The Goodness of Humanity

PERSUADE 32 BIBLE STUDY | “Now My Eye Sees You”: Suffering and the Beauty of Christlikeness

| by J. D. “Skip”

Dissenting Daughters: Reformed Women in the Dutch Republic, 1572–1725, by Amanda C. Pipkin | reviewed by Simonetta Carr

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N ALL MY theological study, I’ve never come across a better summary of the paradox of fallen human nature than Francis Schaeffer’s phrase “glorious ruin”:

We are glorious because we were created by God for the noble purpose of being His image bearers; yet we are ruins because sin has marred the divine image we were designed to display, at times seemingly beyond recognition.

I visited many glorious ruins while living in Scotland. The remains of fortresses and castles, the skeletons of cathedrals, all now stand feeble against as many winters as they stood firm. Each was profoundly impressive yet desperately inhospitable. Much of the beauty of these desolations lies in what’s lost—what they were or might have been. Indeed, what remains is more precious because of how close they come to wasting away entirely. The sweet sadness of this former grandeur is more relatable than perfection because it’s simply far more human.

The differences between glorious ruins of architecture and that of human nature, however, may be more telling than the similarities. For one, human ruin is moral. No blame is due broken stone. This makes our ruin far more bitter than sweet. Like Babylon in Revelation 17, human nature in its failed splendor arouses marvel, yes, but also disgust and lament.

Still, who laments the decay of something rotten to begin with? There is no disgrace of adultery apart from the dignity of marriage. A fall is only as bad as the height from which one plummets. We wouldn’t think to speak of the moral guilt and corruption we suffer in Adam if we weren’t already convinced of the moral goodness and beauty in which we were

Icreated and the vestiges and possibilities of which still remain.

Yet our sort of brokenness cannot be repaired by attempting to put things back the way they were. The other difference, then, and one much more important, is that human nature in Christ will not only be restored but far surpass its original majesty in Adam. We won’t be returned from prostitution to innocence but given in perpetual fidelity to our Bridegroom.

In his essay, Donald Matzat urges us to see Jesus himself as our worth before God. In Jesus, we are not rebuilt castles but living stones (1 Pet. 2:4–5). Glorification, as Michael Horton’s essay reminds us, is a blessed hope indeed. In imagining our future glorification, we can’t compare decay to repair—we must compare acorns to oak trees (1 Cor. 15:35–44).

We are glorious ruins. But that doesn’t place us beyond the skill of our master carpenter. Indeed, as Skip Dusenbury explores in his reflections on the beauty of Christlikeness, ruin is the occasion for God’s mercy. Somehow, God is good enough to bring his own greater glory—and ours—from the midst of the rubble.

Brannon Ellis Executive Editor

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Re: “God’s Two Books”

September/October 2022

described. Is it possible that we place the Genesis creation account in a different hermeneutical bucket because of the pressure being brought to bear by evolutionary theory and confusion regarding the subject of origins?

Third, is it true that there is real conflict between Christian thought and science? On the face of it, one doubts that the average Christian feels conflict with most areas of science. We are not forced to fly in airplanes, and hospitals and doctors’ offices are filled with an appropriate proportion of Christians. Perhaps it would be more precise to refer specifically to the potential, and actually quite limited, conflict between religion and the study of origins.

THE SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ISSUE crackles with provocative thoughts about the relationship between science and religion. Some of them expressly reject an inherent conflict between the two, but some seem to assume the reality of the conflict. As a devoted MR reader, I offer three questions for reflection to the editors and to my fellow readers as we wrestle together through these issues.

First, do Christians need to “take evolutionary theory seriously because they take the book of nature seriously”? Is it possible that evolutionary theory, only having been around for 160 years in its present Darwinian form, needs more time to settle into something with which Christians can negotiate? Whatever Christians may think of evolutionary theory, it is not just theists who have significant logical and philosophical issues with it.

Second, is viewing the Genesis account of creation in light of an accommodative hermeneutic a reliable guide? My understanding has been that orthodoxy views Jesus' virgin birth, resurrection, walking on water, and other miraculous events as (1) theologically meaningful and (2) as simply having occurred as

In the spirit of collegiality, let’s make sure we know what, with whom, why, and when we are negotiating, especially where truth hangs in the balance.

—Robert Geho

Just a quick note to congratulate you on the fine work on display in the September/October issue. The two lead articles by Ungureanu and Viner were well crafted and presented complex subjects clearly. Viner’s piece stimulated a great deal of thought and discussion on my part. Both pieces raised the question of whether modernism is ultimately compatible with orthodox Christianity.

As C. S. Lewis pointed out, the replacement of a stable Aristotelian natural philosophy with an unstable dynamic natural science of ever-changing hypotheses and theories challenges all forms of natural theology. God’s view of the universe, the reality behind the phenomenon of human experience, becomes unknowable even to the philosopher or scientist. Images are constantly raised up and discarded. Remember “our friend the atom,” described as a miniature solar system?

In this setting, I would suggest that the best natural theology is enjoying a walk in the wood rather than contemplating a white board of physics formulas. The second book, nature, is best read with our human senses, not through satellite telescopes and electron microscopes.

—Dan Johnson

To Market, to Market, to Buy a Fat Book

by Zachary Purvis

THERE IS A MYTH about theology that it is written in open, expansive, even leisured times of quiet reflection. To write a commentary on a book of Scripture, or a treatise on some point of doctrine, or an entire system of theology, or an individual sermon—well, perhaps not a sermon—happens on its own schedule, taking as long it takes. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In the early modern period, it was not only the next divine service on Sunday that loomed as a deadline by which time thoughts and words needed to be put into some sort of order. There was another calendar—indeed, one harsher and grubbier, belonging to what we might call fiscal time—whose tempo governed the activities of theologians everywhere in Europe. For books, including theology books, the whole business revolved around the book fair.

Authors sought publishers; publishers sought audiences. At the book fair, each party gathered en masse. An established sequence of fairs ran throughout the year. At Easter, there were notable international fairs at Leipzig and Lyon. In August, Lyon hosted a second fair; in September, Leipzig did too. In Spain, the trade market boasted two fairs at Medina del Campo in May and October. In Italy, major fairs occurred at Recanati, Foligno, Naples, Lanciano, and Venice. Smaller provincial fairs filled the gaps. These were antipasti to the main meal. Book lovers of every kind feasted twice per year, in spring and autumn, when the Frankfurt book fair dominated the transnational print economy. In each case, commercial, religious, and intellectual interests converged.

Theologians, among other scholars, built their writing schedules around the event. References to book fairs pepper countless pages of correspondence from John Calvin, for example: “We will have to delay publication of my work until the next fair,” “I decided to wait to write this until the time of the fair,” and so on.1

In 1542, the Dutch Roman Catholic Albert Pighius attacked Calvin in Ten Books on Human Free Choice and Divine Grace. Calvin informed Guillaume Farel that he would produce his response for the next fair.2 Time was short, so Calvin only refuted the six books on free will.3 As for the four books on predestination, Calvin announced in the work itself, “I will leave this topic aside until the next fair.”4 Pighius died before then, so Calvin never produced the final section.

Publishers grew obsessed with meeting fair deadlines to bring new titles to market. In 1522, Melchior Lotter printed Martin Luther’s “September Testa -

ment,” the landmark translation of the New Testament from Greek into German that Luther had achieved in only eleven weeks while sequestered in the Wartburg. At record speed, Lotter produced three thousand copies, much higher than the average print run, ensuring that the book would reach the public at the Leipzig fair.5 If Luther’s translation was relatively expensive, the booksellers might have applied the motto of another printer, Johann Froben from Basel: “He who buys a good book at a high price gets a bargain, whereas he who buys a bad book cheaply gets a loss.” Printers often took two weeks’ vacation after the biggest fairs to rest their overworked bodies. 6 When in 1563 Jean Crespin printed Calvin’s lectures on Jeremiah, he had to run two presses simultaneously in order to finish the job by the time of the next fair. To the errata sheet in the book Crespin added a note of explanation, begging for leniency.7

The Frankfurt book fair served up books with large portions of drama and occasional helpings of intrigue and scandal. As a free imperial city, Frankfurt am Main belonged to the Holy Roman Empire but was not subordinate to a regional ruler. The City Council, which was Lutheran from the 1530s, went to great lengths to promote the money-making side of the fair: foreign merchants who attended found themselves and their goods greeted by armed escorts for protection and toasted by local officials with a glass of wine, while church bells rang to announce their arrival. Major publishers from cities such as Zurich, Heidelberg, Basel, and Antwerp rented warehouses to store books in Frankfurt year-round. In bookstalls and bookshops, book dealers who spoke Latin, French, and German greased the international wheels of trade. Scholars gathered to meet other scholars, and publishers other publishers. They swapped ideas, gossiped, and, of course, shopped. Books and other print-related commodities—paper, punches, typefaces—were bought and sold in remarkable volume, but so too were cloth, silk, jewels, arms, and horses. For eight days twice a year, Frankfurt buzzed.8

Not everyone, however, approved of the arrangement. When Erasmus of Rotterdam learned that his friend, theologian Johannes Oecolampadius, had been at the book fair, he sent Oecolampadius away with fleas in his ear: “How could I have guessed, my dear Oecolampadius, that a man devoted as you are to heavenly things would be found at Frankfurt in that sink of human vileness?” Elsewhere, Erasmus described the gathering as a “forum for the affairs of thieves,

A view down Frankfurt am Main’s “book alley” (das Buchgasse) as it appeared in the early modern era

“I saw such an infinite number of books that I greatly marveled at them. This road surpasses anything else I've ever seen in my travels. It struck me as a veritable epitome of all the most important libraries in Europe.”

imposters, perjurers, usurers, and peddlers.” 9 Occasionally, fighting broke out between Protestants and Roman Catholics. One pleasantly named bookseller, Schönwetter, was known as a Roman Catholic at his residence in Mainz, but he disguised himself as a Protestant when he visited Frankfurt in order to sell more books.10 The spectacle was not to be missed.

Unsurprisingly, the Frankfurt book fair became a site of heated encounter. In 1587, the French scholar Claude Aubery published a theological essay ostensibly based on Romans that collapsed justification and sanctification into each other. In Geneva, Theodore Beza and the Company of Pastors objected to it immediately. Despite Geneva’s efforts to prevent its distribution, Aubery’s book aroused interest among certain French Protestants throughout Europe and lit a tinderbox of controversy. Under considerable pressure, Aubery finally agreed to accept the common confession of the Swiss churches and to allow the suppression of his book at the Synod of Bern in 1588. Two years later, however, Aubery appeared in Basel on his way to the Frankfurt fair to distribute copies of his condemned work. One of the ministers of Basel’s Reformed church of French émigrés apparently untangled Aubery’s plan and stalked him up the Rhine River to prevent him from shopping his wares.11

The marketplace opened up more exciting—and orthodox—possibilities. Amandus Polanus was a brilliant theologian who studied in Basel and Geneva and tutored a Czech noble family. He was heavily recruited by the Genevan Academy, the University of Leiden, and the University of Basel to teach the Old Testament—but only the last institution was successful. While still a tutor, he brought one of his pupils to the Frankfurt book fair. Perusing the catalogs there, he was shocked to find himself a published author. He had written a little textbook of theology and sent the manuscript to his academic adviser, Simon Grynaeus, for feedback. Grynaeus liked the manuscript so much that he rushed it into print—

1863–1900), 10b:310; 13:488; passim.

2. Calvin to Farel, December 15, 1542, in Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, 11:474.

3. John Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will: A Defence of the Orthodox Doctrine of Human Choice Against Pighius, ed. A. N. S. Lane, trans. G. I. Davies (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996).

4. Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, 6:404.

5. Wolfgang Schellmann, “Luthers Septembertestament von 1522,” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 72 (2017): 1–22.

6. Ian Maclean, Scholarship, Commerce, Religion: The Learned Book in the Age of Confessions, 1560–1630 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 15–16.

7. Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, 20:66; Rodolphe Peter and Jean-François Gilmont, Bibliotheca calviniana, vol. 2 (Geneva: Droz, 1994), nos. 63/16, 63/19.

