Living in the Mystical Union of Christ within the Mysterium Trinitatis

Posted on October 10, 2025 by Bobby Grow

Richard Sibbes (1577-1635), Puritan pastor and theologian has a few words on the sufficiency of Christ’s offering to the Father, and the trinitarian shape of the gospel:

What a support to our faith is this, that God the Father, the party offended by our sins, is so well pleased with the work of redemption! And what a comfort is this, that seeing God’s love resteth on Christ, as well pleased in him, we may gather that he is as well pleased with us, if we be in Christ! For his love resteth in whole Christ, in Christ mystical, as well as Christ natural, because he loveth him and us with one love. Let us, therefore, embrace Christ, and in him God’s love, and build our faith safely on such a Saviour, that is furnished with so high a commission. See here, for our comfort, a sweet agreement of all three persons: the Father giveth a commission to Christ; the Spirit furnisheth and sanctifieth to it; Christ himself executeth the office of a Mediator. Our redemption is founded upon the joint agreement of all three persons of the Trinity.[1]

What amazing thoughts! Did you notice in the first paragraph how Sibbes highlights the function that our union with Christ has before the Father? We are loved by the Father, with the same love that He loves His Son, Jesus, with. Let that reality sink in, meditate upon how intimate in fact you are with the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit! We are truly represented, and known to the Father, because of the redemptive work and mediatorial Priesthood of the Son. Come boldly to the Father, come as if you are His dearly beloved Son . . . because You are! We have been enveloped into the intratrinitarian life of the Father, Son, and Spirit; snatched out of the idolatry and slavery of self-love, and brought into the union and communion of HIS love. LOVE BOLDLY!

[1] Richard Sibbes, trans. Grosart, Works of Richard Sibbes: The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax, 42-3.

*Originally written in 2009 for another blog of mine back in the day.

Thomas Aquinas’ semi-Pelagianism; Augustine of Hippo’s Relationalism; and Evangelical Calvinism’s Reception of Latin Theology

Posted on October 31, 2022 by Bobby Grow

There is a lot of talk these days in certain (Baptist) sectors about retrieving the theology of Thomas Aquinas. The focus of discussion is typically on his Prima Pars—of his Summa Theologiae—and less on the full scope of Thomas’ theology. But what in fact is being retrieved, if in fact the ultimate desire is to recover Aquinas’ theology in a total way? What about Thomas’ theological anthropology, and as corollary, doctrine of sin; are these foci fulgently available for the Protestants to recover as well? If we look back into the 16^th and 17^th centuries of what is called the Post Reformed Orthodox development of Reformed (or Calvinist) theology what we find is an affirmative in regard to recovering more than just a doctrine of God from Thomas Aquinas. And so, Thomas’ theology, at least if we move beyond the 21^st century Baptists, with an eye towards the Post Reformed Orthodox theologians (like William Perkins et al.), is indeed intent on bringing many of Thomas’ theological themes into the development of their own respective projects as Federally Protestant theologians. In order to gain a better understanding on Thomas’ (and Anselm’s, as the case may be) doctrine of sin let us turn to RN Frost’s treatment of that in his book Richard Sibbes: God’s Spreading Goodness. Frost writes (at length):

Aquinas on privative sin

The first major proponent of privative sin in the medieval period is Anselm whose pioneering work was followed and developed by Aquinas. In a matter crucial to the development of the nomist tradition, Anselm based his doctrine on Augustine’s early doctrine of privatio rather than his post-Pelagian view. The implication picked up by Pelagius—that salvation requires a free act of the volition in choosing God—was assimilated roughly a century later by Aquinas.

Aquinas, as a student of Augustine, was apparently alert to Augustine’s shift on the issue of privatio: he attributed privatio to Anselm and a positive definition (sin as habitus) to Augustine. Aquinas, in fact, sought to synthesize the views of Augustine and Anselm through an analogy much like Augustine’s lost-food solution: “As in a bodily illness there is privation, in that the balance of health is upset, yet also something positive, the disturbed bodily humours, so also in original sin there is privation [privatione], the lack of original justice, yet along with this there are the disturbed powers of the soul.” In this explanation, however, he failed to adopt Augustine’s solution that grace is God’s presence in the elect by the Spirit. This followed Aquinas’s premise that human nature and divine being are wholly incommensurate—a topic taken up in the next chapter. Significantly, Aquinas believed that Adam’s original state of righteousness was not something natural to his humanity but a gift of supernatural grace (donum gratiæ):

Original righteousness [justitia originalis] was a definite gift of grace [donum gratiæ] divinely bestowed upon all human nature in the first parent, which, indeed, the first parent lost in the first sin. Hence even as that original righteousness would have been transmitted along with human nature to the offspring of the first parents, so the opposite disorder is in fact transmitted.”

Thus, subsequent sin in humanity resulted from an incapacity, the loss of Adam’s original righteousness that the donum gratiæ had maintained. Adam had squandered humanity’s golden opportunity by failing to guard his original righteousness.

Aquinas, in these discussions, located privatio within nature, viewing sin as the loss of a created quality. The symmetrical cure for sin, with sin defined as a privatio gratiæ, is a resupply of grace. To this end, Aquinas held that grace has dual aspects, one created and the other uncreated. This doublet allowed him to resolve the tension between original sin and actual sin. When Adam fell he lost the created grace of original righteousness. The implicit ground for his fall was an absence of uncreated grace that was needed because of his human mutability.

This two-stage arrangement assumed that morality is defined by the use of a free will to choose either good or evil. Thus it was God’s purpose to generate a vulnerability in Adam in order to test and affirm his morality. His failure was then transmitted to his progeny by the absence of original righteousness. Privatio, in this arrangement, was twofold: a lack of uncreated grace that led to, but did not compel, Adam’s fall; and a subsequent lack of created grace after the fall due to Adam’s loss of original righteousness. Adam was therefore culpable because of his own initiative in the fall. After the fall Adam’s progeny now lack the grace, both created and uncreated, necessary for righteousness. We are therefore helpless and God’s twin resources of grace are needed for salvation.

Among the Puritans these were points of conversation. Perkins adopted the Thomistic solution with its reliance on a duality of grace. He believed it offered the most coherent solution to the problem of sin when sin is defined as privatio. Sibbes, however, came to see sin as self-love even though he first held Perkins’ view. And with that he also took up Augustine’s view of grace as God’s relational bond to the elect.[1]

We can see the way Frost is arguing in regard to making a distinction between two Puritans, William Perkins and Richard Sibbes, respectively. For our purposes what stands out in this treatment is the development of Aquinas’ doctrine of sin (and grace), as Frost identifies an Anselmian (and Aristotelian, not explicitly referenced in this context) background to said doctrine. What is significant, to my mind, is how Aquinas, if Frost’s treatment is accurate, thought of grace to begin with. What was needed, in his frame, for salvation to obtain in an individual person, was created grace. But this notion, even while funded by the broader reality of an ‘uncreated’ grace, was thought of in qualitative or substantial terms. And so we end up with a necessary separation between the work of God in salvation, and the person of God. This occurs, in the Thomist sense, insofar that grace is not in fact the act of God’s person for the world in Jesus Christ. And that the person of Christ by the Spirit is not understood, then, as the basis of what grace is in itself (ontologically). So grace becomes, in a Thomist sense, something that the elect must manage or cooperate with in order to appropriate God’s salvation for them. And it can become a ‘thing’ that is dispensed through the Catholic mass, as the Eucharistic body is given to the faithful. Frost will argue that the Federal theology of someone like William Perkins retrieved this Thomist frame for thinking grace, and built it into his own style of Federal (Covenantal) theology. That this frame, indeed, funds the theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith in general.

