Jason J. Stellman's Blog, page 3

On Existential Vs. Redemptive Historical Christ-Centered Preaching

I hinted in the previous thread that Christ-centered preaching (CCP) is understood and practiced in a couple different ways by its proponents. One way I call internal and subjective, and the other external and objective. Another way to put it is that some CCP is existential, while other forms of it are more historical.

I would further contend that the former approach seems to be the method advocated by Covenant Theological Seminary, while the latter is more the brand of Westminster Seminary California (I realize I am painting with a broad brush here, feel free to challenge me on this if you like).

"Existential" CCP tends to approach a biblical text with a view to identifying what Chapell calls the "fallen condition focus." This involves determining what effect sin has had upon the situation or character being depicted. For example, as Jonah sits in the darkness of the belly of the whale, the preacher reminds his hearers of the rebellion that occasioned Jonah being landed in this predicament. Once this has been established, the preacher draws a line from Jonah to us today: when we rebel against God, we also will find ourselves in the same darkness and despair. But God can and will deliver us from such a trial even as he did Jonah if we cry out to him out of the depths.

"Redemptive Historical" CCP would most likely take a different approach to this passage. While not necesarily denying or omitting anything from the existential example, this position is quite wary of ever drawing a line straight from the biblical character to ourselves. While the line will necessarily be drawn to us, it can only be properly drawn to us through the cross and resurrection of Christ. Thus Jonah's rebellion demonstrates his failure, and by extension the failure of all of God's prophets, to faithfully deliver God's Word to Israel. In response to this, God sends the divine Word himself, Jesus Christ, to bring salvation to his people. But this can only happen through the true Prophet's own descent into the abyss of human sin and misery. Jesus was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, even as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish. Having tasted death and overcome it on our behalf, we can be assured that in Christ "a greater than Jonah is here." Once the story has been Christocentrically situated, the line of application can then be drawn from Jonah, through the cross and empty tomb, to us.

Therefore both expositions of this passage are Christocentric, but the former focuses upon how Jesus can solve both Jonah's problem and ours, while the latter highlights the overarching redemptive historical (and not just existential) problem that Jonah typifies, finally finding the solution in the saving prophetic office of Christ, culminating in the cross and resurrection on the third day.

Assuming these are fair representations of both approaches, I'm curious what you all think of their respective merits and problems.

What Is Christ-Centered Preaching, Really?

We have all heard that true Christian preaching must be Christ-centered (many of us have even read Chapell's book on the subject). But a question that we seldom ask is, How much Christ needs to be in a sermon for it to be considered Christ-centered? And if the answer is something like, "a lot," then the next question is, Can a sermon have lots of Christ in it and still not be Christ-centered?

Of course, some preachers in the PCA deny the premise that sermons need to be Christ-centered in the first place, so perhaps my first question ought to be about whether or not Jesus needs to be preached from every biblical text at all.

But I am curious to hear if any of you thinks that a sermon can be full of Christ, and yet not be Christ-centered. And if so, what would that look like?

On the Creator, His Creatures, and the Incarnation of the Son

I got into an interesting conversation after our evening service tonight about the Creator/creature distinction and the difference between archetypal and ectypal knowledge (you know, just your normal, everyday, after-church chat among Presbyterians).

For those unfamiliar with these distinctions, the gist is that God is qualitatively different from us (and not just quantitatively different, as if he were merely a really large human). Keeping this in mind is helpful when we come across passages of Scripture that speak of God "repenting" or "regretting that he had made man" because of man's rampant sin in the days of Noah. When we remember that the Bible necessarily employs analogical discourse when speaking to us about God (what Thomas called "baby talk"), we can then reassure ourselves that God does not "repent" in the same way that man does. In a word, there is not a common reservoir of something called "repentance" from which both we and God draw, but rather, God's repentance is a divine repentance while ours is always human and creaturely.

With that being said, however, I did begin to think on the drive home about the ramifications (if any) of the incarnation upon issues such as this. Even a cursory consideration of the mystery of the divine Son and second Person of the Holy Trinity assuming human flesh and a human nature cannot but give us pause when we posit an absolute and never-blurring distinction between God and humanity.

