatment of the plan of salvation (ordo salutis). Wouldn't we expect more devotion to the Confession and Catechisms in such a ministry?
Yet in the churches which I have mentioned, there is a strong and sustained emphasis on memorization of the Shorter Catechism. Anomaly or outgrowth of principle?
In answer to this, let me simply observe that the strength of our Confession and Catechisms is that they are redemptive-historical as well as systematic. Further, I will argue that they are first redemptive-historical and only secondarily systematic.
This feature struck me when I first began reading the Confessional documents. I was coming to the Reformed faith from Arminianism and general evangelicalism, and one of the things I loved about the Reformed faith was its logical consistency and its amenability to systematic statement. More specifically, I was focused on the plan of salvation and was coming to love the Calvinistic ordo salutis as opposed to the Arminian. Then I came to questions 27 and 28 of the Shorter Catechism: "Wherein did Christ's humiliation consist?" "Wherein consisteth Christ's exaltation?" These questions and answers seemed to me to be out of place in a systematic exposition of the faith. Obviously they have an irreducible element of redemptive history in them. They cannot be reduced to statements of timeless ideals or doctrines. At first glance, they do not seem to say anything about the ordo salutis. They make no sense without redemptive history.
But it is not that these questions are unique or out of place. It is simply that I could not reduce them to a near-sighted focus on the plan of salvation. Looking back at the preceding questions of the catechism, you can readily discern a redemptive-historical structure throughout. Beginning with the Person and nature of God, the Catechism passes on to the decrees of God, creation, providence, the fall, redemption through Christ the application of redemption, and the believer's eschatological hope. Questions 4-38 of the Shorter Catechism, devoted to telling us what we are to believe concerning God, bear on their face a redemptive-historical structure. They are ordered by a sequence of time.
On further reflection, it should be evident why this is so. The religion of the Bible is a religion that centers on the mighty acts of God in history. Therefore any true expression of the faith of the Bible must be essentially an exposition of the mighty acts of God.
Is this feature unique to the Shorter Catechism? Let us take a brief tour of Schaff's Creeds of Christendom to find out. Schaff begins with Scripture Confessions.[3] Most of these are very short, and focus on the confession of God as the Lord, or of Christ as the Son of God (Deut. 6:4, John 1:50, Matt. 16:16, John 6:68, John 20:28, Acts 8:37, 1 Cor. 8:6). He also cites Matt. 28:19, which speaks of teaching "all things whatsoever I have commanded you." He finally cites two passages that briefly summarize the content of that teaching, 1 Timothy 3:16 and Hebrews 6:1,2. It will be well to consider these two texts explicitly: "And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory." (1 Tim. 3:16, NKJV) "Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment." (Heb. 6:1,2, NKJV)
It is remarkable that these two texts seem neatly to divide between them the historia salutis and the ordo salutis. 1 Timothy 3:16 is remarkable in its resolute focus on redemptive history, so much so that the believer's faith is not even spoken of in active voice. Rather, we have Christ "believed on in the world." The believer recedes from view and the important thing is that Christ is in fact believed on.[4]
Equally remarkable is the focus of Hebrews 6:1,2 on the application of redemption. Here in the heart of what could be argued is the quintessential redemptive-historical book of the New Testament, we have this summary of the elementary principles of Christ in distinctively ordo salutis language. But you will note the parallels between the two texts. As you know, the ordo salutis is based on the historia salutis. What happens to Christ happens to his people. What happens to Christ's people has already happened to Christ. At any rate, we do not have simply a progression to a logical organization of "Biblical truths". Rather, we have an ordo salutis which is itself based on a progression of events in time, taking this character from the historia salutis on which it is based.
Let us now turn to that fountain of all ecclesiastical creeds, the Apostles' Creed. I know you are familiar with it, but it will be helpful to have its words distinctly before us:[5]
I believe in God the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven; and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.
It is customary to regard the Apostles' Creed as fundamentally Trinitarian, given its threefold statement of faith in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This is most certainly true, and it gives us confidence that the early Church did indeed believe in the Triune God of the Bible.