But there is a better way to think grace, even as that is understood in an Augustinian key (as Frost also argues). Personally, I think the best way to think grace in a relational frame is to do so in an Athanasian key; that is, to think it as distinctively relational and personal. What is interesting about Frost’s work is that he develops that possibility from Augustine himself. TF Torrance believes that Augustine is guilty of what TFT calls the ‘Latin Heresy.’ That is a type of nascent dualism as Augustine thinks the work of God vis-à-vis the person of God. But this might be too hasty of a characterization by TFT. If Frost is right about Augustine, in regard to his relational and ‘affective’ understanding of grace, then what we have in Augustine, while still neo-Platonic (thus TF’s charge that Augustine is engaging in the ‘Latin heresy’), is the very type of personalist and ontological understanding of grace that TFT attributes exclusively to Athanasius (and the Nicene trad). In other words, maybe there was more availability in Augustine’s theology, in regard to an ontological and relational understanding of grace, than TFT gave Augustine credit for. Based on Frost’s work it would appear, in certain ways, that TFT may have been reading Augustine through the Thomist and Westminster reception rather than reading Augustine himself. If so, this would open the door for an Evangelical Calvinism to have a good basis for working not just with Athanasian themes, but also with Augustinian ones as well. An Evangelical Calvinism is more concerned with recovering the ‘reverend teaching’ than it is with the genealogy of said teaching, per se.

Either way, Thomas’ doctrine of sin, based on an Anselmian theme, is not commensurate with an Evangelical Calvinism. And so, we must continue to eschew a Thomism, a Federal or Westminster Calvinism, a classical Arminianism so on and so forth. Evangelical Calvinists are focused, along with Frost’s Augustine, with understanding God from God as immediately Self-revealed by the Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ. An Evangelical Calvinist thus cannot endorse a Thomist doctrine of sin, nor any other receptions of that as that is developed in juridical and commercial ways as primarily observed in the theology of the Post Reformed Orthodox Protestants.

[1] RN Frost, Richard Sibbes: God’s Spreading Goodness (Vancouver, WA: Cor Deo Press, 2012), 124-26 (based on Frost’s PhD dissertation written at King’s College, University of London, 1996).

“Disbelief in God’s love is the root of all evil”: Engaging With Luther’s Theology of Desire, Doctrine of Sin, and Freewill

Posted on October 24, 2018 by Bobby Grow

Sin, desire, and freewill; each of these can be trigger words that often lead to intense theological debate among various parties. In this post I want to address these loci from a particular angle; the angle will have to do with salvation and theological anthropology in particular. When I was in seminary my mentor/professor, Ron Frost, introduced me to his work on what he calls Affective Theology; I’ve written of it, more than once here at the blog, and years ago wrote a very introductory post detailing what it entails in its entailments. I want to redress this ‘theology’ again, not only referring to Frost, but some insights that I’ve picked up from Paul Hinlicky and his work with Luther, Melanchthon, Leibniz, and Barth’s theology; and how his work dovetails nicely with Frost’s work in the area of Affective Theology.

In brief Frost’s Affective Theology is largely a theological anthropological endeavor that, of course, as with all theological projects, reaches back into a doctrine of God. In the main Frost’s thesis, as he focuses most pointedly on Puritan, Richard Sibbes, is to argue, from within a tripartite faculty psychology (per theological-anthropological concerns), that unlike the Thomist Intellectualist tradition, the most basic and defining component of what makes someone human is not their intellect/rationales (which is the major Western Tradition following Thomas Aquinas et al.), but instead it is their ‘affections’ or more biblically attuned, the ‘heart.’ Frost argues that this anthropology can be identified all the way back to Augustine, and then into Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventura, Gerson, Von Staupitz, Luther, Calvin, Sibbes, Cotton et al. Here is some of Frost’s work that should help the reader get a better feel for what his thesis was about. Here you see him comparing and contrasting Richard Sibbes and William Perkins; the latter representative of the more dominant Western tradition—the tradition being uncritically retrieved today by young (and many older forebears) evangelical Reformed theologians.

Some final observations may be made about the positive and privative views of sin. The two approaches differ fundamentally on the reason for sin; while man is identified as responsible for sin in both views, he tends to be portrayed more as a pliable innocent overcome by the serpent’s deceit in the privative model. It is Adam presented as inadequate, not because he was unable to fulfill the law, but, because, in his mutability as a creature, he was vulnerable to moral change. This the serpent exploited while God was willfully away. In scholastic terms, the formal cause of sin was twofold, given the double causality associated with God’s sovereignty. God, as the primary agent for all things, determined the outcome by his withdrawal. In this he was arbitrary but just. The second agent, Adam, failed to apply the grace he had available and thus was culpable for his own fall, albeit as something of a victim. In both considerations the issue of grace is pivotal in its absence. For the privative model, as seen in both Thomistic and Reformed theology, this leads to a greater emphasis on the acquisition and application of grace in hypostatized or commodity-like terms, and a tendency toward Aristotelian moralism — the establishing of one’s righteousness through righteous actions based on grace. To the degree that grace becomes an impersonal quality, the greater the impression one has that something worthy of appreciation, if not merit, is being accomplished.

The doctrine of positive sin, on the other hand, rejects any tendency to see man as a victim; Adam is always the culprit in that he willfully replaced the Creator with the creature as the object of absolute devotion. It also recognizes human mutability as a fact which allows the fall, but rejects it as a meaningful explanation. The fall, in positive sin, remains an impenetrable mystery; Adam is not portrayed as deceived and God is not portrayed as withholding grace. In the positive model sin is always a competition: Adam seeks to usurp God’s role while God confounds Adam’s autonomy.

Thus, the most important difference between the two models is found in the way God is portrayed. In the privative view, as Aquinas and Perkins have it, he remains a supplier of grace — withholding what is needed for salvation except to the elect. He even remains parsimonious to the elect but, as their efforts prevail, is increasingly generous. In the positive view, on the other hand, he is an enemy until conversion which comes by the Spirit’s direct intervention. He invites the elect to see God as he really is: righteous, strong, and loving. Conversion, in fact, is a litmus for the two views: the privative model generally adopts a catechetical process which culminates in an affirmation of faith. The positive model, while recognizing that the Spirit uses prevenient stirrings, expects a more distinct Paul-light conversion which displays the moment in which selfish autonomy melts before God’s self disclosure. For the one, nature remains very much in view; for the other, God, once unveiled by grace, dominates the scene.

The importance of the affections for Sibbes and the nomists differed in profound ways. For Sibbes the affections were both the avenue by which sin entered the world and the avenue by which God, through the Spirit, restores the fallen soul. Slavery of the will was seen to be an enslavement by one’s own desires, something broken only by transforming vision of God as more desirable than anything human autonomy offers. Perkins and the nomists, on the other hand, saw the affections as a subordinate element of the will; they also provided a suitable theology for the prominent will by adopting the Thomist privation-enablement model of sin and grace.

Perkins and the nomists thus established human responsibility as the center-theme of salvation; the moral law became the locus of the soul in the process of sanctification. The belief that the covenant of grace is essentially a legal contract shaped all spirituality into a restorative stance: life is seen as an effort to regain and sustain Adam’s original obedience through the Spirit-enabled will. This generated a Christology which emphasized the juridical work of Christ to the point that, for pastoral ministry, the purpose of restored communion was easily reduced into the preaching of moralist endeavor.

Against this view, Sibbes, in line with Augustine, emphasized the place of Christ as much more than the source of justification, but primarily as one to be loved. The promise of the indwelling Spirit, whose ministry in Christ’s life is now allocated to the Christian, gives promise of a greater hope than the nomists offered: full and eternal intimacy of the Godhead through a true, although mystical, union with Christ. The feet of the soul are the affections and the affections are meant for communion with God.[1]

Hopefully you can get a better grasp on what Frost’s theory on Affective Theology entails. I think he identifies a pivotal reality that is lost, in serious ways, when it comes to the Reformed theology being retrieved today. Frost’s is actually a retrieval of a genuinely formed Reformational (versus post-Reformational) theology, one that hearkens from Luther himself; one that has been lost to the Christian Aristotelian tradition that Richard Muller et al. is wont to emphasize as THE dye that ostensibly serves pervasive in the whole of Reformed theology in thematic ways. What Frost demonstrates is that this ‘affective theology’ was as pervasive in and among the development of post-reformation theology as was the Christian Aristotelian form that people focus on today.