So I guess my question(s) to get the discussion going would be, Now that human nature has been glorified in Christ, and given that we will one day be "like Jesus, for we shall see him as he is," is the Creator/creature distinction a good place to begin thinking about our relationship to God? Is there perhaps a more incarnational and Trinitarian model for thinking about these things, and if so, what would that look like?

So Much Drama with the L-G-D

Since I am bored and uninspired, I will piggyback once again on Lane Keister's most recent post about John Frame's disagreements with the so-called law/gospel distinction. There is a lot of misunderstanding out there about this issue, so I thought I'd try to help the conversation along by adding a few points (and I realize that not everyone who's technically on "my side" will agree with everything I have to say).

In following the discussion it has become apparent that there is a lot of confusion surrounding this idea that the law and the gospel must be kept distinct. In this post I'd like to offer a few clarifying points to help people understand what we mean by the LGD.

First, it's not a Lutheran (as opposed to Reformed) distinction. Sure, the Reformed often couch the LGD in covenantal language and speak rather of the distinction between the covenants of works and grace, but the same principle is being referred to. See Michael Horton's "Calvin and the Law-Gospel Hermeneutic" for more on this.

Furthermore, the LGD is relevant to the issue of justification specifically, not to every single verse in the Bible. In other words, it is not to be used when discussing, say, Paul's admonition to "reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God" (Rom. 6:11) concluding that, since we're dealing with an imperative it must be classified as "law," and since the law's only function is to accuse us and drive us to Christ, therefore this passage is intended by the apostle to show me my need for Jesus. Though there is a whole host of interrelated issues involved in this discussion, suffice it to say here that the law has more functions beyond merely threatening us, and that passages dealing with sanctification, though undeniably "law," should not be minimized or treated as merely preparatory for the gospel. In short, sanctification proceeds from justification, kind of like how Romans 6 follows Romans 1-5.

So when the issue at hand is the narrow issue of justification, the LGD teaches us to recognize two distinct ways that a sinner can expect to be declared righteous in God's heavenly court. The first way is by perfectly keeping his law (which no one, after the fall, can do), the second way is by receiving and resting upon Christ and his obedience and sacrifice on our behalf. So if we are seeking to exegete a passage about how to be accepted before God, we understand that there are two ways this can happen, and we ought never to confuse the former (law) with the latter (gospel). See Phil. 3:9.

For an excellent treatment, see Meredith Kline's "Covenant Theology Under Attack."

Lastly (and as I indicated above), law and gospel refer to the covenants of works and grace respectively, meaning that if someone denies the essential, qualitative distinction between the pre- and post-fall covenants, he has implicitly denied the LGD, albeit perhaps unwittingly. When this happens, we also implicitly deny sola fide, for we are saying that the way to be justified before God is to exhibit faithful obedience in order to be accepted. This confuses works with faith (and, therefore, law with gospel) and is a perversion not only of Pauline theology, but of confessional Reformed theology as well. If there are ministers or elders espousing such ideas in a Presbyterian or Reformed church, they need to be admonished and urged to recant, or tried and deposed from their churches.

OK, you can go ahead and yell at me now....

Dominion Redux

Over at Green Baggins, Lane Keister is reviewing John Frame's new book, The Escondido Theology. The discussion has turned (as it inevitably must) to the issue of the cultural/dominion mandate of the OT and its relevance today. A while back I posted a brief biblical-theological summary of how we today under the new covenant are to think about the command in Genesis that Adam exercise dominion over all the earth, which I'll re-post below. Enjoy:

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If you have been following Doug Wilson's posts on my book Dual Citizens, you will have noticed that the theme of dominion has come up quite a bit, especially among his commenters. The complaints usually go something like this: Genesis 1:28 talks about how Adam was to take dominion over creation, and yet Stellman's focus on the believer's identity as a pilgrim and exile fails to do justice to the dominion mandate given by God at creation."