Nevertheless, I would ask you to take a closer look at the content of faith that is subsumed under the three headings. What we are given here is not a discourse on the ontological Trinity. Rather, the Apostles' Creed is built on the economic Trinity. The creed focuses our attention on the mighty acts of God in history —specifically, the mighty acts of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.[6] In doing so, the creed sounds a distinctly Pauline note. The middle section captures the essence of 1 Timothy 3:16 and elaborates it. The last section captures Paul's emphasis on the Spirit as the Spirit of the resurrection at work even now in the community of the Spirit, the church.
I would even suggest that the Apostles' creed divides redemptive history into three ages: the age of the Father, which is the age of the first creation; the age of the Son, His appearance in the flesh, His resurrection, and so forth; and the age of the Spirit, which is also the age of the Church. Of course, the creed gives no countenance to modalism, but this is because the creed is structured not ontologically, but redemptive-historically. There are successive ages of redemptive history, marked off by the mighty acts of God in history.
It is instructive to compare the orthodox Apostles' Creed with the version professed by Arius:[7]
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty; And in the Lord Jesus Christ, his Son, who was begotten of him before all ages, the Divine Logos, through whom all things were made, both those in the heavens and those on the earth; who came down and was made flesh; and suffered; and rose again; and ascended to the heavens; and shall come again to judge the quick and the dead.
And in the Holy Ghost; and in the resurrection of the flesh; and in the life of the world to come; and in a kingdom of heaven; and in one Catholic Church of God which extends to the ends of the earth.
Schaff rightly remarks: "It is heretical not by what it says, but by what it omits."[8] Notice that among the things that Arius omits are the specific references to Mary and Pontius Pilate. The orthodox creed is rooted in real history and recalls the names of real people. The creed of Arius suppresses these things.
But of vastly greater importance, Arius omits the cross and the grave. It is this mighty act of God that carried away our sins. It should then come as no surprise that he also omits the forgiveness of sins under the third heading.
Time would fail us to go on to an examination of the other creeds that Schaff has collected for us. But once again, I would place before you the principle: Since the character of the Biblical faith is redemptive-historical, any creed that truly expresses that faith must also be redemptive-historical.
It is true that in the providence of God, the Church had to declare herself on the ontological Trinity, and that other ontological questions arose in the history of the Church that required the Church to make further statements of faith in an ontological mold. But I would still contend that the organizing principle of the Church's confession is not ontology but redemptive history.[9]
To return to the question posed initially: "What should a congregation and Session look like that is shepherded by a redemptive-historical ministry?" It should have an unabashed love for the Confessions of the Church, and it should have a sustained program of inculcating the Catechism in both children and adults.
Endnotes
[1] Originally presented at the Kerux Conference, June 22-25, 1999, Westminster Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Westminster, California. Revised: July 24, 1999.
[2] Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, Vol. II, pp. 3-8, Baker Book House, 1977 (edition originally published ca. 1889).
[3] Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, Vol. II, pp. 3-8, Baker Book House, 1977 (edition originally published ca. 1889).
[4] Ibid., Vol. II., p. 45.
[5] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 45.
[6] Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 28-29.
[7] Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 28-29.
[8] For this observation I am indebted to Mr. Douglas Miller of Coraopolis, PA.
[9] Chapter IX of the Westminster Confession of Faith, "Of Free Will," affords us with another example. If you come to this chapter with a philosophical bent, you would expect an ontological treatment of the nature of the will. And you will be sorely disappointed. Instead, you find a strong emphasis on redemptive history: "Man, in his state of innocency... Man, by his fall into a state of sin... When God converts a sinner..." and finally "in the state of glory." Yes, there is ordo salutis here also, but the backbone is redemptive history. Contrast this with the philosophical treatment of the subject by Jonathan Edwards in his treatise, A Careful and Strict Inquiry into the Prevailing Notions of the Freedom of the Will.
Dr. James Gidley is Chairman of the Engineering Department at Geneva College a ruling elder of Grace OPC in Sewickley, PA. This article was originally an address delivered at the Kerux Conference, June 1999, at Westminster OPC, Westminster, CA and printed in Kerux: A Journal of Biblical-Theological Preaching. Kerux is published three times per year and is available from the editor, James T. Dennison, Jr., 1131 Whispering Highlands Dr., Escondido, CA 92027.