Okay, Hinlicky, someone who works even more so as a constructive theologian (versus Frost who is more of a historical theologian) whose period is from the modern angle, interestingly (to me), identifies these same themes in Luther’s et al. theology as Frost gleaned from Puritan theology; the point of convergence for both of them is indeed, Martin Luther and Augustine. Hinlicky brings the discussion that I want to have, on the role of desires, loves, sin, and freewill into relief as he writes (at serious length):

What Augustine and his tradition chiefly deny, however, is that any conceivable creature, pre- or postlapsarian, has freedom of desire. This is the “popular” sense of human free-will (which Luther identified and rejected as presuming “a power of freely turning in any direction, yielding to none and subject to none”). Creaturely desire instead spontaneously and as such involuntarily seeks the good and averts from evil. Desire that sought its evil would be pathological. The creature cannot help but seek its good and assent to it, or conversely, avert from its evil. The creature is motivated by its loves. It is analytic to the creaturely state that, as Aristotle famously declared at the outset of the Nichomachean Ethics, all by nature seek the good. Being creatures, they do not, as Martin Luther put it commenting on the first article of the creed, have life in themselves such that they can ever be free from desire: “Thus we learn from this article that none of us has life — or anything else that has been mentioned or could be mentioned — from ourselves, nor can we by ourselves preserve any of them, however small and unimportant.” As long as they live, in order to live, creatures must desire what appears good to them and avert the evil; the will spontaneously desires its perceived good. If it did not, it would be sick to death. The will is bound to desire and is bound to desire. This is what is in mind, then, when this tradition speaks of the bound or enslaved will, voluntas, not arbitrium (though Luther muddles the two terms). As Jan Lindhardt has shown: “St Augustine (d. 431) determined in extension of the Platonic tradition, that a man was identical with his love. He defined love itself as concupiscentia (desire).” This yielded a view of “man more as a unity than as a creature subdivided into various departments. . . . It was not the distinction between body/soul/reason, which occupied his attention, but the direction adopted by the soul or will, or drive,” and this “was interpreted during the Renaissance as representing a completely different view of man,” “not conceived of as an active subject, but as a receptive object” taking on the form of what is loved. Luther agreed with this understanding of Augustine’s anthropology, that “a man is his love.” This is the basis for his eccentric anthropology. Any will other than God’s is a will bound to desire the good that appears to it from without; this desire becomes one’s own will (not another’s) by virtue of free choices from among the available goods that one actually, historically, biographically pursues, since a human being is free to act, or to critically refrain from action, in the face of such choices. In just this way she forms the story of her life, as patient of her own passions and agent of her own actions.[2]

To make what Hinlicky just wrote crescendo he writes further:

In running roughshod over the important differentiation between freedom of choice and freedom of desire, Luther wanted to indicate how making choices contrary to God’s will in disobedience reflects the deeper fault of a root usurpation of God’s place as Creator. The root of all evil choices is disbelief in God’s love, seeking instead by one’s own choices and actions creatively to bestow value on something by one’s own sovereign good-pleasure. Human works are never what they appear to be on the surface; they are always acts of faith or disbelief. Choices are never merely temporal decisions, but decide whether or not in faith to rest in God’s good pleasure that bestows value on oneself, precisely as patient of one’s own sufferings, maker of one’s own choices, and agent of one’s own actions. Disbelief in God’s love is the root of all evil. Thus the ontologically impossible possibility of human freedom of desire, that desire sovereignly creates the object of its desire by the triumphant assertion of its will. This usurpation no theology that upholds the ontological difference between Creator and creature can admit. Even as arrogant pride presumes this freedom, there comes a Day of the Lord to topple it from its throne. One can want to be Hitler or Stalin, one can really make this choice, one can provisionally and disastrously for self, for others, and for the cosmos act on it. But finally one cannot succeed in it. “God’s purpose in this [causing failure of the human choice to be one’s own god] is that the heavenly City, during its exile on earth, by contrasting itself with the vessels of wrath, should learn not to expect too much from the freedom of the power of choice, but should trust in the ‘hope to call upon the name of the Lord God.’” We may recall here as well Barth’s well-intended but problematic teaching that a real alternative between God and the abyss of nihilism is ontologically impossible. Unlike Barth, however, for Luther or Augustine the nihilism of human superbia is impossible because hell puts the end to evil that will not otherwise die. The wrath of the God of love forces away from His company the usurper who wants to be God and not let God be God. That finally (not until then! Rev. 20:10) is how the real evil in the world is refuted. Actual evil is the presumption of divine “power of freely turning in any direction, yielding to none and subject to none,” that is met and matched, fire met by fire, not by persuasion but with force. If there are possibilities of mercy beyond this ultimate threat, they cannot in any event be conceived apart from it, only somehow through it and beyond it. In the interim, for Augustine, the relation of human freedom to divine sovereignty is not symmetrical: “when the will turns from the good and does evil, it does so by the freedom of its own choice [i.e., a logical alternative is available], but when it turns from evil and does good, it does so only with the help of God.”[3]

There is too much to attempt to address, but let me try and emphasize the themes we started out with. We see in Hinlicky’s treatment the same sorts of themes present in Frost’s analyses of different figures. But as I highlighted earlier the common thread between Frost and Hinlicky is to focus on Luther and Augustine. What I am hoping you, the reader, are picking up is how profound the affections/desires are and were for Luther[an] theology, and how that theme never went away; even if it unfortunately became overshadowed by much of the Aristotelian formed post-reformation theology that developed latterly.

Something else I hope the reader is picking up, without me attempting to draw all the pieces together (between Frost’s and Hinlicky’s analyses) is how the way we view humanity flows from the way we view God. If God is Triune love, a God’s who being is defined by his intra-relation as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, if that reality defines our “metaphysics,” if that reality is allowed to evangelize our metaphysics, then the way we develop anthropology, and our doctrines of sin/evil, so on and so forth will be radically re-oriented by this understanding of God. We see this re-orientation in what Frost and Hinlicky are offering us as they engage with Augustine, Luther, and the tradition itself. It is an emphasis that many today would make us think is fringe or non-existent; or that it reflects a revisionist understanding of the history of ecclesial ideas that isn’t totally accurate. To the contrary! There are threads in the tradition that fit much better with the idea that what stands at the center of who humans are has to do with God’s love,[4] and the human love attenuated by that love, rather than seeing people defined by their intellect; the latter coming from an understanding that sees God as the Big Brain in the sky, the Brain that relates through decrees rather than filial love by the Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ.

There is more to say, more technical things to get into and unpack. But let’s what I’ve offered from Frost and Hinlicky suffice for now, and maybe we can attempt to distill these things further, and more technically at a later date. We never really did get too far into the issues broached in regard to freewill etc. But hopefully, at the very least, from the long quotes, you can see how we might develop these themes vis-à-vis the greater frame provided for by a theology of desire/love.

P.S. This new theme I just plugged in doesn’t seem to overtly provide a way for commenting (if you want to). If you’d like to comment on this post then simply click on the title of the post, and it will open up the combox for you to write a comment[s].

[1] Ron Frost, Richard Sibbes’ Theology of Grace and the Division of English Reformed Theology, [unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, 1996 University of London Kings College], 94-96. Frost’s work has since been published as, Richard Sibbes God’s Spreading Goodness.

[2] Paul R. Hinlicky, Paths Not Taken: Fates of Theology From Luther Through Leibniz (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009), 151-52.

[3] Ibid., 153-54.

[4] Which is what we are also identifying with Evangelical Calvinism, with a particular focus on Thomas F. Torrance’s theology.