Assuming that this is a faithful summary of the critique, I would like to offer a response.
I agree that God told Adam to exercise dominion over creation, and I agree that Adam's dominion-taking would have helped usher in God's eternal kingdom, a kingdom which would have brought with it eternal life and Sabbath rest for Adam and his posterity. But where many go wrong, in my view, is in the fact that they seem to stop reading at Genesis 1.
After the Fall, God tells man that the elements of prelapsarian life, such as marriage, childbearing, and labor are to continue on, albeit in a context of curse. In a word, these aspects of life will now be perverted to reflect the curse sanction that God had pronounced on creation due to Adam's rebellion. Marriage will now be a power-struggle, childbirth will now be painful, and bread will now be produced through sweat and an uncooperative earth. The same is true of the dominion mandate.
The dominion motif comes to the fore again after the flood, only now Noah is to practice his mastery over creation in the context of a covenant that is not redemptive but common, a covenant made "between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations" (Gen. 9:1-17). As shown by the inauguration of the kingdom of man in Genesis 4, the cultural work of human hands is valuable for building a temporal, common kingdom, but due to the Fall, our cultural endeavors cannot bring about the kingdom of Christ (a kingdom which Jesus said "is not of this world").
What, then, of the dominion mandate?
We read in Psalm 8 a divine commentary on Genesis 1:28, one in which David speaks of man thus:

You have made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet... (vv. 5-6).

Sounds great, right? It sounds like the dominion mandate is still in force, reiterated in all its prelapsarian glory. But again, we need to keep reading. When we come to Hebrews 2, which is a commentary on Psalm 8 (which is a commentary on Genesis 1), we see a truly Christocentric interpretation of the dominion mandate. According to the writer,

Now in putting everything in subjection to [man], [God] left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone (vv. 8b-9).

Talk about an already/not yet hermeneutic! According to the author here, there is a promise to man of dominion that is still outstanding and unfulfilled, one which we do "not yet see." But what do we see? "We see Jesus" who, like Adam, was made for a litte while lower than the angels. He is the One who exercises dominion, the One to whom has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Will we, the men and women whom Jesus represented and whose nature he assumed, ever get to share in this dominion? Indeed we will, but the writer to the Hebrews insists that this dominion is "not yet." Immediately preceding the quotation from Psalm 8, Hebrews says:

Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking (v. 5).

The implication is that though this present fallen order is not under man's control, the world to come will be. The conclusion, then, is clear: The dominion mandate of Genesis 1 has not been revoked, but due to the Fall, man cannot by his own cultural labors usher in the power and glory of the kingdom like Adam could have. Rather, this promise is now reformulated Christocentrically, with Jesus experiencing "the dominion of the resurrection" now, as demonstrated in his ascension to the Father's right hand. We, on the other hand, do not see these things with our eyes, but only embrace them by faith and hopeful cross-bearing. The day will come, however, when faith will give way to sight and the cross will give way to glory. On that day, and not before, "the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ," and we will reign with him forever and ever.

The Phoenix Preacher Podcast

I was interviewed for The Phoenix Preacher Podcast the other day to respond to the various discipline scandals at Mars Hill and Calvary Chapel. You can click here to listen.

Obama's Jagged Little Pill

A friend of mine recently drew my attention to this article from the Gospel Coalition about the issue of civil disobedience against President Obama's healthcare plan, which provides contraception to those it covers. Evangelical leaders like Chuck Colson and Rick Warren are calling on their constituents to join with Catholics in engaging in civil disobedience against this initiative.

Rather than discussing the issue of contraception itself, I am curious to hear what you all think about whether this counts as worthy of civil disobedience against the state.

I have discussed the topic of civil disobedience here, here, and here, and my take on it is that it is permissible under certain conditions. First, is it the result of being forced to break an explicit command of God's law? Second, is it non-violent? And third, does it avoid appealing to spiritual liberty as our ground for civil liberty? If the answers to these questions is yes, then it seems to me that civil disobedience is allowable for the Christian.

The question for us is, Are my criteria valid, and if so, does the Obamacare contraception debacle qualify?

I'm Not That Original....

In the section of his review of my book titled "Stellman's Originality," John Frame states that despite Dual Citizens being for the most part "a party line document" I do depart from the other Escondido theologians in a couple of areas.

The first, which Frame calls "a fairly remarkable discussion," centers around my view that the relationship between the cross and glory (which Luther sharply distinguished) is much closer and organically connected than many today in the Reformed world allow. Rather than dwell here upon this issue, let it suffice to say that I believe a robust doctrine of the Holy Spirit creates a bridge between earthly cross-bearing and heavenly glory that precludes their being set in strict antithesis (see Dual Citizens pp. 138-40).