–Thomas Coryat, an English traveler to Frankfurt’s “book alley” in 1608

1. Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss, 59 vols. (Brunswick: Schwetschke,

without Polanus’s consent!12 While Polanus’s student may have been impressed, he was thoroughly embarrassed. He quickly revised and expanded the amateur work—from twenty-eight folio pages to almost three hundred octavo pages— into the Partitiones theologicae. The book summarized the theology that Polanus had learned from some of the great Reformation theologians: Luther, Calvin, Philip Melanchthon, Peter Martyr Vermigli, and Zacharias Ursinus. An English translation under the title The Substance of Christian Religion soon appeared. On the back of his startling success, Polanus wrote two larger books that cemented his status as one of the most significant dogmaticians of classical Reformed theology: the Symphonia catholica, a summary of Patristic theology, and the Syntagma theologiae christianae, a multivolume systematic theology that brilliantly codified Reformed doctrine.13 Without Polanus’s experience at the book fair, who knows whether these landmark tomes would have come to be.

Doubtless there are many stories one can tell about the Reformation and the book fairs, with more extravagant instances of mercantile profiteering, doctrinal polemic, and legal trouble. Yet these mundane, even unseemly, phenomena had a hand in the production and influence of any given theological text. The Reformation knew how to get into a rhythm. Recognition of this fact—indeed, delighting in these details—is not to embrace a radical theory of history. Instead, it should impress upon God’s people a profound appreciation for God’s great providence: that even a frenetic book fair yielded theology that was faithful and that edified the heart.

Zachary Purvis (DPhil, University of Oxford) teaches church history and theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary.

8. Peter Weidhass, Zur Geschichte des Frankfurter Buchmesse (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003).

9. Erasmus to Oecolampadius, March 13, 1518, in Collected Works of Erasmus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), 5:346–47; Erasmus, Dialogus bilinguium et trilinguium, in Collected Works of Erasmus, 7:336.

10. Hildegard Starp, “Das Frankfurter Verlagshaus Schönwetter, 1598–1726,” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 1 (1958): 38–113, at 43–45.

11. See Zachary Purvis, introduction to Justification by Faith Alone: Selected Writings from Theodore Beza (1519–1605), Amandus Polanus (1561–1610), and Francis Turretin (1623–1687), trans. Casey Carmichael (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2022).

12. Amandus Polanus, preface to Partitiones theologiae (Basel, 1590), n.p.

13. Purvis, introduction to Justification by Faith Alone

WE CONFESS

Reformation Catechisms and Confessions on Human Nature

Modern Reformation magazine, along with its sister radio show, the White Horse Inn, has always been committed to engaging in conversational theology among the four confessional traditions of the Protestant Reformation: Lutheran, Anglican, Reformed, and Baptist. In that spirit, we’ve assembled the following harmony of confessional and catechetical excerpts on human nature as created, fallen, redeemed, and glorified. We’ve drawn from the Augsburg Confession (1530), the Belgic Confession (1561), the Heidelberg Catechism (HC, 1563), the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (1571), and the Westminster Shorter Catechism (WSC, 1647). We’ve also included cross-references to “Keach’s Catechism” (KC, 1693), often published with the London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) as the Baptist Catechism. Its language in the following excerpts mirrors that of the WSC. ***

Human Nature As Created

How did God create man?

God created man male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures. (WSC 10; KC 13)

We believe that God created man out of the dust of the earth, and made and formed him after his own image and likeness, good, righteous, and holy, capable in all things to will, agreeably to the will of God. (Belgic Confession art. 14)

Did God, then, create man so wicked and perverse?

No, on the contrary, God created man good and in His image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might rightly know God His Creator, heartily love Him, and live with Him in eternal blessedness to praise and glorify Him. (HC 6) ***

Human Nature As Fallen

From where, then, did man’s depraved nature come?

From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise,

for there our nature became so corrupt that we are all conceived and born in sin. (HC 7)

Of the Cause of Sin they teach that, although God does create and preserve nature, yet the cause of sin is the will of the wicked, that is, of the devil and ungodly men; which will, unaided of God, turns itself from God, as Christ says in John 8:44: When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own. (Augsburg Confession art. 19)

Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell?

The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell, consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin; together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it. (WSC 18; KC 22)

But being in honor, [Adam] understood it not, neither knew his excellency, but willfully subjected himself to sin, and consequently to death, and the curse, giving ear to the words of the devil. For the commandment of life, which he had received, he transgressed; and by sin separated himself from God, who was his true life, having corrupted his whole nature; whereby he made himself liable to corporal and spiritual death. And being thus become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his ways, he hath lost all his excellent gifts, which he had received from God, and only retained a few remains thereof, which, however, are sufficient to leave man without excuse; for all the light which is in us is changed into darkness, as the Scriptures teach us, saying: The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not. (Belgic Confession art. 14)

What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?

All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever. (WSC 19; KC 23)

Also they teach that since the fall of Adam all men begotten in the natural way are born with sin, that is, without the fear of God, without trust in God, and with concupiscence; and that this disease, or vice of origin, is truly sin, even now condemning and bringing eternal death upon those not born again through Baptism and the Holy Ghost. They condemn the Pelagians and others who deny that original depravity is sin, and who, to obscure the glory of Christ’s merit and benefits, argue that man can be justified before God by his own strength and reason. (Augsburg Confession art. 2)

Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from

original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in Greek, phronema sarkos, (which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh), is not subject to the Law of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized; yet the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin. (Thirty-Nine Articles art. 9)

From where do you know your sins and misery?

From the law of God. (HC 3)

Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?

No mere man, since the fall, is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word, and deed. (WSC 82; KC 88)

The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith; and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will. (Thirty-Nine Articles art. 10)

Of Free Will they teach that man’s will has some liberty to choose civil righteousness, and to work things subject to reason. But it has no power, without the Holy Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness; since the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, 1 Cor. 2:14; but this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the Holy Ghost is received through the Word. (Augsburg Confession art. 18)

Is God, then, not unjust by requiring in His law what man cannot do?

No, for God so created man that he was able to do it. But man, at the instigation of the devil, in deliberate disobedience robbed himself and all his descendants of these gifts. (HC 9)

We believe that, through the disobedience of Adam, original sin is extended to all mankind; which is a corruption of the whole nature, and an hereditary disease, wherewith infants themselves are infected even in their mother’s womb, and which produceth in man all sorts of sin, being in him as a root thereof; and therefore is so vile and abominable in the sight of God, that it is sufficient to condemn all mankind. Nor is it by any means abolished or done away by baptism; since sin always issues forth from this woeful source, as water from a fountain; notwith-

standing it is not imputed to the children of God unto condemnation, but by his grace and mercy is forgiven them. Not that they should rest securely in sin, but that a sense of this corruption should make believers often to sigh, desiring to be delivered from this body of death. (Belgic Confession art. 15)

But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined to all evil?

Yes, unless we are regenerated by the Spirit of God. (HC 8)

Human Nature As Redeemed

Are all men, then, saved by Christ just as they perished through Adam? No. Only those are saved who by a true faith are grafted into Christ and accept all His benefits. (HC 20)

How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ? We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us by his Holy Spirit. (WSC 29; KC 33)

How doth the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ? The Spirit applieth to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling. (WSC 30; KC 34)

What is effectual calling?

Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel. (WSC 31; KC 35)

What is true faith?

True faith is a sure knowledge whereby I accept as true all that God has revealed to us in His Word. At the same time it is a firm confidence that not only to others, but also to me, God has granted forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness, and salvation, out of mere grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits. This faith the Holy Spirit works in my heart by the gospel. (HC 21)

What benefits do they that are effectually called partake of in this life? They that are effectually called do in this life partake of justification, adoption, and sanctification, and the several benefits which in this life do either accompany or flow from them. (WSC 32; KC 36)

What do you believe concerning the forgiveness of sins?

I believe that God, because of Christ’s satisfaction, will no more remember my

sins, nor my sinful nature, against which I have to struggle all my life, but He will graciously grant me the righteousness of Christ, that I may never come into condemnation. (HC 56)

Also they teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight. Rom. 3 and 4. (Augsburg Confession art. 4)

What further benefit do we receive from Christ’s sacrifice and death on the cross?

Through Christ’s death our old nature is crucified, put to death, and buried with Him, so that the evil desires of the flesh may no longer reign in us, but that we may offer ourselves to Him as a sacrifice of thankfulness. (HC 43)

What are the outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption?

The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption are, his ordinances, especially the Word, sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for salvation. (WSC 88; KC 95)

Since we have been delivered from our misery by grace alone through Christ, without any merit of our own, why must we yet do good works?

Because Christ, having redeemed us by His blood, also renews us by His Holy Spirit to be His image, so that with our whole life we may show ourselves thankful to God for His benefits, and He may be praised by us. Further, that we ourselves may be assured of our faith by its fruits, and that by our godly walk of life we may win our neighbours for Christ. (HC 86)

If in this life no one can keep the ten commandments perfectly, why does God have them preached so strictly?

First, that throughout our life we may more and more become aware of our sinful nature, and therefore seek more eagerly the forgiveness of sins and righteousness in Christ. Second, that we may be zealous for good deeds and constantly pray to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, that He may more and more renew us after God’s image, until after this life we reach the goal of perfection. (HC 115)

Also they teach that this faith is bound to bring forth good fruits, and that it is necessary to do good works commanded by God, because of God’s will, but that we should not rely on those works to merit justification before God. For remission of sins and justification is apprehended by faith, as also the voice of Christ attests: When ye shall have done all these things, say: We are unprofitable servants. Luke 17:10. The same is also taught by the Fathers. (Augsburg Confession art. 6)

Of Repentance they teach that for those who have fallen after Baptism there is remission of sins whenever they are converted and that the Church ought to impart absolution to those thus returning to repentance. Now, repentance consists properly of these two parts: One is contrition, that is, terrors smiting the conscience through the knowledge of sin; the other is faith, which is born of the Gospel, or of absolution, and believes that for Christ’s sake, sins are forgiven, comforts the conscience, and delivers it from terrors. Then good works are bound to follow, which are the fruits of repentance. (Augsburg Confession art. 12)

Why are you called a Christian?

Because I am a member of Christ by faith and thus share in His anointing, so that I may as prophet confess His Name, as priest present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to Him, and as king fight with a free and good conscience against sin and the devil in this life, and hereafter reign with Him eternally over all creatures. (HC 32) ***

Human Nature As Glorified

Since Christ has died for us, why do we still have to die? Our death is not a payment for our sins, but it puts an end to sin and is an entrance into eternal life. (HC 42)

What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?

The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection. (WSC 37; KC 41)

How does Christ’s resurrection benefit us?

First, by His resurrection He has overcome death, so that He could make us share in the righteousness which He had obtained for us by His death. Second, by His power we too are raised up to a new life. Third, Christ’s resurrection is to us a sure pledge of our glorious resurrection. (HC 45)

What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection?

At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. (WSC 38; KC 42)

What comfort does the resurrection of the body offer you?

Not only shall my soul after this life immediately be taken up to Christ, my Head, but also this my flesh, raised by the power of Christ, shall be reunited with my soul and made like Christ’s glorious body. (HC 57)

Also they teach that at the Consummation of the World Christ will appear for judgment, and will raise up all the dead; He will give to the godly and elect eternal life and everlasting joys, but ungodly men and the devils He will condemn to be tormented without end. (Augsburg Confession art. 17)

What comfort is it to you that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead?

In all my sorrow and persecution I lift up my head and eagerly await as judge from heaven the very same person who before has submitted Himself to the judgment of God for my sake, and has removed all the curse from me. He will cast all His and my enemies into everlasting condemnation, but He will take me and all His chosen ones to Himself into heavenly joy and glory. (HC 52)

What comfort do you receive from the article about the life everlasting?