The AChristological Focus of Covenant Theology: A Note on What in Fact is Being Retrieved in the Reformed ‘Resurgence’

Posted on May 9, 2018 by Bobby Grow

The ‘resurgence’ of Reformed theology in the conservative evangelical sub-culture and beyond continues, but what is being retrieved in this recovery of the so called ‘doctrines of grace?’ In this post I wanted to briefly highlight an emphasis, or lack thereof, that is present in the style of Reformed theology that is currently being recovered. It might be argued that the English and American Puritan forms of Reformed theology represent a type of flowering or blossoming of the Post Reformed orthodox theology that developed most formidably in the 16^th and 17^th centuries; indeed we see an organic overlap between these developments, something of the theoretical/doctrinal (i.e. ‘school theology’) moving to the applied practical outworking in the Puritan experiment. It is this period that is being looked to as the resource that is supposed to revitalize and reorient the wayward evangelical churches of the 21^st century. But again, I ask, what in fact is being recovered; what is present, theologically, by way of emphasis that is informing the reconstructive work being done by the theologians presently involved in this effort?

Janice Knight in her book Orthodoxies in Massachusetts: Rereading American Puritanism offers some helpful insight on the role that reception of William Ames’s form of Puritanism, his ‘Intellectual’ style, had in regard to shaping what we even now are seeing in the recovery of Federal or Covenantal theology. What you will note, and this has been the source of my own critique, along with others of Federal theology, is the lack of focus on the personal Christ, with an alternative focus, instead, on a legal contract (Divine Pactum) and its conditions. You will notice, through Knight’s analysis, that Christ is seen more as an instrument of meeting the conditions of the covenant (of works/grace). Knight writes at length:

Students of the period have long regarded this preference for the functional rather than the personal Christ as characteristic of all Puritan preachers. John Eusden, for example, draws a sharp distinction between Lutheran and Reformed christology, arguing that Luther’s emphasis on the mystery of incarnation was never of crucial importance to English divines: “The Christocentrism of Martin Luther is not shared by most English Puritans . . . The incarnation . . . was not a mystery in which man should lose himself.” A chorus of scholars has echoed this conclusion, arguing that Puritans “minimized the role of the Savior in their glorification of the sovereignty of the Father.” Their means was to focus on the ascended Christ and their purpose was “as far as mortals could” to emphasize the distance between heaven and earth.” The only bridge was the contractual covenant, not the personal Christ.

This argument is confirmed by the structure as well as the content of the Marrow. The person and life of Christ are only briefly treated, and again in language that is figurally abstract. Christ as agent of the covenant assumes center stage in the Marrow. This emphasis on Christ’s legal function effectively forces Ames’s discussion away from godly essence and toward divine omnipotence.

Ames’s real interest is indeed the efficiency or the “working power of God by which he works all things in all things.” Other aspects of God’s nature are subordinated to this application of power. “the meaning both of the essence of God and of his subsistence shines forth in his efficiency.” In this somewhat surprising move, Ames collapses distinctions he had been careful to establish: “The power of God, considered as simple power, is plainly identical with his sufficiency.” In these statements Ames shifts the focus of divinity from a mediation on the being of God (esse) to his performance (operati) in the world—from God’s nature ad intra to his being ad extra.

This stress on the exercise of power is inscribed in the works of Ames’s disciples as well. Again, the caveat obtains: while they celebrated the beauty of Christ and the blessings of grace, on balance preachers like Hooker, Shepard, and Bulkeley focused on the functional application not the indwelling of Christ. It is not God as he is in himself, but as he deals with the sinner that engages them—God as exacting lord, implacable judge, or demanding covenanter. God is imagined as the creditor who will “have the utmost farthering” due him, or the landlord pressing his claim. Repeatedly, Hooker refers to Christ as “Lord Jesus,” or “Lord Christ”—terms which are found with far less frequency in the writings of Sibbes and Cotton. To be sure, this is a loving God, but he is also a “dreadful enemy,” an “all-seeing, terrible Judge,” a consuming infinite fire” of wrath.

And when these preachers use familial tropes to describe God’s dealings, they often warn that loving fathers are also harsh disciplinarians; there is “no greater sign of God’s wrath than for the Lord to give thee thy swing as a father never looks after a desperate son, but lets him run where he pleases.” Though God is merciful, if is a mercy with measure, “it is to a very few . . . it is a thousand to one if ever . . . [one] escape this wrath to come.” Such restriction of the saving remnant is of course an axiom of Reformed faith, but one that Sibbes rarely stressed. On the other hand, Hooker and Shepard’s God often acts by “an holy kind of violence,” holding sinners over the flames or plucking them from sin at his pleasure. This God wounds humankind, hammers and humbles the heart until it is broken.

Divine sovereignty also animates Hooker’s description of conversion as royal conquest and dominion: Christ is like “the King [who] taketh the Soveraigne command of the place where he is, and if there be any guests there they must be gone, and resigne up all the house to him: so the Lord Jesus comes to take soveraigne possession of the soule.” With sins banished and the heart pledged to a new master, the saint begins the long journey of sanctification. This repetition of the language of lordship insists not only on the centrality of domination in conversion but in the general tenor of human/divine relations—abjection replaces the melted heart so often imagined by Cotton and Sibbes.[1]

This helps summarize what I have been writing on for many years; writing against in fact! It is this harsh version of ‘Calvinism’ that became orthodoxy in New England and North America at large; it is this version of Reformed theology that is currently being retrieved for purposes of revitalization for the evangelical churches in North America and elsewhere. But we see the emphasis that is being imported into the evangelical church world; an emphasis wherein Jesus Christ is underemphasized as the centrum of salvation, instead instrumentalized as the organ that keeps the heart of Federal theology pumping.

The concern, at least mine, is that pew sitters sitting under such ‘recovery’ are getting this type of theology; one where Jesus Christ is not the center, instead the contract, the covenant of works/grace is. The emphasis of salvation, and the correlating spirituality present in this framework does not provide the type of existential contact with the living God that there ought to be; at least according to Scripture. We see Knight mention folks like Richard Sibbes and John Cotton; they offered an alternative focus juxtaposed with what we just surveyed. They offer an emphasis upon God’s triune love, and his winsome character; they focus on God in Christ as the Bridegroom and we the Bride. Evangelical Calvinists, like me, work within the Sibbesian emphasis, albeit informed further by folks like Karl Barth’s and Thomas Torrance’s theological loci. I invite you to the genuinely evangelical focus we are offering by seeing Christ as the center of all reality, in particular salvation, and within this emphasis we might experience what it is to have a participatory relationship with the living God mediated through the second person of the trinity, enfleshed, Jesus Christ.

[1] Janice Knight, Orthodoxies in Massachusetts: Rereading American Puritanism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1994), 77-8.

*Artwork: Gwen Meharg, He Will Not Snuff Out!, accessed 05-09-2018.

Affective Theology, A Seedbed for My Style of evangelical Calvinism

Posted on October 16, 2016 by Bobby Grow

The following is a post I first wrote about a year into my blogging, back in 2006 (started blogging in 2005). I like to introduce folks to this every now and then because it serves, theologically, as the impetus that led me to the mood of evangelical Calvinism I am in now. As you read this you will see some things that might not jive exactly with the theology I currently promote here at the blog, and in our Evangelical Calvinism book; but there is lots of constructive material available here that I think can be fitted together with some of the contours of thought and theological theses that we have in evangelical Calvinism (as articulated by Myk Habets and myself in our “theses” chapter in our book). Also, beware that as you read this there are some spelling and grammar errors, as well as bibliographic formation problems. I plan on following up this post with another one that gets further into the issue of “created grace” (that you will see mentioned in this post—I have that section emboldened below). Here we go:

Here is a brief sketch to a historical system of theology that I was first introduced to while in seminary, under the tutelage of Dr. Ron Frost. This theology is known as Affective Theology (or even Free Grace Theology—not of the Zane Hodges’ style. I am a proponent of this form of theological engagement (qualified at a few points, I actually like to assimilate this with the “Scottish Theology” of Thomas F. Torrance), and believe that it beautifully captures the intention of scripture relative to things salvific and God’s nature. This framework was communicated in Puritan England by people such as Richard Sibbes and William Erbery amongst others. This was a movement that was responding to the stringent “precianism” of Federal Theology (Calvinism) articulated by fellows such as William Perkins and William Aames. Notice a testimonial offered by a man named Humphrey Mills, someone who knew what it meant to live under the unbearable burden of the moralistic proving ground spawned by the inevitable consequence of “Perseverance of the Saints” and “Limited Atonement/Election”, here he speaks in his own words about the freedom of conscience he finally felt under the teaching/preaching of Sibbes:

I was for three years together wounded for sins, and under a sense of my corruptions, which were many; and I followed sermons, pursuing the means, and was constant in duties and doing: looking for Heaven that way. And then I was so precise for outward formalities, that I censured all to be reprobates, that wore their hair anything long, and not short above the ears; or that wore great ruffs, and gorgets, or fashions, and follies. But yet I was distracted in my mind, wounded in conscience, and wept often and bitterly, and prayed earnestly, but yet had no comfort, till I heard that sweet saint . . . Doctor Sibbs, by whose means and ministry I was brought to peace and joy in my spirit. His sweet soul-melting Gospel-sermons won my heart and refreshed me much, for by him I saw and had muchof God and was confident in Christ, and could overlook the world . . . My heart held firm and resolved and my desires all heaven-ward.[1]

Here’s a heart freed from the constant burden of looking to self for assurance of salvation; and prompted to look up to Christ for freedom and salvation.

Sibbes was one of the key-note articulates against the popery he observed with the moralistic tradition provided framework through the Calvinist doctrines. Sibbes believed, along with others, that external works should never be the basis for assurance of salvation–in fact Sibbes believed that assurance of salvation should not even be a functional premise within a soteriological construct; such as Calvinism provided. Sibbes was part of a movement known as Free-Grace, this was ” . . . the party of Puritans who opposed any idea that grace is conditioned by human cooperation.” (Frost, The Devoted Life, 81). Notice this quote offered by William Erbery, a contemporary of Sibbes, as he discusses progression of Purtian thought ending with that kind of Free-Grace preaching exemplified most clearly by Sibbes, note:

I observed four great steps of God’s glorious appearance in men’s preaching. First, how low and legal were their teachings as they learned the way of preaching from Mr. Perkins, Bolton, Byfield and Dod and Dike. . . . Next the doctrine of free grace came forth, but with less success or fruit of conversion by Doctor Preston, Sibs [Sibbes], [and] Crisp. . . . Thirdly the letter of scripture, and flesh of Christ hath been highly set up by both the famous Goodwins: . . . [Thomas] excels in spiritual discourses of Christ’s death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession, yet much according to the flesh, for he meddles not with the mystery of Christ in us. . . . [The fourth step] is the knowledge of Christ in the Spirit.[2]

As Erbery highlights, Sibbes’, amongst the other Free-Grace teachers, was not taken as seriously as the predominate moralistic (Calvinist) teachers, i.e. Perkins, Bolton, et al. But notice where Erbery’s quote leaves off, “the knowledge of Christ in the Spirit”, to this we now turn. This is an important point of departure for the teaching of Affective Theology, as defined by Sibbes, i.e. the immediacy of the Holy Spirit in the person’s life.

While Sibbes believed works were an aspect of salvation, he did not believe that these should be a barometer for determining a person’s salvation. Furthermore he believed constant obsession with such thinking was a product of an unscriptural understanding foisted on the laity of Puritan England by the Calvinist Divines. Note Ron Frost’s assessment of Sibbes’ approach here:

While Sibbes acknowledged some biblical support in calling Christians to obedience as a duty (Erbery’s category of ‘low and legal’ preaching) Sibbes clearly understood that duty can only be sustained if it is supported by the motivation of desire. Thus Sibbes featured God’s winsome love more than his power: the Spirit accomplishes both conversion and sanctification by a single means: through the revelation of God’s attractiveness by an immediate, personal disclosure. This unmediated initiative was seen to be the means by which God draws a response of heartfelt devotion from the elect.”[3]

Notice the relational nature of the salvific event, the Holy Spirit comes to the heart of the “elect” and showers the heart of the sinner with the beautiful person of Jesus Christ. It is as the heart of the sinner is enflamed a love by the work of the Holy Spirit that the sinner responds back in love–given the overwhelming attractiveness of the sweet Savior. Another thing of note, is that the primary instrument used for disclosing sweet Jesus to the heart of the sinner is through the Holy Scriptures. Furthermore, notice the centrality that heart, motive, and desire play in the thought of Sibbes’ as articulated by Frost. This to me is very important, because it takes seriously what God takes seriously, and alone searches, the hearts and motives of men (see Jer. 17:9 and many other passages). This is God’s concern, the motives, and desires of men and women; this is contrary to the system that emphasized external moralistic duties as the basis of determining one’s election (which by the way had horrific ramifications for Christian ethics as well)– Calvinism. Sibbes’ approach, and his affective anthropology, i.e. the defining feature of man (i.e. where values and motives take shape), was directly contrary to the Calvinist anthropology that saw the intellect and will as the defining features of man, and actually saw the “affections” as that which was the weakest part of man. In Calvinist thought it is within the will via interaction with the intellect that becomes enlivened by a “created quality” or Grace. It is through this created quality of Grace that man is able to cooperate with God and thus keep the duty driven moralistic standards consequently proving one’s election and salvation (like Humphrey Mills lived under).

Conversely, Sibbes saw grace as a relational characteristic of God imbued upon the heart of man. It is through this transformative intervention that man’s heart is changed (II Cor 3), and drawn to God. Note Frost’s description here, as he contrasts the Calvinist understanding of grace and the historic Free-Grace (Affective Theology) understanding of grace (as articulated by Sibbes):

In this framework some additional theological assumptions were revised. For instance, Sibbes understood grace to be God’s love offered immediately (rather than mediately) by the Spirit to the elect. By identifying grace primarily as a relational characteristic of God—the expression of his goodness—instead of a created quality or an empowerment of the will, Sibbes insisted that God transforms human desires by the Spirit’s immediate love and communion. Faith, for Sibbes, was not a human act-of-the-will but a response to God’s divine wooing. God’s laws, Sibbes argued, must be ’sweetened by the gospel’ and offered within a framework of ‘free grace.’ He also held a moderately developed form of affective anthropology (which is as further explained by Frost: Augustine’s affective position emerged in the Pelagian debate. Augustine held sin to be concupiscence of the heart—an enslavement to a love of self rather than God. In Augustine’s anthropology the heart is held to generate values; the mind uses the heart’s values to consider its options and to offer its best judgments; the will uses those judgments to engage in action. . . .”)[4]

This represents the touchstone, and most basic understanding of historic Free-Grace theology, or Affective Theology. Some highlights to take away: Affective Theology (AT) believes man heart is in total bondage to self-love; AT believes that man cannot cooperate whatsoever with God in salvation; AT believes that until the heart is transformed by God’s love through the Holy Spirit’s enflaming work, man will never find rest or salvation; AT believes contra historic Calvinist teaching that the emphasis of salvation is relationally based given the identification of God’s gift of grace with the work and person of the Holy Spirit; AT believes, given the relational basis, is not obsessed with proving one’s election since works are not the foundational component of AT’s framework of salvation.

I’ll leave it here for now, there is much more to be said about this perspective . . . especially about the framework that served as the touchstone for Affective Theology. That touchstone is found in Ephesians 5, and the Pauline marriage discussion. The marital framework provided in this beautiful epistle is picked up by AT and pressed into as the picture, but more than a picture (actually an ontological reality), of what union, and thus communion with Christ, is all about. I.e. this is contrary to the covenental framework provided by Calvinism, and the “contractual” implications provided by such a system (e.g. you keep your end of the contract, and God will keep His). The marital framework, rooted in the New Covenant, is no longer obsessed with personal performance–but instead is overwhelmed with the beauty of her bride-groom [Jesus]–marriage presupposes relationship, i.e. nothing to prove, just something to grow in–ultimately finding consummation in glorification and celebrated at the marriage supper feast of the Lamb.