What I found more interesting was Frame's second example of my supposed originality. He writes:

"The other difference between Stellman and some of the other Escondido theologians is that he takes issue with Kline's view of the Sabbath. Kline believed that Sabbath observance in the new covenant pertains to the Lord's Day worship service alone. He thought that the Sabbath pertained only to what is 'holy,' and in the new covenant holiness pertains only to worship, not to work. Therefore we should not rest weekly from the tasks we pursue on the other six days.

"Stellman, however, argues that since the Lord's Day is a day, and not just a few hours, we ought to withdraw from cultural tasks on that entire day (pp. 57-59)."

Frame goes on to say that despite the fact that I "tend to belittle private worship" like the rest of the Escondidoites, I still depart from them on this point.

Now I admit that my memory is not perfect and I would be happy to be proven wrong, but I don't remember a single professor during my three years at Westminster Seminary California ever agreeing with Kline's view of the Sabbath, either privately or in class. In fact, I would be shocked if Horton, Hart, Godfrey, Clark, or VanDrunen (the usual suspects) believed that the Lord's Day can be used however one wishes once the morning service is out of the way.

So it seems odd for Frame, a supposed expert on "the Escondido theology," to see anything remarkable in my differing from Kline on the Sabbath since all of the other Escondido theologians do the same.

Am I missing something here?

Mystify, Mystify Me

As promised, I am beginning a series of responses to John Frame's review of my book, Dual Citizens: Worship and Life between the Already and Not Yet (which you should totally buy, because of how awesome it is). I am not promising to respond to everything Frame says, it will just depend on how things go. If you haven't noticed, I'm kind of sick and tired of fighting with everyone all the time.

First, I'd like to express my sincere thanks to Frame for calling me a "gifted communicator" whose book is "similar to Horton's popular works" (The Escondido Theology, p. 283) I take both statements as compliments.

Frame then seeks to use my communicative skills against me, however, by saying (after pointing out that I open most chapters with an illustration to draw the reader in):

"One might almost suppose that Stellman is trying to make his theology 'relevant,' though he assures us again and again (as Horton does) that relevance is anathema (pp. 15, 17-28). Here he mystifies critical students of the movement as to what the Escondido theologians mean by 'relevance.'"

Before we attempt to peel back the layers of my mysticism we must first remind ourselves of one of the tenets of Escondido Theology according to Frame: "It is wrong to try to make the gospel relevant to its hearers." If this is one of my cardinal rules, Frame asks, then how can I possibly illustrate something without betraying my theology?

Let's take a look at the sections of my book that Frame adduces as evidence for my "anathemization" of relevance. Judging from the pages he listed, he certainly had passages like this in mind:

"The church and its members must not seek the world's approval by providing programs that pander to people's need to feel popular and appreciated. The 'more relevant than thou' approach to ministry may fill churches, but often at the expense of the cross and all its glorious foolishness and shame" (p. 15).

"When we, rather than Scripture, determine what is relevant, we make ourselves the central axis of the universe around which all things--including God--must revolve. Hence, any semblance of Christian oddity and peculiarity is sacrificed on the altar of relevance during church on Sunday, the one time above all others when such oddity and peculiarity should be celebrated. Karl Barth's complaint about the liberalism of his own day rings equally true in our own: 'God' is often reduced to 'MAN!' said in a loud voice. 'Alas,' lament Hauerwas and Willimon, 'in leaning over to speak to the modern world, we have fallen in'" (p. 25).

Now, I hope that most discerning readers can see that what I am attacking is not the attempt to make oneself understood, but rather, the attempt to lessen the cross's offense toward unbelievers in corporate worship by avoiding any expressions of our faith that would look strange to the world. In other words, what I am saying is that we should not let the enemies of Christ define relevance and expect us to fall in line, but instead we should realize that the message we proclaim is the most relevant message imaginable since it cuts right to the heart of the matter, namely, sin and salvation from it.

It seems to me that whether one agrees with me or not, understanding what I am trying to say isn't all that difficult for those who put forth a little effort. For Frame to begin with the thesis that all Escondido theologians consider it "wrong" to make the gospel relevant, and then to act "mystified" when I begin my chapters with stories or illustrations, is nothing more than sophistry (especially since I go on to define quite clearly what it is I am arguing against under the guise of relevance).

In sum, the only reason why I should "mystify" anyone is if they refuse to try to understand me on my own terms and instead insist on imputing to me positions I clearly repudiate, thus putting the worst possible gloss on everything I say.