Since I now already feel in my heart the beginning of eternal joy, I shall after this life possess perfect blessedness, such as no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived—a blessedness in which to praise God forever. (HC 58)

Finally we believe, according to the Word of God, when the time appointed by the Lord (which is unknown to all creatures) is come, and the number of the elect complete, that our Lord Jesus Christ will come from heaven, corporally and visibly, as he ascended, with great glory and majesty to declare himself judge of the quick and the dead; burning this old world with fire and flame, to cleanse it. And then all men will personally appear before this great judge, both men and women and children, that have been from the beginning of the world to the end thereof, being summoned by the voice of the archangel, and by the sound of the trumpet of God. For all the dead shall be raised out of the earth, and their souls joined and united with their proper bodies, in which they formerly lived. As for those who shall then be living, they shall not die as the others, but be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and from corruptible, become incorruptible. . . . And for a gracious reward, the Lord will cause [the redeemed] to possess such a glory, as never entered into the heart of man to conceive. Therefore we expect that great day with a most ardent desire to the end that we may fully enjoy the promises of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. AMEN. (Belgic Confession art. 37)

Converse II.

Exploring perspectives from the present

Embracing God’s Perspective on Human Identity: An Interview with Sherif Fahim

Sherif, you have an extraordinary breadth of experience. Having lived, studied, and taught in several countries, as well as interacted with theological students from a diversity of denominations and cultures around the world, how do your experiences shed light on various views of human nature?

In the different cultures and backgrounds I have encountered, I have seen several common and pervasive factors that dehumanize human beings. For instance, sometimes people are evaluated according to their color or race. I have visited certain countries in Africa where race determines many things: The one whose skin color is like mine is my friend, but the one who has a different color is my enemy. Other times, people are considered as nothing more than productivity “machines.” This is an industrial view of humanity. What skills do you have? What can you do? How strong or healthy are you? People are evaluated only from the perspective of their potential for production. They are useful to their employers as long as they function at maximum efficiency. Employers try to pay minimum salaries to retain them, while using them to return the biggest benefit. But what if this “machine” breaks down or becomes useless? You get rid of it, as you would get rid of any old machine in your house or at work that stops being useful. In World War II, this was Hitler’s view of those who were sick or had disabilities: Why should society spend time and effort on “productivity machines” who can no longer contribute their resources? The opposite and equally problematic view of humans as machines is seeing them merely as consumers. In consumerism, people are reduced to creatures whose deepest needs are materialistic. Our ultimate goal is to have enough possessions and perhaps some level of luxury. In a consumer society, moral decay is less of a concern for the welfare of humankind than maintaining economic prosperity.

Another view that has become dominant, especially in the West, is considering humans primarily as sexual beings: the defining factor of our human identity is our sexuality and our expression of personal desires pertaining to sexuality. This

Sherif A. Fahim is a lecturer at Alexandria School of Theology in Egypt and the general director of El-Soora Ministries in Egypt. He is currently a PhD candidate at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. Sherif is also an elder in a Presbyterian church in Alexandria.

is clear in today’s advertising—as anyone can recognize—as well as the widespread contemporary celebration of homosexuality and transgenderism.

In all of these views, people are being evaluated from a human perspective, not from a divine perspective—and in the process, we are reduced to caricatures, twisted versions of our whole selves.

This sounds like Francis Schaeffer’s description of fallen human beings as “glorious ruins.” What are some key biblical and theological concepts that you find essential and illuminating for a truly Christian doctrine of humanity—relevant not just in the West but all over the world?

From God’s point of view, he created humankind in the image of God. The children of Adam and Eve have always been and forever will be image-bearers in a covenantal relationship with God. To be human at heart is to be made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26–27). This is our value, and it is a dignity that does not change. You cannot add to it or subtract from it. Yet knowing that we are created in the image of God in this way should not lead us to be self-centered. It should point us to God himself and motivate us to love and value our neighbor. This is the image the Bible displays from its first chapter.

Moses wrote this text to the Israelites either during the time of the exodus or while in the wilderness. The Israelites (who lived for a long time in Egypt) would have understood what Moses meant by “image.” The Hebrew term tselem basically means a three-dimensional statue. An image was a physical statue of something or someone, especially important beings like gods or kings. All over the ancient world, it was understood that encountering the image of the king gives a hint of the nature of the king himself. We have today in south Egypt an impressive temple named Abu Simbel, which was built by a great Pharoah, Ramses II. Anyone who visits will find four statues of Ramses. Why would he make such a great temple so far in the south, and why would he make these four “images” of himself there? Well, back then, enemies would come from the south to attack Egypt, and when they saw these statues of the king, they had an idea of just how great and powerful this king was whom they were about to face. In saying that we are all created in God’s image, Moses means that whenever we meet another human being, we encounter a picture of how great God is. As God’s images, we should reflect his glory as the one true God and the King of kings.

What’s more, in the ancient Near Eastern world, some people were given the title “the image of God.” In Egypt, the one who usually held this title was none other than Pharaoh himself. Then in Genesis 1, Moses says that everyone was created in the image of God. How phenomenal it was for the Israelites to hear this! Every single human being has dignity and value and deserves the honor of a royal figure. This gives us at least two messages: First, we should treat everyone we meet like royalty; and second, we are all equal in dignity and value. No one person’s life is worth is more than another’s.

We also know from God’s word (Gen. 3), however, that humanity is fallen and that God’s image in us has become distorted, but not annihilated. By nature,

In saying that we are all created in God’s image, Moses means that whenever we meet another human being, we encounter a picture of how great God is.

these same royal and dignified humans are described as spiritually dead, enemies of God, children of wrath, followers of Satan (Eph. 2:1–3), and rebels and sinners against God with the entirety of their beings (Rom. 3:9–20). The fall polluted our entire human nature and touched every part of our humanity. Calvin expresses this line of thought as follows: “There is no doubt that Adam, when he fell from his state, was by this defection alienated from God. Therefore, even though we grant that God’s image was not totally annihilated and destroyed in him, yet it was so corrupted that whatever remains is frightful deformity.”1

Even in our fallen state, we are still the image of God (cf. Gen. 9:6; James 3:9). Although humanity remains its humanity, it is radically misdirected humanity. Total depravity doesn’t mean that we became animals or demons. In fact, being made in the image of God is what makes sin really serious. But it is also a source of hope. We now can go to seemingly hopeless individuals and the most vicious criminals and bring them the gospel because they have the inherent capacity to be in communion with God, since they were created in the image of God.

Although we have not lost the capacity to have communion with God, we have lost the ability to recover that communion with God. We are totally dependent on the Redeemer, the One who has come in our own nature, becoming the second Adam so that we may become the image of God in the perfect sense. Jesus Christ is that second Adam, the true image of God (Col. 1:15) who came to save humanity and restore the image of God in those who are united to him (Col. 3:9–10; Eph. 4:22–24; Rom. 8:29). In him, we are being renewed from glory to glory by being conformed to the image of Christ himself (2 Cor. 3:18).

How do you see these biblical and theological truths steering the church and individual believers to increased faithfulness to the Lord’s word and ways?

The highest view of humanity is to see humanity as created in the image of God. The most realistic view of humanity is to understand that this image has been radically distorted by the fall. This balanced view of humanity is both glorious and truthful. It means that we all have the same dignity and value, while at the same time, we all need to be saved. There are many implications for Christians who believe such a doctrine. I will point to at least three of them here.

First, we must love those who are different. As fallen human beings, we have a natural tendency to classify people according to our preferred criteria (such as color, political party, level of wealth, or allegiance to a certain sports team). We tend to group ourselves with those who are similar to us and think less of those who are different from us. If we get the chance to avoid or get rid of those who are different, then we are happy to do so. But surprisingly, our prejudice does not stop there! When we are done rejecting obvious outsiders, we then start to look inside our own groups and find those who are different from us using some other criteria, fighting and persecuting them until we get rid of them too. When there was only one person different from himself, Cain killed Abel. Our response to God’s commandment “Love your neighbor as yourself” is always an excuse: “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29). That human beings are created in the im-

age of God means we are called to treat every human being according to this reality, no matter their color or status or abilities. As Jesus taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the question is not “Who is my neighbor?” but “What kind of neighbor am I called to be?” Because we have been made new in Christ, we are called to share his love with whomever he places in our lives.

Second, we must not confuse roles with value. Many people think that holding leadership or teaching roles gives a person greater value. Think for example of the husband as the head of the wife (Eph. 5:23). Does this mean that he is of greater worth than her? Or in the church, does being the pastor or having authority in the church confer greater value than being a layperson? Absolutely not! Being God’s image and renewed in Christ is a full and equal reality for both men and women and for every member of Christ’s church. Understanding the meaning of the image of God, of not confusing role with value and living in such a way that shows God’s design for the home and the church, best protects families and churches from unnecessary conflicts and resentment.

Third, our doctrine of humanity must lead to the worship of God. The Bible’s teaching about the image of God is strongly tied to worship. In the Ten Commandments, God forbade the use of images to represent him, especially for the purposes of worship (Exod. 20:4–6). Any man-made image is inanimate; thus it can never appropriately reflect the true and living God. In fact, whenever someone makes an idol to worship, he is making something that reflects his spiritual deadness: he reflects the image of false gods that cannot hear, speak, or act to save (Ps. 115:4–8). As G. K. Beale has memorably put it, “What you revere, you resemble, either for ruin or restoration.”2 When we turn from God, we become more like the idols we worship. But when we turn to the Lord by faith in Christ, we transform more and more into the image of Christ. God made one object to faithfully reflect his glory and to point to his greatness: human beings. As image-bearers, we should live and act in a way that glorifies our Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:16).

Because we have been made new in Christ, we are called to share his love with whomever he places in our lives.

1. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.15.4

2. G. K. Beale, We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2016), 16.

Missed Flight

by Cameron Brooks

Waiting at Gate 3 with my boarding pass and Birkenstocks, I noticed on the wall a matte moonrise over a zag of Badlands

sandstone: the violet November vault, the cedars in the crags, every probability of a Peregrine perched somewhere

in the shadows. And now I see it, rising on the nascent night, navy-winged, dividing the cool air in brushstrokes

no painter dare approximate. As it veers off the canvas, I promise never to leave again, if only you’ll wait for me—

The Night’s the Dawn’s Glory

by Stephen Ramsek

The night’s the glory of the dawn

As dawn’s the glory of the night. As woman is a man’s fair crown, So fair-crowned man is woman’s wreath. Great strength’s the laurel of the youth, And hoary hair is to the old What wrinkles are to joy; the truth Revealed, a sign of something seen By few, but true, and good, and sweet. The dawn precedes night and night, The dawn, and yet they never meet; For day outspreads itself between Them. We are night, the Lord, the dawn, And Christ, the day, who stands between— Yet through His intercession’s drawn Aside God’s fury, cast our guilt

As far away as Eden’s bowers, And freely given us Himself. Now we are His, His glory, ours; Like night’s both dawn’s and dawn’s glory. What joy, to be God’s ornament!

To call His crown our own, and in That endless Day whom Heaven sent To know one day we shall meet Dawn.

Persuade III.

Thinking theologically about all things

“Now My Eye Sees You”: Suffering and the Beauty of Christlikeness

by J.D.

“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5)

THE BOOK OF JOB has been described as beautiful because of its artful structure and elegant poetry—but not often because of its stark display of terrible suffering. Yet Job’s last recorded words (in the verse quoted above) reveal two ways in which God’s people can be beautiful when we suffer. As I noted in my column in the previous issue (January/February 2023), I define beauty in terms of the concept of fittingness or appropriateness (Gen. 1:26–2:25). Since promoting God’s glory is always supremely fitting, Christians can beautify their sufferings as they glorify God in and through them. A second fitting or beautiful aspect of suffering is when it furthers the ends of redemption, including spiritual growth. Job’s words suggest two ways that suffering can be beautiful in this respect. ***

The Beauty of a Deeper Knowledge of God

The most important way in which God’s people can grow through their suffering is by attaining a richer, deeper knowledge of him. After all, Christ himself observed that eternal life is essentially about knowing God (John 17:3). This relationship is why we were created (Gen. 1:26–2:25); it is what we lost in the fall (Gen. 3:8–24; WSC 19); it is what redemption and the gospel restore to us. But even among those who are truly his people, there are different degrees of personal knowledge of God.

