A KEY FOR OPENING YOUR HEART AND GOD'S LAW

(Excerpt from the upcoming The Kingdom book.)

Regarding God’s law, the idiom “Can’t see the forest for the trees” is an apt description of much of Christianity in our own day. Christians tend to become fixated on certain specific aspects of God, creation, and redemption to the neglect of the whole. Which is to say that they focus so much on Mona Lisa’s smile that they fail to see that which surrounds it, that which is designed to get the eye to land there.

Isle of Skye 2016

Christians can become Staurocentric or Jesu-centric or Christocentric or Pneumocentric or Paterocentric or Gospel-centric, yes, and even Law-centric. Various Christian denominations could be listed to exemplify that this is indeed the case. To be sure, there is nothing wrong with studying any of these aspects of God and His written revelation. However, a ploy of the devil surely is to entice Christians into becoming so totally enamoured by one particular tree to the neglect of the whole rest of the forest. We must be Theocentric, i.e., Trini-centric, if we are to guard against forming an idol out of the cross, or the Gospel, or the Law, and dare we say, of the Father or the Son or the Spirit. The built-in safety factor is always to keep the one and the many, the universal and the particular, etc., in equal tension.

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Our eyes may focus on Mona Lisa’s smile, but as intriguing as it is, it is the gateway to greater vistas – have you ever observed that there is a bridge in the background? – so are any one of the multiple aspects of God’s revelation. A simple icon of a cross on a map or a gravestone or a necklace or whatever may symbolise Christianity, but it must not be used as an idol, an object of worship. We must worship the Triune God alone. No Person in the Godhead (the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit) should be isolated to the neglect of any of the Others or of the Godhead as a whole. With that said, Christ Jesus, if you will, is God’s smile.

“Philip said to Him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’” (John 14:9). Philip was asking the same question we hear Christians ask from time to time, “Will I see God as He is? Will I see Him face to face?” The expectation is something like seeing a bright light, like looking into the sun. However, we may as well ask if we will see the Son or the Spirit as They really are! For God has elected to reveal Himself to His people via the Person of Jesus Christ. Philip asking Jesus to show him the Father is the same as asking to be shown God. Jesus was essentially telling Philip that he was already looking at God. 

Though we cannot see it, we know there’s a wind present when the movement of a tree catches our eye. Let’s say that Christ is that tree and the Spirit is the wind. The Father? This is where it is most difficult for us to understand. The Father is in the tree. The tree is the express image of the Father. The tree (the Son) by its actions in the wind (the Spirit) is revealing that something is in the tree (the Father), which is to say that, by being led by the Spirit, the Son was doing His Father’s will on earth as it is in heaven. Thus, somehow that tree swaying with the wind is revealing the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit, the Triune God.

Herman Bavinck removes Dualism’s gap by bringing together earth and heaven, yes, creation and redemption, by pointing us to the Trinity. 

"The Father is pre-eminent in the works of creation and redemption; He represents the Trinity; hence, He is often called God, even by Christ. Nevertheless, the Son and the Holy Spirit are also God."[1]

If we are agreed that redemption was not God’s “Plan B” for creation, then we will begin to see that, though creation and redemption may be distinguished from each other, like each Person in the Trinity, they must never be separated, For, to do so, is to end up with Dualism and Tritheism respectively. It is to end up separating Christ’s divine nature from His human, whereby, in relation to Two Kingdom Theology, He reigns over all creation (including the nations) only as God (the Creator) and over His Church as the God-Man (Redeemer). For Christianity, Dualism’s big mistake begins in its misunderstanding the two natures of Christ. They cannot and must not ever be separated. Creation and redemption are eternally glued together in Christ "and in him all things hold together" (Col. 1:17b ESV). The Son is the Redeemer from eternity and was revealed as such in embryonic form to fallen mankind (Gen. 3:15), yes, the promise of the incarnation, i.e., the God-Man.

By separating creation from redemption, Two Kingdom Theology opens the gate to let in the wolf of Dualism to devour the Lord’s flock. The gate is closed by bringing together again Christ’s two natures. He is both Creator and Redeemer. As God, He created creation. As Man He redeemed it. As God he wrote God’s perfect law. As Man He perfectly kept God’s perfect law – all to the glory of God and the praise of creation.  

The Holy Spirit draws Jesus to our immediate attention. Thus, God the Spirit reveals God the Son who reveals God the Father. In the Celestial City Christians will indeed see something of the effulgence of God. "And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb" (Rev. 21:23 ESV, cf. Mat. 5:8). Therefore it does seem evident that we will see the Father, but only as He reveals Himself in the Son, i.e., the Word who became flesh.

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. (Heb. 1:1-3 NIV)

Therefore Christ Jesus is our hermeneutic for understanding the Triune God and His creation and redemption. Thus, Jesus is the particular in the universal. He is the tree of life in the midst the tree-filled orchard. He is the key to understanding God’s law as a whole and all its aspects. Notice what Nelson Kloosterman says about the “hermeneutical key” in the following, as it will help us to understand God’s Law as seen in creation and redemption.

 "God has inscribed “the work of the law” in the hearts of Gentiles. If we study carefully the context of Romans 2:14-15, two exegetical notes are relevant to this discussion. First, the law being referred to here in the context of Paul’s argument is the Mosaic law, the Decalogue – not “the natural law.” Second, God (not nature, not reason) has written this in their hearts. That which we know from the law of God, written once on two tablets of stone, set forth in the Law and the Prophets, we find among unbelievers because they show that they have received the law’s work, the law’s activity, written by God in their hearts. Thus, we need not deny or ignore such moral activity if we are directed from the activity to the law – not the natural law, but the law revealed in the Bible. There we find the hermeneutical key for interpreting the moral uprightness we see in the world. The universal is clarified by the particular, the human explained by the Christian. Not the other way around, such that the lex naturae becomes the hermeneutical key for the lex scripturae."[2]

As we bring our focus from the universal back on to the particular, God’s law and our hearts in particular, let us return for a moment to one among the Ten Commandments, the one which Paul drew attention to in order to explain the totality of God’s law, "I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, 'You shall not covet'" (Rom. 7:7). Then Paul goes on to say, “And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death” (Rom. 7:10). Now, picture Adam and Eve in the Garden. Two trees and the commandment of God. The tree of life to bring life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that would bring death. Adam and Eve coveted the forbidden fruit for what they thought it would give them, i.e., wisdom without God (Gen. 3:6). By breaking that particular “You shall not covet” Commandment, they also broke God’s universal law. And ask any Pharisee, that unlike the others, the 10^th Commandment is that one particular Commandment that we think the breaking of which remains hidden from view in our heart. However, for Paul and for Adam and Eve, it is that sin is rebellion against God and that sin brings death.

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Jesus Christ is our particular hermeneutic for interpreting the universal. By way of application: If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? This seemingly silly but popular celebrity question arose from a famous 1981 interview, when Barabara Walters was interviewing Katharine Hepburn. But let us utilize it for illustrative purposes. Scripture says, “By their fruits you will know them” (Mat. 7:20). Are you a tree of life or a tree of death? If Christ is in you, you will bend with the wind (Spirit) and thus reveal the Father. Life everlasting! If you are not this kind of tree, then, unless you repent and believe in the gospel, you are a tree of death. "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire" (Mat. 7:18-19).

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[1] Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, Translated by William Hendriksen, (Banner of Truth, Reprinted 1991), 266.

[2] Nelson Kloosterman, “Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms in Bavinck”, in : Kingdoms Apart, Engaging the Two Kingdoms Perspective, Edited by Ryan C. McIlhenny, (P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 2012), 69.