[1] Ron Frost, The Devoted Life: An Invitation to the Puritan Classics, Frost is quoting from: John Rogers, Ohel or Bethshemesh, A Tabernacle for the Sun (London, n.p., 1653).

[2] Frost, The Devoted Life, quoting from: William Erbery, The Testimony of William Erbery (London: n.p. 1658).

[3] Frost, The Devoted Life, 82.

[4]Frost, The Devoted Life, 82.

The “Marriage Framework” versus the “Legal Framework” of Salvation in Post-Reformation Reformed Theology

Posted on June 30, 2016 by Bobby Grow

This is a very old post that I am sure none of you have read. It was written in a time before I became “The Evangelical Calvinist,” and represents the influence I had on me coming out of seminary back in 2003. I still hold to this distinction, and believe it can be synthesized well with what we are doing with evangelical Calvinism. The period the theology in this post is resourced from is the Post-Reformation Reformed orthodox period. I am almost positive that most Reformed folks of today are unaware of the distinctions discussed in this post, and much of that lack of exposure has to do with the way the scholarship has run in Reformed theology.

Is there a proper framework for salvation, or is it “just” salvation?

Federal Calvinism believes the answer to this question is an “affirmative!” They believe[d] that God (the divine *Law-giver*) provided framework to salvation through a bilateral contract, viz.
that God initiated a “Covenant” with man (“Covenant of Works”), and now man (if He is “elect”) must keep his end of the *deal* by “obeying” the “Law” (e.g. Mosaic) through a “Spirit-enablement” provided by the incidental obedience of Christ (you know quid pro quo). If “elect man” keeps his end of the deal (and he will, since he’s elect — so goes the “story” [“Covenant of Grace”]), then based on the conditions originally set out by the “Law-giver,” he will (according to the divine “pact”) reap the “rewards” of said obedience consummating in “eternal felicity.” This is a “rough” overview of the “legal” (juridical) framing of salvation [in fact much of this is still in force, at a very popular level, through the preaching and teaching of folks like R. Scott Clark and the White Horse Inn]. So this is scenario, and framework #1.

There is another group though. This other group “grew up” concurrent with the group above (the Federal Calvinist), and they had a different answer — albeit an affirmative to my original question. Instead of saying “Your honor” (as the Federalist), they say “My lover,” let me explain. This group, lets call them the Marital Mystics, believed that the best framework for salvation is not primarily “legal,” but “marital.” They believed that the Apostle Paul’s framework, in Ephesians 5:18ff, of Marriage; was much more than a metaphor, but that this language spoke to a “real union” (an ontological reality) between Christ and His bride — so human marriage is only a “prefigurement” of the real thing between Christ and His Church. Instead of a “potential union,” as implied by the “legal guys” (i.e. if we meet our end of the deal [viz. obedience to the Law, good works], then God will ratify the deal and bring us into eventual union at the eschaton), the *Marital Mystics* believed that we have been sought after by the “lover of our souls;” and once He catches us, we are overcome with His winsome beauty and love (we become smitten with “love at first sight”). At this instance, we reciprocate His love for us (cf. Rom. 5:5) and respond with an “I do!” It is this framework that shapes our relationship to Jesus Christ (Song of Songs is a favorite book of the Bible for this group, and lets not forget the “bridal” language of John in Revelation, and other smadderings throughout the OT [Hos., etc.]), and it is this kind of relationship that crowds out the “responsibility” (cooperative) duty driven construction provided by the “Legal guys.” The “Marital guys” see a freedom for reciprocating love, a unilateral movement initiated by the bridegroom for His bride; which eventuates in whispers of sweet nothings towards the bridegroom, from His bride — there is not a sense of responsibility and duty shaping this relationship, but a continual and deepening love for the bride as He woos her with His beauty and charm. There is no fear of “not living up to the “Judge’s” expectations, in this arrangement, but a disposition of hopeful anticipation; as the bridegroom takes His bride into His Father’s house, and “covers” her with His “robes of righteousness” through penetrating and “mystical union” (unio mystica) [but real union] with Him. The focus in this arrangement is on Him — the Bridegroom — and His love and righteousness given as a “dowery” to His Bride, through the communion (communio) of the Spirit. And this is framework #2 (notice the trinitarian involvement in this model, this is meaningful vs. the “legal approach”).

I was first introduced to “framework #2” by my prof in seminary, Ron Frost. He did his PhD dissertation on a Puritan named Richard Sibbes, and Sibbes was a proponent of framework #2 (and so was John Calvin, Martin Luther, and Bernard of Clairvaux, amongst others); and his opining (Sibbes’) on this subject was intentionally contrairian to the “Legal guy’s” (typified by William Perkins, amongst others) approach — and rightly so. Here is how Frost summarizes Sibbes’ framing:

. . . It seems likely, then, that Sibbes’ doctrine of mystical marriage based on a Bernardian reading of the Song of Songs drew him away from the cooperative theology of his Perkinsonian training, back to a unilateral view of the covenant. He came to hold that the affections are crucial in the function of mystical marriage, and that mystical marriage is the ground of saving union. In his emphasis he was well aligned with the view of the early reformers who held that the marriage of Christ and the church represents a primary foundation for the theology of real union. [Ronald N. Frost, “Richard Sibbes’ Theology of Grace and the Division of English Reformed Theology” [Unpublished PhD Dissertation, King’s College University of London, 1996, 121.]

You may ask why is this important? And you may ask for a variety of reasons. I would just say, because understanding how we relate to Christ has everything to do with everything! If our conception is formed by the “legal accounting” then we are stressed with an relationship that comes off rather cold and calculated . . . not to mention an arrangement that causes us to be consumed with ourselves and our performance (“man-centered” — anthropocentric) — and approaching life in Christ this way could have dastardly consequences on our daily walk and spirituality (could lead to: angst, fear, depression, dark nights and seasons of the soul, anger, frustration, fatalism, hopelessness, etc., etc.). But beyond the “consequences,” scripture is replete with passages and concepts that present the “Marital Framework” as the most adequate framing, providing the greatest explanatory power for understanding a biblical approach to thinking about “salvation.” I’m an advocate for #2, how about you?

P. S. There are other implications (having to do with: salvation from the “inside-out” vs. “outside-in,” “assurance” [becomes an non-issue], sanctification, ethics, etc.), but we will have to wait and flesh those out later . . . or if you want in the comment meta on this post.

The Communication of the Great Accommodation: Christian Talking and Theology

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Bobby Grow

This is always a hard one for me; knowing how to communicate, especially online, about deep theological reality is a tempest. Any given audience represents a moving target. For one person one lexicon might be way too deep, for another, this same lexicon might be like their ‘daily bread’. So audiences are continuums, and trying to communicate to a continuum is always the challenge a communicator faces, from one moment to the next. That said, can the Incarnation provide an analogy for how, de jure, or in principle how we ought to articulate theological truth? Puritan of renown, Richard Sibbes thinks so; he writes,

Preachers should take heed likewise that they hide not their meaning in dark speeches, speaking in the clouds. Truth fears nothing so much as concealment, and desires nothing so much as clearly to be laid open to the view of all. When it is most unadorned, it is most lovely and powerful. Our blessed Saviour, as he took our nature upon him, so he took upon him our familiar manner of speech, which was part of his voluntary abasement. Paul was a profound man, yet he became as a nurse to the weaker sort (1 Thess. 2:7).

That spirit of mercy that was in Christ should move his servants to be content to abase themselves for the good of the meanest. What made the kingdom of heaven ‘suffer violence’ (Matt. 11:12) after John the Baptist’s time, but that comfortable truths were laid open with such plainness and evidence that the people were so affected with them as to offer a holy violence to obtain them?