Christian growth is a process that occurs over the entire course of a believer’s life. It involves several dimensions, but especially growing in a deeper knowledge of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One aspect of this knowledge is intellectual, acquiring greater knowledge about God. The second, and ultimately more important, dimension is experiential and relational; that is, actually knowing him. Someone may know a lot about someone—the current president, a favorite athlete, a historical figure—without meeting them personally, much less knowing them intimately. The same may be true of God. It is possible (and critical) to acquire an accurate store of the information that

“Skip” Dusenbury

God has revealed about himself in Scripture. But simply knowing that there are three divine persons in the Godhead is not the same as knowing these persons . It is one thing to know that God is love, or that he is gracious and almighty. It is something else to experience his love, grace, and power. The goal of the Christian life is to glorify and to enjoy God (WLC 1; WSC 1) and enjoying him assumes or implies not just any type of relationship—after all, there are many unhealthy and even dangerous relationships—but a pleasant relationship, a trusting and loving relationship with him.1 Christ died and sent his Spirit to bring us intimacy with God.

In addition to fulfilling God’s purpose for creation and redemption, this personal fellowship with God is a great blessing to sufferers. Suffering provides opportunities for his people to know firsthand his comfort in affliction, his power in weakness, and his wisdom in perplexity.2 He is the God who is “near to the brokenhearted,” “a stronghold in the day of trouble; [who] knows those who take refuge in Him,” “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,” “the God of all grace,” “the God who comforts the downcast,” “the God of hope,” “the God of love and peace,” and “the God who gives endurance and encouragement.”3 Intimate knowledge of this God can only help his people when they are suffering. Indeed, promoting that knowledge is one of the chief reasons why he permits their suffering (2 Cor. 1:8–9; 4:7–11; 12:9–10).

In Job 42:5, Job declares that he has experienced a much more vivid, intimate, and profound knowledge of the Lord than he had before his terrible trials: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” The book climaxes with Job’s final encounter with the Lord himself, when “the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind.” In Job’s case, “My eyes see Thee” was literally true; but suffering can be, and often has been, a way in which Christians have seen or experienced God in less literal but no less vivid and intimate ways. For instance, the apostle Paul, who describes God as the “Father of mercies and God of all comfort” and the God “who comforts the downcast,” not only taught others but deeply and powerfully experienced for himself God’s comfort as a result of the sufferings connected with his ministry in Asia and Macedonia (2 Cor. 1:4–10; 7:5–7). Paul also suggests that the severity of his sufferings not only enabled him to experience something of the Lord’s power as the “God who raises the dead,” but that this was an explicit part of their purpose (2 Cor. 1:8–10). Is it any different for us today? In Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God , Tim Challies recounts the pain of his son’s tragic death, as well as the way he and his family experienced the Lord as the God of all comfort in the process of their grieving.4

Psalm 34:18 says, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and He saves the crushed in spirit.” David’s time in the barren Judean wilderness whetted his thirst for God, as he wrote, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Ps. 63:1). And David’s many experiences of suffering—Saul’s persecution, his sin with Bathsheba, his son Absalom’s rebellion—also provided opportunities

It is one thing to know that God is love, or that he is gracious and almighty. It is something else to experience his love, grace, and power.

for him to experience the Lord’s presence, power, grace, and faithfulness in new and deeper ways (Pss. 3; 18; 32; 51; and so on). The eminent Scottish saint and sufferer Samuel Rutherford spoke for countless believers when he wrote,

O, what I owe to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus! . . . Whether God come to his children with a rod or a crown, if he come himself with it, it is well. Welcome, welcome Jesus, what way soever thou come, if we can get a sight of thee: and sure I am, it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bedside and draw the curtains . . . than to enjoy health, being lusty and strong and never need to be visited of God.5

As varied as our forms of suffering can be, they all have the tendency to humble us and drive home how weak and needy we are, making us seek the Lord as nothing else does. We search God’s word for consolation and counsel, and we seek him in prayer for guidance, help, and strength. We look and listen eagerly, even desperately; and when he answers, we rejoice, we thank and praise him, and our faith grows. We feel his love, grace, and power in new and more intense ways, and in so doing, we know him better—and a deeper knowledge of God is always a beautiful thing. It was the sweetest part of life in the Garden of Eden; it will be heaven’s greatest blessing; it is what we were redeemed to enjoy in time and eternity. Knowing God invigorates our present worship and increases our pleasure in serving him. But that’s not all.

The Beauty of Increasing Christlikeness

Job also mentioned a second effect of his suffering and his greater knowledge of God: “Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5). The gospel is not just about God’s forgiving and admitting sinners into intimate family fellowship, wonderful as that is. It is also about him transforming us into what we were originally created to be, into what Jesus, the second Adam, was and is: perfect bearers of the image of God.6 This process, known as (progressive) sanctification, is also the fruit of God’s grace and depends on Jesus’ saving work alone. Yet it differs from justification and adoption in several important respects. Justification and adoption are acts done fully and finally at the point of saving faith and repentance (WSC 33, 34; WCF 11, 12). But sanctification is a process that begins at conversion and occurs gradually over a believer’s entire lifetime (WCF 13; WSC Q. 35). Furthermore, justification and adoption are accomplished by God alone; believers contribute nothing. Sanctification, on the other hand, is cooperative. Believers have responsibilities to fulfill in the sanctification process, such as abiding in Christ, using the means of grace, obedience, repenting and believing, and learning and growing. Yet at

Samuel Rutherford (c.1600–1661)

the end of the day, sanctification is also the work of grace because God enables believers to do what he asks (Phil. 2:12–13), and he blesses our often feeble and inept actions, gradually enabling us to put off the old person and put on the new (Eph. 3:23–24; Col. 3:9–10), and to be increasingly conformed to our Savior’s beautiful image (2 Cor. 3:18).

Christlikeness through Mortification and Vivification

Sanctification involves at least two aspects, which have been called “mortification” and “vivification.”7 Mortification is the process by which our indwelling sins such as pride, unbelief, anger, and lust are “put to death” or diminished in their power over us (Rom. 8:13; Col. 2:5). Vivification is the process by which the Spirit produces and strengthens positive Christian virtues or graces such as faith, hope, love, and humility. Theologians sometimes also distinguish between “active” graces such as love, characterized by what we do, and “passive” ones like meekness, characterized more by what we refrain from doing. Let me say it again: while believers are to do and not do certain things as part of their Christian growth, true sanctification is ultimately supernatural. 8 Salvation is the Lord’s work, and he particularly uses suffering to promote both of these processes of sanctification and to cultivate both kinds of grace in his children (Heb. 12:11). There is a vast difference between going through the motions (even the right ones) and being transformed from the inside out by the Holy Spirit through the power of Christ’s resurrection life (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:7–12). God makes his children “new creatures” in Christ with renewed intellects, wills, and affections. 9 Consequently, good works like worship, obedience, service, witness, and suffering well are motivated by gratitude, and they evidence the beautiful graces of faith, hope, love, and the Spirit’s other fruit.10

The author of Hebrews encourages his readers by describing suffering as a form of God’s fatherly discipline (Heb. 12:1–11). Citing Proverbs 3:11–12, the writer argues that, by its very nature, discipline is painful (Heb. 12:5–6, 11), but it is also an inevitable and blessed privilege of God’s children. Unlike earthly fathers, God always disciplines his children out of perfect wisdom and love (Heb. 12:6) and for our good, which means sharing his holiness (Heb. 12:10, 14). Believers should not, therefore, be discouraged by suffering and give up. On the contrary, we should rejoice in it as a sign that we are his children, endure it patiently, and seek to grow and be trained through it (Heb. 12:11). The great means by which we do this is “looking to Jesus,” our object of faith, source of grace, and example of triumphant endurance (Heb. 12:1–4).

Suffering will be part of life in this fallen world until Jesus returns to make all things new. Having sustained and blessed his people in their tribulations, he will eventually deliver and reward us (2 Pet. 3:10–13; Rev. 21:1–5), not least in

My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. (Prov. 3:11–12)

shedding every vestige of sin and weakness from us so that we can bear his lovely image forever. In the meantime, like Job, we can learn to know the Lord better and become more like him. But this growth is not the inevitable result of suffering in and of itself. If we respond to pain with bitterness, unbelief, and disobedience, then we will decline in our closeness to God and diminish our likeness to him. It is therefore important to trust God even in the midst of pain and be wise and faithful stewards of our suffering as followers of the Suffering Servant. May the Lord grant to each of us so to steward our pain that we “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” and, like, Job see our God make of our suffering something beautiful.

1. Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1994), 3:263–76; Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 149–55; J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: 1973), 13–37.

2. Job 42:5–6; Ps. 34:18; Isa. 40:31; 2 Cor. 1:3–4; 4:7–11; 7:6; 12:9.

3. Ps. 34:8; Nah. 1:7; 2 Cor. 1:3; 1 Pet. 5:10; 2 Cor. 7:6; Rom. 15:13; 2 Cor. 13:11; Rom. 15:4.

4. Tim Challies, Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2022).

5. Samuel Rutherford, The Loveliness of Christ (Edinburgh: The

Banner of Truth Trust, 2009), 8, 21.

6. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1941), 527–44; A. A. Hodge, The Confession of Faith (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1983), 194–201; John Murray, Redemption, Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1955), 141–50; John Piper, Providence (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 635–60; WCF 13.

7. Piper uses the phrases “killing sin” and “pursuing holiness” in Providence (e.g., 583ff.).

8. Piper, Providence, 635–58.

9. Second Cor. 5:17; John 3:3–7; Eph. 2:1–3; 5:8.

10. Gal. 5:22–23; John 15:1–8, 16, HC Q. 2.

J. D. “Skip” Dusenbury (DMin, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia) is a retired pastor who continues serving the Lord and his church through preaching, teaching, interim pastoring, and writing.

When We BECOME BEAUTIFUL

by MICHAEL HORTON

LTHOUGH ALL OF God’s revelation sparkles with truth, goodness, and beauty, I often find that certain doctrines give off a peculiar flash. From the beginning, Christians have wondered at the doctrine of glorification from the vantage point of our participation in the Truth and Goodness of Christ. We hear a lot today about “my truth and your truth,” with exhortations to “live your truth” and “you do you.” Yet this is an oxymoron. My feelings and evaluations are obviously mine and not yours, but to speak of truth along these lines cannot mean any more than the hedonist creed of “whatever makes you happy.” But Christians believe that God is Truth, incarnate in Christ, and this grounds the possibility of finite truths that we can know in our creaturely way. One day, though, that relative knowledge will be a fully consistent approximation of God’s revelation.

Goodness, too, exists in the world and in all people because the fall could not eradicate our participation in the Good. As Pseudo-Dionysius emphasized, goodness is synonymous with existence. To the extent that we are turned toward the Good, like a sunflower, we receive the rays of goodness and life; turning away, we wither. When we are glorified, we will never be capable again of turning back into ourselves; we will have being, life, and goodness to the fullest extent possible for a creature.

But glorification especially highlights our participation in the Beautiful. Some, perhaps many, of us catch daily glimpses of fading youth, wrinkles of time and stress, sagging faces and torsos. We are encouraged by the present reality of sanctification: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). Yet even this inward beauty is sullied and incomplete, and the wasting away of the body is an alien feature of human existence since the fall. Glorification promises us so much more than we can even imagine.

First, it is not just “paradise regained,” restored youth. This would merely return us to the beginning. We are not going to have another run at fulfilling the mission that our first parents squandered; and if we did, we would forfeit the prize as well. The image of God, which pertains to the whole person—body as well as soul—is natural, while glorification is supernatural. No human except Jesus has ever experienced this kind of glory. Irenaeus, the great anti-gnostic apologist of the second century, likened our first parents to children:

It was necessary for man to be first created; and having been created, to grow; and having grown, to become mature; and having become mature, to multiply; and having multiplied, to grow strong; and having grown strong, to be glorified; and having been glorified, to see his Lord.1

Humanity was created with all the natural gifts needed for the mission, but was in a sense an unfinished work of divine art. The royal couple was true, good, and beautiful, but not yet glorified.

Yet because of their disobedience, they were like children who met an untimely death. Humanity was created with all the natural gifts needed for the mission, but was in a sense an unfinished work of divine art. The royal couple was true, good, and beautiful, but not yet glorified.

Created like the moon to reflect the sun’s rays, these image-bearers shone brightly. Yet even in its pristine state, human nature was not yet united to God in glory, sharing in his Sabbath reign. Adam and Eve wanted to “be like god,” but by following “their truth” instead of God’s word. “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings 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” (Ps. 8:5–6). It is just this glory, honor, and dominion that constituted the image of God in the beginning and that our first parents surrendered willingly. The same was true for Israel’s corrupt judges: “I said, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince’” (Ps. 82:6–7).

Recognizing the incongruity of this dignity in Psalm 8 with our current condition, the writer to the Hebrews comments,

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. (Heb. 2:8–9)

Wanting to circumvent the trial and acquire his own glory here and now, Adam surrendered the crown, and his glory turned to shame. But Christ has fulfilled the trial in our nature and name. Consequently, the tarnished glory we have by nature will not only be restored but will be transcended by that magnificent beauty that the exalted Christ already enjoys.

Second, glorification satisfies our craving for respect, dignity, and honor. If someone were to ask me what I most deeply wanted, I’d probably reply with a list of negatives: I want to be free from the effects of the fall like sin (both the condition and actions), from sickness, from being distracted from the Lord, and from dying. Although all of these blessings are promised, glorification is not only about being liberated from guilt and corruption but about overflowing with glory.

Jesus craved glory. However, his natural passion was turned upward, while Adam’s was turned inward. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). There is nothing wrong with wanting to be like God; in fact, that was God’s plan all along. They were like God and would be even more like God upon fulfillment of the trial. The problem was that they wanted to be like God in the sense of actually knowing good and evil for themselves, as they really are, without depending on God’s commands and promises. They were already enlightened, because their ears were open. Then after they sinned, their spiritual sight grew

dim and they could not be like God but like the clever beast who purported to be a liberator but became a severe master.

Adam wanted to glorify himself by a shortcut, circumventing the trial. Instead of heeding God’s external word, he turned to his inner voice and chose what was, in his judgment, “pleasing to the eye and desirable to make one wise.” By contrast, Jesus laid aside the glory he had with the Father before creation existed, humbled himself by becoming one of us, and endured the trial—which this time included a crucifixion. Though one with the Father, as one with us he did not decide for himself what is desirable but heeded “every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). Jesus set his eyes on glory, to be sure, but refused to circumvent the trial and glorify himself, as Satan tempted him to do (v. 7). His hunger for fulfilling the mission was greater than his craving for food. “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work,” he said (John 4:34). Jesus did not glorify himself. Rather, he prayed, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him” (John 17:1–2). And he craved this glory only to share it with his brothers and sisters: “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one” (v. 22). This high priestly petition of the eternal Son cannot fail to be granted.

Like “your truth” and “my truth,” “Live your passion!” is an exhortation to pick an idol. Everyone becomes like the god he or she worships. Those who worship beasts become beastly and that god becomes the soul’s prison guard. If your passion is your family, at some point they will fail to live up to your ideals; if sports on Sunday morning, it will drive out the means of grace and fellowship of Christ’s body. Give your allegiance to your work and it will starve your soul and perhaps ruin your family; to sex, and it will reduce you to animal existence. The person who yields his or her passion to physical beauty or strength is already in Hades with Sisyphus, trying in vain to roll the rock back to the top. Give your heart to entertainment, and it will deaden your pleasure, numb your mind, steal your life; to affirmation, justification, and acclaim from other sinners, and you will feel condemned.

Tragic as it is ironic, the idols we choose destroy precisely what we came to them to heal. Like the dealer in Vegas, the idol will let you win just enough to draw you in and then take all you’ve got. To “live your passion” for anyone or anything but the glory that God gives as a free gift is to foolishly surrender your very existence and the beauty that surpasses anything we have ever seen. When perfect conformity to Christ’s glorified humanity is felt as the aim of our existence, we become what—or rather, whom—we worship. And then, when sharing in Christ’s glorified humanity is our passion we see sports, sex, entertainment, family, work, and the rest as gifts rather than the giver.

The doctrine of election touches us deep down in our longing for being known, loved, and included. Adoption assures us of the deepest relationship with the Father, in the Son, and by the Spirit, and the security of our final redemption.

Tragic as it is ironic, the idols we choose destroy precisely what we came to them to heal.

The doctrine of glorification is the satisfaction of that hunger for glory that we seek in all the wrong places. But we have to see it not only as true and good but as beautiful if our hearts are going to be dislodged from life-stealing idols.

Forgiveness and justification address our thirst for approval; sanctification, our longing for renewal, and so forth. The doctrine of glorification is the satisfaction of that hunger for glory that we seek in all the wrong places. But we have to see it not only as true and good but as beautiful if our hearts are going to be dislodged from life-stealing idols.

Third, the greatest blessing of glorification is being deified. Or as Peter says, God “has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (1 Pet. 1:4; italics mine). Calvin has no scruples calling this “deification,” a gift “than which nothing greater can be conceived.” Following the early Christian writers, Calvin points out that to be deified is not to become God himself but is to partake of his nature “as much as is possible for a creature.”2 It is to share in a creaturely manner by grace that righteousness, holiness, goodness, love, wisdom, power, and freedom that is God’s by nature.

In his humanity, Christ too has been made a partaker of the divine nature by glorification, even though he is, according to his divinity, of the same essence as the Father eternally. Jesus is the restored and glorified Imago Dei and united to him we must be as well. It is therefore not merely about what we lose but what we gain. Every human receives goodness and therefore being from the Triune God, but all who are united to Christ will receive unimaginable glory in body and soul. “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

God as the Beautiful is not only revealed clearly in the doctrine of glorification, but the two are interdependent themes. When the latter is pushed into the background, so too is the former. This doctrine speaks to our heart, our deepest longings and loves. As C. S. Lewis wrote,

We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. . . . At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get in.3

I conclude with a gentle challenge. In recent years, we have seen a marvelous renaissance of the doctrines of election, justification, and sanctification that will be celebrated in coming generations. However, for some time I have been concerned about the TULIP acronym being used as a summary of the entire Reformed confession. This was never the case prior to the early twentieth century, when these five points were formulated. By starting with total depravity and ending with

the preservation of the saints, the arc of God’s plan for the ages from creation to glorification is narrowed. What is the nature that has fallen, and what is the hope for its restoration?

Upon this doctrine, a rich vein of Christocentric mysticism runs from Irenaeus, Athanasius, Chrysostom and Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus to Bernard of Clairvaux and Luther, Calvin, and the other Reformers. The architects of Reformed orthodoxy and the English Puritans made glorification a staple of tomes and sermons, and all of the Reformation confessions and catechisms bear witness to it.

Perhaps my favorite Pauline summary of the gospel is in his second letter to Timothy, where he speaks of “the gospel” of God,

who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. . . . I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. (2 Tim. 1:8–10, 12)

Election, calling, the incarnation, and the perseverance of the saints find a footing. Yet so does glorification. All around us is death and dying, but Christ’s triumph has “brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” Mortal by nature, we are made immortal like God by his grace.

In creation, we are “crowned with glory” by nature but not yet glorified by grace. In justification, we are given an external glory—the beauty of Christ as our righteousness. In sanctification, the Spirit begins to conform us to the image of Christ. But in glorification, we will be made inwardly and outwardly, in soul and in body, the most beautiful creatures in the universe.

If truth is not good and beautiful, it cannot lure us from idols. We must present the gospel in such a way that even if one is not persuaded of its truth, he might wish that it were true. One such truth is glorification, stated in just these startling words of Irenaeus: “The glory of God is man fully alive, but the life of man is the vision of God.” 4 Not a dreary afterlife of disembodied souls playing harps for eternity but “man fully alive.” Now, that is beautiful! “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us” (Ps. 90:17).

Michael Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation and the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido.

In glorification, we will be made inwardly and outwardly, in soul and in body, the most beautiful creatures in the universe.

1. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.38.3.

2. Calvin, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews and the First and Second Epistles of St. Peter, trans. William B. Johnston (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), 330. The phrase “than which nothing greater can be conceived” [quo nihil maius

cogitari potest] is taken from the second chapter of Anselm’s Proslogion

3. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (London: SPCK, 1942), 32.

4. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.20.5.

Engage IV.

Connecting with our time and place

Moonlight Oracles

by Cameron Brooks

I.

We squatted among the cattails on five-gallon buckets flipped and flecked with cement older than me. The country pond winked in the moonlight as we waited for channel cats to fetch the chicken liver wound around our treble hooks.

We waited with the crickets and the bullfrogs. We waited in the darkness of a deep summer night, which is no darkness.

II.

You spoke to me through the darkness, and what was true and what was not true of all you told me, it hardly matters.

III.

Our casting rods arc toward the stars like prayers.

Somewhere up there two rusted bells hang on the silence— waiting for an answer from the other end, a chime, a signal that the night is yet young.

CHRIST IS MY Worth

by DONALD G. MATZAT

OR THIS ISSUE exploring the goodness of humanity, we’ve decided to republish this classic article by Donald Matzat from Modern Reformation’s very first year of publication (the November/December 1992 issue). Here, Matzat addresses the twofold way we must think of our self-worth, whether before God or before others. If we want to affirm both, Matzat argues, then it’s essential for us not to confuse the two. His words from more than thirty years ago are just as relevant and powerful today.

Could Christianity survive without the gospel? In some quarters, including some fairly close to home, the answer seems to be in the affirmative. We still hear the laity using the lingo from the past, but the theological language of Scripture is being increasingly replaced with psychological terminology. Of course, language is not as important as the concepts that language conveys, but those concepts themselves are often little more than biblical glosses on psychological motifs.

In this article, I want to persuade the reader to consider the gospel as the answer to what people are looking for when they say they need “self-esteem,” rather than seeing the gospel as a supplement to the secular illusions. Theology isn’t practical—at least, that’s what people tell you, even Christian people. Nevertheless, I intend to demonstrate just how practical and essential is a recovery of the fundamental teaching of justification by grace alone through faith alone to our deepest psychological, emotional, and spiritual needs. ***

The Breakthrough of a Tormented Conscience

Like many today who live in anxiety, fear, guilt, and the shame common to our fallen condition, Martin Luther was a confused man whose conscience was tormented until he was able to understand Paul’s explanation of the gospel in the Epistle to the Romans. His superiors in the monastery counseled him to relax and ease up on his conscience, but Luther was driven by an implacable logic: If God is just, holy, and righteous, and demanded exact conformity to his moral character, with failure being met with certain punishment, then “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place?” The psalmist’s answer was clear: “He who has clean hands and a pure heart” (Ps. 24). If that did not describe the hands and heart of a precise and obedient monk, “Who then can be saved?”

Like many now who are turned off to words like righteousness and holiness because they just remind us of how unrighteous and unholy we really are, Luther was ready to give the whole thing up until the gospel finally made sense:

Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the righteousness of God and the statement that “the just shall live by his faith” (Rom. 1:17). Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a different meaning, and whereas before the “justice of God” had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in great love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.1

Dubbed “the accusative case” by his classmates, John Calvin was another Reformer who was revolutionized by this realization. “You see that our righteousness is not in us but in Christ, that we possess it only because we are partakers in Christ; indeed, in him we possess all its riches.” 2 Thus the Reformation gave renewed focus to the “alien righteousness” of Christ. While the monks were busy trying to find the good within, the Reformers were pointing believers to the Christ outside of them in history who lived, died, and rose again to give freely what none of us has or can create on the inside.