Christ chose those to preach mercy who had felt most mercy, as Peter and Paul, that they might be examples of what they taught. Paul became all things to all men (1 Cor. 9:22), stooping unto them for their good. Christ came down from heaven and emptied himself of majesty in tender love to souls. Shall we not come down from our high conceits to do any poor soul good? Shall man be proud after God has been humble? We see the ministers of Satan turn themselves into all shapes to ‘make one proselyte’ (Matt. 23:15). We see ambitious men study accommodation of themselves to the humours of those by whom they to be raised, and shall not we study application of ourselves to Christ, by whom we hope to be advanced, nay, are already sitting with him in heavenly places? After we are gained to Christ ourselves, we should labour to gain others to Christ. Holy ambition and covetousness will move us to put upon ourselves the disposition of Christ. But we must put off ourselves first.

Again we should not rack their wits with curious or ‘doubtful dispositions’ (Rom. 14:1), for so we shall distract and tire them, and give occasion to make them cast off the care of all. That age of the church which was most fertile in subtle questions was most barren of religion; for it makes people think religion to be only a matter of cleverness, in tying and untying knots. The brains of men inclining that way are hotter usually than their hearts.[1]

It almost sounds as if Sibbes is advocating for an anti-intellectualism, but I don’t really think so. What he is advocating for and from is an anti-intellectualist anthropology wherein the intellect as seen as definitive of what it means to be human. What Sibbes is advocating for, as Ron Frost has so ardently argued for in his PhD dissertation on Sibbes, is a theo-anthropology that isAffective; that sees the heart (in a so called tripartite faculty psychology) or motive-center as definitive of humanity–so very Augustinian.

But I don’t really want to get into that further here; I simply want to acknowledge that being clear with various audiences on-line is a tempest (and so this is why there are comment threads connected to each post). I think the answer to this is that we ought to understand that theological engagement is not just about in-formation, but that it is about formation itself. The best frame for this is that we take a dialogical approach to things; one that is formed by the realization that we are in a discussion. I think this is what the Incarnation is; a conversation, the way of life between God and man in Jesus Christ. It is through this conversation and mediation that we can know and penetrate the holy of holies of God’s life through the broken body of Jesus Christ–the veil torn. And so with this as the analogy, we move forward one with the other in dialogue and koinonia; we stretch each other into the accommodation that is God’s life. We don’t accept the status quo, we don’t allow the culture to tell us what the standards are; no, we allow God’s life to impose upon us, to contradict us, to make us repent so that we might grow further into the grace and knowledge of God, who is Jesus Christ.

[1] Richard Sibbes, A Bruised Reed (Nook Edition), 25-6.

classical Calvinism juxtaposed with Affective Theology: Comparing and Contrasting William Perkins and Richard Sibbes

Posted on April 20, 2013 by Bobby Grow

*This is a repost that I am sure almost none of you have read. I am feeling pretty undermotivated to write blog posts at the moment, so this will have to suffice. I have added a caveat to this post in an addendum at the end of the post. Don’t worry I have fresh posts coming (I always do), but I would imagine that for most of you this will be quite fresh (meaning that this will be the first time you have ever read this post, so it might as well be a new post.

The following is a lengthy quote highlighting the differences between Federal [Classic] Calvinism and Free-Grace Calvinism [Affective Theology]. William Perkins represents the Federal “Vision” side, while Richard Sibbes the “Free-Grace” perspective. The quote is taken from Ron Frost’s unpublished PhD dissertation on Richard Sibbes and English Puritanism. He is providing conclusion to a discussion he had previously undertaken where he had articulated, in detail (with bibliographic support), the disparate “covenantal approaches” reflected by Perkins and Sibbes. The primary disjunction between the two is how they framed the Adam-motif (i.e. first and second Adam theology, see Rom. 5, etc.); and the different trajectories this placed their soteriological outlooks upon. Perkins forwarded the “Federal” model, which assumes continuity between the “law-keeping” of the first Adam and second Adam (i.e. think “Covenant of Works”); while Sibbes forwarded the “Marital Mystical” construct, which assumes some discontinuity between the “two Adams;” viz. while Christ truly represents us before the Father (juridical–i.e. forensic or legal), He also takes us as His spouse, which is presupposed by a real union with Him. The main difference, then, between Perkins and Sibbes, according to Frost, is that Perkins framed salvation purely as legal and “juridical”, which did not assume a “real union” with Christ; while Sibbes framed his view, not just as legal, but beyond that, as a Marriage framework, which is presupposed by a “real union” with Christ.

A Brief Glossary of Terms: **Privative Sin = the privation or absence of God’s righteousness [negative definition of sin] — **Positive Sin = Self love vs. God’s love.

Enough said on my part, lets hear from Frost:

I realize this was quite long, but if you made it to this point, great! I really appreciate Sibbes’ approach, and find it to be much more scriptural. Hopefully you noticed some of the discontinuity I alluded to earlier. For Sibbes in the second Adam (Christ), we go beyond what the first Adam had with God. For Sibbes, we are brought into the very life of God, through Christ; for Perkins we enter a quid pro quo contractual relationship with God . . . likened to the first Adam’s relationship with God (this is Covenant theologies’ Covenant of Works).

If you have any questions then please let me know, I will do my best to answer them. There are quite a few quotes I would like to share from Sibbes, provided by Frost which he used to support what his conclusion, above, summarizes so neatly–maybe another time. I wish I could just tell you to go buy Frost’s dissertation at Amazon, but unfortunately it was never published. Anyway I hope some of you find this helpful.

Addendum: I wrote this post before I was exposed to Thomas Torrance and the idea of the vicarious humanity of Christ, and a ‘Christ conditioned’ way. But this is an example of the kind of stuff that I will bring into conversation with the themes we have been articulating through evangelical Calvinism.

Addendum1: I really like what Sibbes has to offer (as mediated through my mentor Ron Frost). But here is the area that I plan on bringing into constructive conversation, in regard to the way Frost construes Sibbes’ Augusintianism; read:

[A]gainst this view, Sibbes, in line with Augustine, emphasized the place of Christ as much more than the source of justification, but primarily as one to be loved. The promise of the indwelling Spirit, whose ministry in Christ’s life is now allocated to the Christian, gives promise of a greater hope than the nomists offered: full and eternal intimacy of the Godhead through a true, although mystical, union with Christ. The feet of the soul are the affections and the affections are meant for communion with God.

It will be to simply bring together the person and work of Christ; instead of dualistically locating the ‘indwelling Spirit’ in elect individuals (as Sibbes does), I believe it ought to be located in Christ’s vicarious humanity for us (pro nobis). I think the Christological is the Soteriological, that Revelation is Reconciliation, and so I think Sibbes offers an excellent way forward, but that he needs a little help in being a little more radical and Christologically personalist by thinking from the humanity of Christ, and all of the beautiful bridal language and framing that is attendant (and rightly and biblically so) prior to thinking of the rest of us. I actually don’t think my proposal here will be that difficult to develop. Whereas Torrance was about personalising classical (Federal) theology, or as Leithart might say, ‘evangelising metaphysics’, I think it is even better if we follow the “classical” trajectory available from someone like Sibbes (and marriage mysticism), and do the same as Torrance was doing with Federal theology; that is, to ‘Christify’ it, or place the marital framework of Sibbes (Luther, Bernard, the Apostle Paul et al) into a dogmatically rich Christ conditioned frame.

So now you know further what I will be attempting to do.

Why I Still Reject the Flower

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Bobby Grow

I was just thinking, it’s not like me to not post on why I reject TULIP theology; and yet, I haven’t really posted any kind of provocative post in that vein for quite awhile — it’s like I’m almost going soft or something 😉 .