There are those today who, on the one hand, call believers to obey, surrender, and yield their way to God’s righteousness and acceptance, and on the other hand, those who urge us to stop torturing our consciences and simply ignore the realities of our moral condition. An example of the latter is Robert Schuller, television pastor of the Crystal Cathedral in Southern California, who writes, “Reformation theology failed to make clear that the core of sin is a lack of self-esteem. The most serious sin is the one that causes me to say, ‘I am unworthy. I may have no claim to divine sonship if you examine me at my worst.’ For once one believes he is an ‘unworthy sinner’ it is doubtful if he can really honestly accept the saving grace God offers in Jesus Christ.”3 Further, he says, “I don’t think anything has been done in the name of Christ and under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to human personality, and hence counterproductive to the evangelistic enterprise, than the unchristian, uncouth strategy of attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition.”4

The terror of the law without the gospel is bad news; the denial of total depravity and the sinner’s desperate need of salvation from outside of himself or herself is no news. But the answer of the Reformers, with our Lord and his apostles, was that sinners can have their consciences relieved, not by the false hopes of those who, like the prophets in Jeremiah’s day, are constitutionally incapable of telling the truth when it hurts.

This forms the background, therefore, for our alternative to soul-killing legalism on the one hand and false hopes on the other. I do not intend in this article to survey the complete landscape of Christian psychology and its implications. Rather, I wish to focus on one important issue in the integration of psychology and theology that in our estimation demands immediate attention.

The terror of the law without the gospel is bad news; the denial of total depravity and the sinner’s desperate need of salvation from outside of himself or herself is no news.

Is Self-Esteem an Unbiblical Concept?

First of all, any Christian criticism of this approach must clearly distinguish between what the Reformers called life coram Deo (before God) and coram hominibus (before humans). This means, for instance, that we ought to affirm our child for getting a B on an exam, even when we really were hoping for an A; we ought not to attach destructive labels to our children, as parents or teachers; we should encourage the unemployed and unskilled person to discover and cultivate his or her talents instead of contributing to a defeatist posture that withholds the dignity of being human. James, presumably including non-Christians in his view of those to whom we have a responsibility, complains that with the same tongue “we praise our God and Father, and curse men who have been created in God’s image” (James 3:9). Thus every person possesses dignity and value as an image-bearer of God. From this bedrock evaluation, we derive the dignity of work, the family, and so on. If one does not view oneself as created in God’s image, it will create a defective personality in these other arenas.

If I met my friends at the golf course and muttered to myself “You’re no good at this. You’re a horrible golfer—what are you doing out here with people who really know what they’re doing?” I wouldn’t last the first nine holes! There is nothing unchristian or unscriptural about having a positive view of one’s abilities, talents, personality traits, and so on, so long as we as believers acknowledge God as the giver of all good things. Even a Christian salesperson would never (or should never) introduce himself or herself by saying, “I know that you won’t buy this car from me because I am a poor, miserable salesperson.”

Before the doctrine of self-esteem became a buzzword and point of controversy among Christians, the necessity for self-confidence and a positive selfimage in the arena of normal, daily human activity was taken for granted. Many Christian parents have read to their children the story of The Little Engine That Could. When our children took their first steps or attempted to ride their first bicycle, didn’t we bolster their self-confidence? “C’mon, Johnny, you can do it!” parents shout at Little League baseball games. It has never been considered inappropriate for Christians, any more than for non-Christians, to encourage their children or boost their self-esteem in this way. The Bible nowhere expects Christians to tell their children, “Johnny, realize that you are a poor, miserable shortstop.” And yet, we are all poor, miserable sinners.

That brings us to this other matter: our value  coram Deo  or “before God.”

The Scriptures declare that “our righteousness is like filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6), that “there is no one righteous, no not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10–12).

Before God we are regarded as “dead in trespasses and sins, . . . by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:1, 5). This is not because God is less forgiving than our friends and family on earth, but because God is holy. Therefore, whatever the basis of our

Before the doctrine of self-esteem became a buzzword and point of controversy among Christians, the necessity for self-confidence and a positive self-image in the arena of normal, daily human activity was taken for granted.

relationship with God is to be, it cannot be in the slightest measure dependent on anything we have to offer in this relationship; all of our righteousness must be found in someone else’s moral perfection.

This, therefore, is where much of the current debate gets confused. On one side, there are those who argue that any inculcation of a positive self-image is idolatry, while others insist that this is the gospel. By creation, we are endowed with God’s image and possess dignity, but the Fall marred that image and we ourselves invent new ways of effacing it. Thus in the matter of redemption, God will tolerate no self-esteem, no self-assertion, but only self-despair as the believer turns to Christ for his or her righteousness and worth before God. It is therefore a legitimate exercise for psychology to observe these obvious behavioral differences that exist among natural human beings, Christians and non-Christians alike, and seek to understand and promote these virtues.

Rejecting the determinism of Freud and the conditioning of behaviorism, humanistic psychology, as the result of extensive research, teaches that our selfimage or the manner in which perceive ourselves to a great extent influences our success. If this assessment is accurate and humanistic psychology is successful in fostering more responsible behavior within society, this would be pleasing to God inasmuch as it serves civil righteousness. God might commend the State of California for wanting employees to be more productive, urging teenagers to be less destructive, and wanting to see fewer crimes and welfare recipients move toward financial self-sufficiency. The apostle Paul, for instance, instructed us to pray for the success of human government so that the church of Jesus Christ could live in peace and security (1 Tim. 2:2). But is self-sufficiency and self-confidence in the workplace the same as self-confidence before God? Does the gospel promise greater self-confidence?

While the Scriptures commend civil righteousness, they also clearly affirm that the virtues produced by human nature can contribute nothing to our righteousness before God. Calvin points out that such human virtues are motivated by “ambition, or self-love, or some other sinister affection.”5 Luther states that civil righteousness “contributes no more to a Christian’s righteousness than do eating, drinking, sleeping, etc.”6 He compares civil righteousness to hay and straw required by cattle:

A cow must have hay and straw. This is a law for her, a rule without which she cannot exist. But through this law she does not become a child, a daughter, or an heiress in the house; she remains a cow.7

Even though a sense of self-worth and a positive self-image might be helpful if we are to successfully interact in society, before God, such success is nothing but hay and straw. Luther commended human civil righteousness and applauded the virtue often found among the heathen, but when it came to one’s standing before God, his words were rather different:

In the matter of redemption, God will tolerate no self-esteem, no self-assertion, but only self-despair as the believer turns to Christ for his or her righteousness and worth before God.

You hear your God speaking to you how all your life and deeds are nothing before God, but that you, together with everything in you, must perish eternally. If you believe this aright—that you are guilty—you must despair of yourself. . . . But in order to come out of and away from yourself, that is, out of your doom, he puts before you his dear Son, Jesus Christ, and has him speak to you his living, comforting Word: You should surrender yourself to him in firm faith and trust him boldly.8

The Real Problem

The controversy in the church today over the issue of self-esteem has not been created by secular psychologists, many of whom have no intention of having their theories underwritten by Christianity. The problem has been created out of the tension Christian psychologists discover between the secular theories of their profession and the biblical revelation. However, when psychology is the professional’s first and primary interest, theology can often be used to justify rather than to critique one’s professional conclusions. One should not doubt the honesty or integrity of Christians who wrestle with the integration between the two disciplines, but distinctions such as the one we have made in this chapter between “civil righteousness” (before man) and “divine righteousness” (before God) are absent from such discussions. Hence, it is impossible to entirely affirm civil righteousness as sufficient, but we feel compelled to affirm the basic human value of individuals. So what often happens is a blending of civil and divine righteousness. We feel uneasy giving unequivocal support to the idea of self-esteem (even before man), but we cannot believe that “worm theology” any longer, so we steer a middle course. What I am suggesting is that we resist that temptation, affirming the full dignity, self-worth, and grandeur of humans as created in the image of God, encouraging our children in their self-image, and at the same time pointing out the fact that before God we are worthy only of condemnation apart from Christ’s worth.

Therefore, to take the position that we ought to not only remove destructive labels from children in the classroom, but that we ought to remove the biblical references such as “sinner,” “wretch,” “miserable,” and “unworthy” from our hymnody and from Christian discussion seriously misunderstands and in fact undermines the biblical gospel. Thus the doctrine of creation (all humans bearing the divine image) may be used as the basis for self-esteem before man (civil righteousness), but the gospel may not. The gospel comes to those who feel miserable about themselves, not to those who think of themselves as “basically good” (Mark 2:17).

Even within secular psychology, there is opposition to the confusion of psychology and theology. Witness Dr. Karl Menninger’s famous diatribe asking the church, “Whatever Became of Sin?” Then there is Jewish psychiatrist Dr. Viktor Frankl’s insistence that “any fusion of the respective goals of religion and psychotherapy must result in confusion.” He correctly states that while the effects

of psychotherapy and religion might seem to overlap at points, the intentions are different.9 One must ask those who are engaged in Christian psychology where integration ends and this confusion begins. And they cannot answer this without an abundant appeal to theology.

A Controversial Intruder

Here is where the church is afraid of making waves. Services are often created to minimize discomfort for the unbeliever so that he or she begins to accept Christianity as an affirming influence. People ought to leave church feeling good about themselves, instead of being called to self-examination, sincere repentance, and faith toward God.

While the church must affirm human dignity before man, it must equally report the biblical facts concerning human depravity before God. When Robert Schuller writes that “the most serious sin is the one that causes me to say ‘I am unworthy,’” he confuses self-worth before man and self-worth before God. Did Jesus not affirm the very opposite in his illustration of the tax-collector and the Pharisee? “And the tax-collector, standing far off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner!’” While the Pharisee was affirming and nurturing himself with positive, uplifting “self-talk,” the tax-collector was committing Schuller’s cardinal sin: calling himself “unworthy.” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus concluded, “this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be abased, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).

The intrusion of the secular concept of self-esteem, therefore, faces us with the temptation to create new gospels that offer solutions to whatever the world has decided is humanity’s fundamental problem this week, while the timeless revelation of human despair and hope waits to be reappropriated and reapplied in each new generation.

Christians are urged to draw from knowledge, whatever its source. Following Augustine’s famous dictum “All truth is God’s truth,” we can expect to learn things from the social sciences that the Bible is not concerned to tell us. But what we see today in so much of the literature and preaching of Christian pop psychology is not integration of biblical-theological and natural-scientific knowledge, but a replacement of biblical views of humans, God, and salvation with purely secular notions, baptized with noncontextual verses from the Bible.

“The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector,” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld in Die Bibel in Bildern (Leipzig, 1860).

If “all truth is God’s truth” and God has seen fit to lead humanistic psychologists to discover something about God, man, and salvation that Christians have overlooked, underemphasized, or ignored altogether, we should expect such insights to fit nicely with biblical revelation. The Holy Spirit would not provide us with conflicting truths; therefore, where the Bible clearly addresses any issue or concept, it is the final authority regardless of how impressive rival theories might appear.

***

The Cross: Grace or Merit?

The central focus of Christianity is the grace of God bestowed upon sinful human beings through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the gospel, and its proclamation justifies the existence of the church as an institution. In order to preach God’s grace, one must also clearly explain the hopeless condition of sinful humanity. To believe in grace, one must be convinced that there is nothing in oneself that merits or deserves God’s favor or makes the person worthy of God’s fatherly care. “If it is by grace, it is not of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace” (Rom. 11:6).

However, the self-esteem craze has popularized a theory within Christian circles that claims the very opposite. One popular speaker, for instance, tells people, “You are ‘worth Jesus’ to God because that is what he paid for you.”10 I have heard more than one pastor declare in a sermon that Christ’s death proves our self-worth. The impression is given that if we had absolutely nothing to offer and no merit, God would not have wasted his time and energy on us. Christ died for us, we are told, because we were worth it. One writer argues, “It is as if Christ had said, ‘You are of such worth to me that I am going to die; even experience hell so that you might be adopted as my brothers and sisters.”11 But is this what we find in Scripture? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). It was something in God, not something in us, that moved him to compassion. We are worthy before God after Christ’s sacrifice, but not apart from it. He died not because we are worthy, but in order to give us worth before him.

Another popular writer states, “Of course, the greatest demonstration of a person’s worth to God was shown in giving us his Son.”12 Again, this confuses the issue. The cross is a demonstration of God’s love, mercy, compassion, justice, and goodness—not ours. The Bible clearly defines the death of Christ as a vicarious act. He died in our place. He took the punishment that was rightfully ours. We were worthy, to be sure—worthy of eternal death, but he took our unworthiness upon himself and gave us his worth, his merit in our place. He did not give his life for us because we were worthy, but in order to render us worthy before the Father. The cross reveals the depth of our sin, not the height of our worth before God. The apostle Paul declared, “If one died for all, then were all dead” (2 Cor. 5:14). In other words, the cross is a demonstration of the spiritual bankruptcy

To believe in grace, one must be convinced that there is nothing in oneself that merits or deserves God’s favor or makes the person worthy of God’s fatherly care.

of humanity before God: “They have all gone out of the way; they have together become worthless” (Rom. 3:12).

In addition, the death of Christ was a judicial act. It was a divine sentence leveled against sinful humanity and carried out against the Son of God. How, therefore, can one suggest that the severity of the judicial sentence against us for our sins and assumed by another reminds us of our self-worth? If it were possible for the death of Jesus Christ to have been even more cruel and horrible, would we be thereby granted even greater self-worth?

A [1992] television newscast reported the arraignment of a serial killer who admitted responsibility for at least nine murders. The judge set his bail at five million dollars. Would we use the same sort of reasoning to conclude that this man should feel good about himself and regard himself as a very valuable human being, since the judge set his bail so high? After all, he is worth five million dollars to society! The five-million-dollar bail obviously does not reflect the value of the murderer, but the severity of his crime. Similarly, the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross is not a statement of our worth but indicates the depth of our sin and guilt before God. Again, if Jesus died for us because he saw something in us worth dying for, then there was something in us that merited his death somehow. But we are saved because of something good in God, not because of something good in us.

I have often heard it said, “If I had been the only person on the earth, Jesus would still have died for me.” While our Lord may have given his life for just one person, it is most certainly not because this person is so valuable, but because God is so gracious. It is hardly, therefore, a source of pride or self-esteem. For me to argue that Jesus would have died for me if I were the only person on the earth simply indicates that my sins alone, without the rest of you contributing your share, were sufficient to demand the severe punishment Jesus Christ vicariously assumed in my place. When faced with that reality, we ought to weep for the selfless sacrifice of our Lord instead of finding in it one more opportunity for feeling good about ourselves.

And yet, this very approach I am suggesting, which has been characteristic of evangelical preaching and teaching for centuries and lies at the heart of the biblical revelation, is anathema in many evangelical circles today. Dr. Ray Anderson, who taught a course on the integration of self-esteem and theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, complained about the psychological battering of the cross:

If our sin is viewed as causing the death of Jesus on the cross, then we ourselves become victims of a “psychological battering” produced by the cross. When I am led to feel that the pain and torment of Jesus’ death on the cross is due to my sin, I inflict upon myself spiritual and psychological torment.13

There is no doubt that the cross of Jesus Christ does inflict upon us a “psychological battering.” Theologically, we have considered this as part of the process

leading to repentance. The law reads like a series of algebra problems we have failed, and the failing grade is read aloud: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). It is a measure of just how these secular concepts have revolutionized our daily discourse as Christians when evangelical seminary professors can look at the cross of Christ and his suffering, his physical and spiritual battering, and then warn Christians about the danger of being psychologically battered by the event. Consider rather Luther’s attitude toward the cross:

The main benefit of Christ’s passion is that man sees into his own true self and that he is terrified and crushed by this. Unless we seek that knowledge, we do not derive much benefit from Christ’s passion. . . . He who is so hard-hearted and callous as not to be terrified by Christ’s passion and led to a knowledge of self has reason to fear.14

Those who seek a righteousness (whether it goes by the name “self-esteem,” “merit,” “self-confidence,” “self-worth”) in themselves before God are refusing a gift that makes the self-flattery they have embraced pale by comparison. God has promised to clothe the believer with the perfect righteousness and worth of Christ himself. Who would want to settle for anything less?

G. Matzat is a retired

minister and former host of the radio show Issues, Etc.

1. Roland Bainton, Here I Stand (Nashville: Abingdon, 1978), 65.

2. John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 3:11:23.

3. Robert Schuller, Self-Esteem: The New Reformation (Waco: Word, 1982), 98.

4. Schuller, Self-Esteem.

5. Calvin, Institutes, 2:75.

6. Ewald M. Plass, What Luther Says (St. Louis: Concordia, 1957), op. cit.

7. Plass, What Luther Says, op. cit.

8. Werner Elert,  The Structure of Lutheranism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1962), 80.

9. Viktor Frankl, The Unconscious God (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975), 75.

10. Josh McDowell, Building Your Self-Esteem (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1986), 42–43.

11. William Kirwin,  Biblical Concepts for Christian Counseling (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 107.

12. Donna Foster, Building a Child’s Self-Esteem (Glendale: Regal, 1977), 6.

13. Ray S. Anderson, The Gospel According to Judas (Colorado Springs: Helmer and Howard, 1991), 99.

14. Timothy Lull,  Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 168.

Donald

Lutheran

Book Reviews

You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News

by Kelly M. Kapic

TODAY THE “SUPPLY CHAIN” is often a topic of daily radio programming, a reminder of our human interdependence. Despite constant clues of our dependence on others for the food we eat, the buildings we inhabit, the cars we drive, and the infrastructure of our cities, we regularly forget that we are dependent and believe that we are independent—and that we can be and do everything. Kelly Kapic’s newest book, You’re Only Human, has us instead look down at the belly button we all possess and know that we need other people. God himself stated, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Gen. 2:18). This book is a needed salve in our world of increasing isolation, of “bowling alone.”

It seems to me that You’re Only Human, without citing it, unpacks arguably one of the most neglected doctrinal truths in the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF): the communion of the saints. While I would venture to guess that WCF 26 is rarely studied and celebrated, it profoundly communicates our need for fellowship and community:

All saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their Head, by his Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: and, being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man. (WCF 26.1)

The confession goes on to say that believers are called to relieve “each other in outward things, according to their several abilities and necessities” (WCF 26.2). You’re Only Human unpacks these truths from a variety of angles. Reminding us of biblical metaphors of the church as a body (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12:12–27), Kapic remarks that “God created us for mutual dependence and delight within a life-giving community: that isn’t merely a goal; it’s how we are built” (177).

Kapic addresses the common quandary of being drawn to so many good causes in life. There is prison ministry. Children’s ministry. Discipleship and evangelism. There are worthwhile civic causes to engage—so much to do but so little time. Here, Kapic wants to free us to realize that despite our limits, we can be involved in various things through our union with other believers in the church.

God’s Spirit has united me to Christ and, because of that union, to my sisters and brothers of the faith. . . . As part of God’s church, we have people doing prison ministry, caring for children, feeding the hungry, praying, preaching, and caring for orphans and widows. I am not the body—I am just a part of it. (178)

Kapic makes the provocative claim that “in our union with Christ, we benefit from the vicarious work of Christ. But we also benefit in some vicarious way from the work of our sisters and brothers” (179). Here he connects anthropology, a biblical understanding of humanity, with ecclesiology,

a biblical understanding of the church. He also touches on a biblical understanding of vocation:

Only when we live in our interconnectedness will we stop belittling those with “secular” vocations who honor Christ as painters and teachers, as landscapers and homemakers, as politicians and software engineers. Rather than disparage someone else’s work, we can see it as part of the whole. (179)

Particularly, Kapic commends prayer as one way we join ourselves to the various activities of others (180).

Understanding all this, Kapic suggests, protects us from burnout, gives us the ability to say no to good things that might unhealthily stretch our limits, and encourages us to healthy rhythms “like Sabbath, exercise, friendship” as well as sleep (183). Pastors especially need to read this book and take his advice (181–86). Yet all Christians are called to give time to contemplating God and all things in relation to God; all Christians are called to family worship and to be good stewards of our bodies. Amid a world of frenetic busyness, Christians are called to be people of peace who value activities such as prayer that produce little visible or immediate results. As Christopher Holmes recently wrote in A Theology of the Christian Life: Imitating and Participating in God, “Hallowing God’s name is the ultimate time waster,” but this is what is “demanded” of God’s people, mirroring the Trinity, each person “delighting in one another ‘uselessly’” (Holmes, 154). Arguably, until we do this, we are unfit to go out into the world as salt and light. You’re Only Human addresses numerous aspects of our humanity. Readers should not be dissuaded by the book’s slow start as it gains considerable steam after the first few chapters. Kapic reminds us that our limits as creatures are not sinful in themselves and that “being dependent creatures is a constructive gift, not a deficiency” (10). No doubt the apostle Paul would agree that we must depend on God (2 Cor. 1:9; 4:7; 12:7–10).

Kapic’s second chapter brings awareness to the particularity of God’s love for us as individuals, with the reminder that he formed us with specific gifts and needs. The third chapter points to Jesus’ humanity as proof that having a physical body with physical limits is not inherently bad. Chapter 4 engages human experience in powerful and practical ways, speaking of the sexualized ads that surround us at the grocery store as well as the pressure on both men and women to have a particular body shape. Kapic not only speaks to the embodied gathering of God’s people, which paused for so many during the early days of COVID-19, but also of the power of touch.

Chapter 5 could be viewed as a helpful but brief supplement to Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, for Kapic here reminds us of our dependence on those around us even to identify ourselves. When we tell others about who we are, we necessarily speak of the people and institutions that shape us and our history (77). Kapic grounds his explanations in the Bible and answers the “Who am I?” question ultimately through our relation to God (e.g., 90). He even tackles unhelpful ways of speaking about struggles with eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia: instead of identifying ourselves with a behavior, “distinguishing the person from the addictive behavior helps the patient identify, fight, and resist the self-harming actions” (93).

Part 2 of the book discusses “healthy dependence,” where Kapic begins with a recovery of true humility and joyful realism. “Humility,” he writes, “consists in a recognition of (and a rejoicing in) the good limitations that God has given us; it is not a regrettable necessity, nor simply a later addition responding to sinful disorders” (103). Kapic makes the interesting claim that humility should be viewed in terms of our creaturely limits, not just our sinfulness (112). Humility also means acknowledging the gifts that God has given to others. One commendable aspect of the book is that Kapic inserts Christology into each chapter, showing how Jesus lived out what Kapic is

observing. However, I felt that he did not connect those dots sufficiently when it came to Christ and Kapic’s paradigm of humility.

Kapic’s chapter on time is one of the book’s highlights, and his history of how the clock has come to control our lives is fascinating. There are many gems of wisdom here, such as “We have often tried to make machines that are like humans, but now we often expect humans to be like machines” (126). Similarly, chapter 8 shows from the Bible that God is comfortable with change over time, process. This chapter will surely help Christians lamenting their slow progress in sanctification. Kapic ties our impatience here to the desire for efficiency, but “love, community, and growth of character are often—though not always—at odds with efficiency. . . . One of the most inefficient things you can ever do is love another person. . . . Loving another creature requires engagement, response, and patience” (149). As a parent of small children who sometimes laments how child-rearing hinders my productivity, I needed to hear this.

Kapic’s final chapter reminds us that “trying to ‘have it all’—all at once—sets us up for frustration and failure” (197). Here, he reminds us that there are different seasons in life, that we can admit our vulnerabilities, we can lament, and that God made us as creatures who need rest, including sleep. Kapic posits that “sleep is an act of faith. It requires us to see our finitude as a good part of God’s design for us” (217). The Sabbath also should be celebrated: you get to say “no” to work one day a week (219), in imitation of God (Gen. 2:3)!

Today, realism is often labeled “defeatism”— certainly when it comes to sanctification; endtime views that deny worldly triumph or transformationalism are viewed as pessimistic and resignation, while traditional doctrines, such as the spirituality of the church, are rejected as quietism and political cowardice. Such labelers may find You’re Only Human to be defeatist as well, just as some eschewed Michael Horton’s excellent book Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical,

Restless World (Zondervan, 2014). Others will find it refreshing, freeing, and challenging to our modern idolatries.