Let me just re-affirm for those of you whom may be starting to think that Bobby is in fact going soft on popular TULIP soteriology; I AM NOT! I still think the TULIP presents serious and terrible consequences for anyone who internalizes it, and understands its theological implications. One of my primary pastoral concerns about the TULIP, is that it fosters an introspective navel-gazing spirituality (historically known as experimental predestinarianism). This is the practice wherein a totally depraved, unconditionally elected person seeks to verify that he/she has actually been limitedly atoned for, and thus a recipient of irressitable grace by discerning through their good works that they indeed are a persevering saint. If they reach a certain threshold, and sense that indeed they have met their perceived good works quota; then they can finally rest assured that they are of those who have truly believed, and have the assurance that they didn’t just receive a temporary faith, but a real and saving faith (practical syllogism). This is one of the main reasons, pastorally, that I believe that TULIP Calvinism is a blight on Christian theology. I know too many thinking, introspective Christians — who aren’t cock-sure types about their election — who have suffered psychological woes over the problem that this TULIP (and the Arminian FACTS) system has created. In fact, the fact that folks were having these psychological woes over this issue, because of the classical theistic paradigm, made me pause for a long time and take a good look at the heritage that this TULIP theology has handed to us. The reality is clear, there are pastoral problems, because there are dogmatic problems. TULIP theology suffers from a radically wrong doctrine of God, and since all subsequent theology flows from a respective doctrine of God; TULIP soteriology and thus spirituality is also heteropraxic. This is why I still reject the Flower. What about you, do you still like the smell of the tulip?

Here’s how a Purtian layman named Humphrey Mills felt once he found release from the TULIP theology taught to him by TULIP theologian par exellence, William Perkins (he found this release through the teaching of the Puritan, Richard Sibbes who taught a non-TULIP soteriology known as “Free Grace” or “Affective Theology”):

I was for three years together wounded for sins, and under a sense of my corruptions, which were many; and I followed sermons, pursuing the means, and was constant in duties and doing: looking for Heaven that way. And then I was so precise for outward formalities, that I censured all to be reprobates, that wore their hair anything long, and not short above the ears; or that wore great ruffs, and gorgets, or fashions, and follies. But yet I was distracted in my mind, wounded in conscience, and wept often and bitterly, and prayed earnestly, but yet had no comfort, till I heard that sweet saint . . . Doctor Sibbs, by whose means and ministry I was brought to peace and joy in my spirit. His sweet soul-melting Gospel-sermons won my heart and refreshed me much, for by him I saw and had muchof God and was confident in Christ, and could overlook the world . . . My heart held firm and resolved and my desires all heaven-ward. (Ron Frost. Kelly Kapic and Randall Gleason, eds., “The Devoted Life: An Invitation to the Puritan Classics,” Frost is quoting from: John Rogers, Ohel or Bethshemesh, A Tabernacle for the Sun (London, n.p., 1653)

Caveat: To be very clear, I’m not attacking good Calvinist or Arminian people; I know there are sincere Christ loving people who are genuinely committed to TULIP Calvinism. In fact, my motivation and passion for this, is because I love these people, and I want to jolt them out of the slumberous spirituality that TULIP Calvinism leads someone into. Obviously, I’m very convinced that there is something really wrong with TULIP Calvinism; I think it fails on exegetical grounds as well as dogmatic/theological grounds, and thus impinges on people’s daily walks with Jesus Christ! TULIP Calvinism is much too popular in America for my liking, its over-communicated and under-communicated — just the fact that it’s communicated at all is a problem. My hope with posts like this, as snarky and punky as it is; is intended to provoke and pick a fight with anyone who endorses TULIP Calvinism. I want to fight over your doctrine of God and your subsequent view of salvation; I think it’s wacky, and (seriously) has real life consequences for folks that are not good (yet, it’s not the “consequences of belief” that shape my beef with TULIP Calvinism, it is TULIP Calvinism itself that is problematic). One more point: I am obviously not a pluralist or normative relativist (which qualifies my type of “Evangelicalism” 😉 ); I actually believe that there is a more right view and a more wrong view, guess which side of those that I think I am on 😉 ? I’m convinced of something, are you . . . ? [yet, I don’t also think I have it all figured out either]

Richard Sibbes and William Perkins, Law and Grace

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Bobby Grow

Richard Sibbes, English Puritan and pastor, according to Ron Frost, believed that the “law” was not the mechanism for determining if a person was one of the elect of God. This is contrary to the federal, or covenantal view forwarded by William Perkins and others. In fact, it was by keeping the law, by the Spirits’ enablement, according to Perkins, that a person ultimately would ‘realize’ their justification. Notice:

. . . In England John Bradford, Thomas Wilcox, and Richard Greenham all pointed to the law for the same purpose. Tipson links these men to Perkins’ theology in arguing that they all represented a model in which conversion is a process rather than a dramatic event. . . . (Ron Frost, “Richard Sibbes’ Theology of Grace and the Division of English Reformed Theology,” 28)

Of course none of these men, as good Protestants, would be asserting that any of these good works, or “law-keeping”, would be anything other than Christ’s good works flowing through them — albeit as they cooperate with the Holy Spirit or Grace.

This position has been labeled, “Nomist”, or in English, “Law-ist”, someone who places a high premium on the Mosaic law, and its function in the appropriation of salvation (of course this all needs to caveated with the fact that this “keeping of the Law,” is what defines Christ’s “active obedience,” but the real problem here is how the Federalist understands “union with Christ”). This emphasis, known as Federal theology, is being revivified today by some. Contrary to Perkins, Richard Sibbes forwarded an anti-nomist position which emphasized the immediacy and direct work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the elect — which both served as the means of salvation, which immediately resulted in “real” spiritual union with Christ.

Sibbes offered his more characteristic view of the law in The Hidden Life in which he argued that a persons’ affections are drawn to Christ in the regenerated life so that a Christian becomes functionally dead to the law. A person is not to look for salvation or even “comfort” from the use of the “moral law”. In his making the point that salvation is not found in keeping the moral, Sibbes was simply repeating an orthodoxy shared by the nomists. The context in which he placed the point is the distinctive element. He held that Christ’s communion with a believer is in some sense perceptible. Such experiences of communion, generally regarded as spontaneous increases of affection for Christ, transcend the law as a guide for behavior. As in marriage, the mutual commitment of love, rather than rule-driven behaviors, was seen to be the point of spiritual union. The Christian’s behavior is increasingly shaped by a devotion to Christ as accomplished by the Spirit. . . .

. . . While the nomist model emphasized the continuity of the law in the old and new Testaments, seeing it as God’s chief tool in producing sanctification, Sibbes came to view the law as obsolete in the presence of Christ’s self-revelation. Sibbes spelled out the fundamental discontinuity of the two Testaments in his aptly-titled sermon series, The Excellency of the Gospel Above the Law. It is this principle, that the Old Testament law is inferior to the Spirit’s work in the New, that most characterize the antinomists. Sibbes, it seems, was not so much influenced by the law-grace polarity of Luther (Sibbes, as all the early Reformers did, continued to honor the law as revealing something of God’s character), as much as he was shaped by a very literal exegesis of 2 Corinthians 3: 17-18. This was the crux interpretum for antinomists and the text on which the exposition of the Excellency of the Gospel rested. It released Sibbes from a primary orientation to Old Testament law in describing the life of faith. (Ron Frost, “Richard Sibbes’ Theology of Grace and the Division of English Reformed Theology,” 37-38)

Obviously Sibbes emphasized the immediate work of the Spirit, which resulted in a real union with Christ. This is contrary to Perkins, who believed in an ad hoc union with Christ; which one could only “really” realize as he or she persevered in good works (i.e. practical syllogism, to be discussed later). In other words, for Perkins, certainty of election was a mediated reality, determined by one’s behavior relative to their cooperation with grace. This framework, for people who followed Perkins (which was the majority of Puritan England), resulted in an inward/introspective spirituality; since this perspective was very individuated and obsessed with personal holiness — for all the wrong reasons. Perkins in many ways serves as a forerunner for the later developed, Pietism, which climaxed with Schleiermacher (fodder for another post).

Sibbes’ emphasis on the immediacy of the Spirit, instead of promoting an incipient Pietism, allows the person to be obsessed and consumed by the beauty and majesty of Christ. This approach emphasizes a Trinitarian approach to salvation, which has a high pneumatology, leading to an even higher Christology — as the person of Christ and his works are magnified in the bride/bridegroom relationship, between Christ and his Church. I think this is much more fruitful than the approach offered by Perkins, and anyone who might fit his soteriological paradigm.

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