Reformation in the Low Countries, 1500–1620

by Christine Kooi

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS | 2022 | 236 PAGES (PAPERBACK) | $39.99

AS AN AMERICAN who used to live in the UK, British news commentary on American politics always left me with a sense of dysphoria. Although they named the right topics and assessed them in terms of familiar-sounding categories, I was always left with the experience of hearing commentary about the issues of my homeland that sounds nothing like what I make of the issues as a cultural insider.

Christine Kooi’s treatment of the Dutch Reformation, including political and religious change in the region now called the Netherlands, largely left me with the same feeling as watching British commentary on American politics: speaking the same language but always with a foreign accent Kooi’s book is highly informed, with a clear grasp of social, economic, and political issues. Yet it never sufficiently connects the dots on the religious issues involved. In this sense, Kooi has produced a thoroughly modern work, noting how religion was important for them as driving factors—even instigating war—but downplaying how theology genuinely intertwined with political and cultural stances in the hearts and minds of the subjects of her study.

This book’s strength provides a coherent

Andrew J. Miller is the pastor of Bethel Reformed Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

narrative of events in what became the Dutch Republic, moving from medieval Christendom to the pluralist States General. English-language literature has not surveyed the Dutch Reformation as extensively as the Reformation in Germany and England. In this respect, Kooi’s study makes a welcome contribution. It fully covers the contours of Dutch society, geographically and socially, in the early sixteenth century, providing needed insight to understand major cultural shifts. It also traces political developments, connecting the Netherlands to the changing face of other Continental powers and authorities and their implications for Dutch society. Perhaps most importantly, Kooi grants the English-speaking world summary access to the more extensive Dutch-language literature on the Dutch Reformation.

Kooi’s language throughout her narrative appears partisan, biased in favor of the Roman Catholic side of the Dutch Reformation. Throughout the book, Roman Catholics are said to hold to “traditional” religion. In itself, this point is not controversial—if all that she meant is that Protestants developed some views and practices different from what had prevailed in their culture before the Reformation. Kooi, however, seems to mean something more, consistently labeling Protestants as heretics and their opinions as biblicism. Although historians can rely on this sort of language with some objectivity to convey one group’s impressions of another group, Kooi’s depiction does not seem so objective. This language of Protestants as heretics is not limited to the sections written about Roman Catholic reform in the Netherlands but prevails throughout.

The upshot of Kooi’s historical argument is that the Dutch Reformation produced two countries: Protestants in the north and Roman Catholics in the south. This aspect of her thesis is intriguing and well supported by her presentation of the data concerning the migration of, and boundary divisions between, those holding to each confession and their respective political allegiances. Yet biased language again intrudes.

Although Kooi admits that the Protestant northern territory developed a more pluralistic society, tolerating and making space for disagreement, she continues to present Reformed Protestants as oppressors who victimized dissenters. On the other hand, Roman Catholics in the southern territory, although far more strident in legal persecution of dissenters within their borders, are presented as succeeding in producing a confessionally unified society.

Kooi’s descriptive bias plays out in other ways in the book. Perhaps most striking are her descriptions of those killed for their faith. Although conceding that both Romanists and Protestants bestowed martyr status on those within their communions who died for their faith, Kooi does not speak equally of the two. Rather, her dispassionate depiction of Protestants being executed comes across simply as what happens to rebels (as she labels them on a number of occasions). On the other hand, when Roman Catholics are killed, she calls it brutal murder or, in one instance, “blasphemous violence.” My point is not to justify either side but to highlight how Kooi by her use of imbalanced language seems to prosecute one side and pardon the other.

Kooi’s seeming lack of Protestant sympathy extends to her discussions of theology and piety. Her specifically religious analysis is rare and when present falls significantly short. This becomes most clear in her discussion (163–70) of the Synod of Dort. First, Kooi seems to pit John Calvin and Theodore Beza against each other on the doctrine of predestination, harking back to the outmoded Calvin versus the Calvinists thesis.

Second, Kooi fails to explain the actual theological disagreements involved in the debates about predestination. She locates the center of the debate between infralapsarians (those who hold the fall to be logically prior to election in God’s eternal purposes) and supralapsarians (those who hold election to be logically prior to the fall). Rather, the center of the debate was between Reformed theologians, who held to both infra and supra

views on one side, and Arminius and the Remonstrants, who held to election on the basis of foreseen human faith on the other side. Finally, with respect to Dort, Kooi entirely omitted the controversy over Alfred Molina’s teaching about middle knowledge, which caused debates within Roman Catholic theology itself, making the controversy at Dort about much deeper and more complex theological issues than the author seems sensitive to: about the nature of God’s purposes and the relationship between his sovereignty and human responsibility. These were issues wrestled with by Protestant and Catholic alike.

If this book were a defense of the Roman Catholic reformation, its partisan language would be understandable. But it is presented as a historical study of the Reformation in the Low Countries across confessional divides. In that case, one could wish for less bias and more analysis.

Harrison Perkins is pastor at Oakland Hills Community Church, a visiting lecturer in systematic theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary, online faculty in church history for Westminster Theological Seminary, and author of Catholicity and the Covenant of Works: James Ussher and the Reformed Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2020).

the Reformed faith in the Dutch Republic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.” Of the six women included (Cornelia Teellinck, Susanna Teellinck, Anna Maria van Schurman, Sara Nevius, Cornelia Leydekker, and Henrica van Hoolwerff), I was familiar only with Anna Maria van Schurman.

I had read about the Dutch Reformation, as well as its Second or Further Reformation ( Nadere Reformatie ) and some of its male participants, such as William of Orange, Gisbertus Voetius, and Wilhelmus à Brakel. Most accounts made no mention of women apart from powerful figures such as van Schurman and Princess Elizabeth of the Palatinate. I was looking forward to knowing more about this neglected portion of history, and Pipkin’s book didn’t disappoint. Besides her thorough treatment of the lives and works of her six protagonists, she gives a clear and informed explanation of the times in which they lived and the opportunities afforded to women to teach, write, hold religious meetings, and house ministers and refugees. She also provides an interesting account of how these writings were viewed and appreciated, as well as the various reasons for their almost unanimous acclaim by pastors and theologians.

Dissenting Daughters: Reformed Women in the Dutch Republic, 1572–1725

by Amanda C. Pipkin

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS | 2022

| 288 PAGES (HARDCOVER) | $100.00

WHEN I FIRST NOTICED the publication of Dissenting Daughters: Reformed Women in the Dutch Republic, 1572–1725 , I was curious to read it. It revealed, the description said, the vital contribution made by devout women “to the spread and practice of

In discussing the contributions of women within a traditional patriarchal society, Pipkin provides a useful section where she examines a variety of scholarly opinions on the role played by Protestantism. She finds it “curious that Protestantism, whose proponents insistently supported a hierarchy that privileged the male head of households at the expense of their wives, children, and servants, provided some women with opportunities to express their religious authority during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries”

(4). She believes her study contributes to the discussion “by shifting the attention from the father at the center of the story of Protestantism to the network of women surrounding him who studied, taught, wrote, and printed devotional texts”

(4). In fact, while the father remained the de facto

spiritual head of the family, women took over this role whenever working fathers, especially traveling merchants, “could not or would not offer sufficient domestic religious instruction. . . . Moralists deemed the mission of reforming households so vitally important and onerous that they authorized women to take leadership of domestic religious instruction and worship whenever patriarchs were not willing or able to do so” (45).

Pipkin explains that by encouraging women to put into writing the teachings they were dispensing within their families, “Protestant ministers, church elders, and schoolmasters in the Netherlands . . . transformed women’s traditional work of nurturing and instructing children into an esteemed religious vocation” (19). Most of the influence of these women was amplified by the international network that had been growing throughout Europe. They seemed to be, however, more deeply affected by mysticism than their English counterparts (mysticism and medieval devotion played an important role in the Second Reformation).

After summarizing these facts in the introduction and first chapter, Pipkin devotes a chapter to the Teellinck sisters, one to Anna Maria van Schurman, one to Sara Nevius, and one to Cornelia Leydekker and Henrica van Hoolwerff. I am glad that Pipkin chose to quote quite generously from their writing as most of their works are not available in English in any other volume. These writings afford us a glimpse into these women’s minds and hearts and help us to sympathize with them, their struggles, queries, and conclusions. Even those who don’t agree with their decisions or interpretations can appreciate their questions, concerns, and serious desire to be of service to Christ and others.

Dissenting Daughters is enriched by a large number of endnotes (placed at the end of each chapter) and by a substantial bibliography and list of digital resources at the end of the volume. While this is delightful news for those who want to expand their research, their excitement may

be dampened by the fact that most of these references are in Dutch, and that most of the women Pipkin briefly mentions have not been researched at all. Pipkin is fully aware of this obstacle. In fact, she concludes the book by saying,

There remain so many unanswered questions and potential discoveries. This book is a net cast into a deep lake. My intention was to draw in and identify as many women as possible so that others can take up the net again.

(230)

Besides this unavoidable disappointment of whetted appetites, some might be slightly annoyed by Pipkin’s repetition of concepts (and in least in one case, an entire sentence). I was not bothered by this since much of this information was new to me and the repetition helped to fix it in my mind, but she might need a more careful editor in the future. As it is for most academic books, the price of this book is also prohibitive for most readers hoping to own their own copy.

Overall, Dissenting Daughters is a fascinating journey into the early history of the Dutch Reformed Church, and one that warrants repeated readings. It introduces us to women who lived in a context many of us will find both radically different and strangely familiar. It is also useful to anyone interested in the history of patriarchy within the church. In fact, we need more of this type of serious and objective examination of history to bring clarity to difficult issues and model an honest and respectful way to address them. I hope that Pipkin will continue her research and inspire others to do the same, and therefore cast more nets into these deep and largely unexplored waters.

Simonetta Carr is the author of numerous books, including Broken Pieces and the God Who Mends Them: Schizophrenia through a Mother’s Eyes, and the Christian Biographies for Young Readers series (Reformation Heritage Books).

Introducing MR’s New Poetry Editor

by Brannon Ellis

POETRY MAY BE THE SHARPEST TOOL of human self-awareness ever invented. Whether wielded as an ax or a scalpel, poetry carves with compact lucidity, revealing ourselves to ourselves like nothing else. This is biblical. Not just in the sense that fully one-third of the Bible is poetry, but in the sense that from the start, the Bible makes a point of describing human beings poetically. Moses celebrates the creation of human beings in God’s own image by reciting a poem about us:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

(Gen. 1:27)

And the first recorded words from the first man are a poem composed upon seeing his new wife:

“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

(Gen. 2:23)

Poems continued to be a worthy revelatory tool even after we failed to live up to these initial accolades. It seems poetry remains fresh even after its subject matter has spoiled. Paul’s invective in Romans 3:10–18, quoting King David in Psalm 14, is painfully blunt but cuts no less deeply for it:

None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; . . . no one does good, not even one.

Christians aren’t the only ones who share in this celebration and derision of good but fallen humanity. Everyone at some time or other despairs over human nature.

Poetry is a powerful God-given tool for piercing through to the complex truth about human beings—and sometimes, by God’s grace, it can even wake us up. That’s why I’m happy Modern Reformation publishes poetry and why I’m so pleased to introduce our new poetry editor, Jonathan Landry Cruse. Jonathan is pastor of Community Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and author of The Christian’s True Identity. Demonstrating his poetry bona fides, Jonathan is also a hymn writer. We welcome Jonathan to our team and trust that, by God’s grace, he will bring the same skill and enthusiasm to this role displayed so ably by the late Larry Woiwode.

Poetry powerfully conveys truth about the mystery of human character, but that’s not the most powerful thing about it. Since most of the Bible’s poetry is dedicated to revealing the ineffable character of God, it stands to reason that it’s an excellent tool fit for this purpose too. In doing so, poetry tells us something else: We should be suspicious of theology that has no place for beauty. Whether truth is pleasant or painful, it is always beautiful. And it must always lead to praise.

Brannon Ellis is executive editor of Modern Reformation.

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The Gospel of Luke