The Upper Register

Justification and Sanctification: The Tarp Analogy

It's critical for our assurance and the Christian life to understand the relationship between justification and sanctification. Alister McGrath has a great analogy that gets at this:

The German Reformer Martin Luther taught that Christians are "righteous and sinners at one and the same time" (simul iustus et peccator). We are righteous on account of God's having clothed us with his righteousness -- but inside we are still sinners. God justifies us on the basis of his gift of righteousness, rather than on the basis of any righteousness we may possess. Although we are sinners, God is still able to renew and regenerate our fallen natures. Just as workers on a building site might cover their work with tarpaulins to protect it from the elements, so God shelters his work of renewal and regeneration within us with the external covering of his righteousness.

McGrath, "I Believe": Exploring the Apostles' Creed (IVP, 1997), 97.

Our sanctification is always a work in progress. It is messy and incomplete. Perhaps it looks more like one of those government construction projects that seems to go on forever with no end in sight - a source of irritation and disappointment more than of hope. Will the project ever be complete? Yes, it will, at the last day, when he will present us faultless before his presence will great joy. In the meantime, he has us "covered." God is protecting his own work in us (Phil 2:13) by the righteousness of Christ. He ensures that the elements will not undo his labor. He guarantees that the work can proceed uninterrupted until the wonderful day of the unveiling ceremony. No enemy can thwart his purpose. He will see to it that he is glorified in his handiwork.

"Christ is the End of the Law for Righteousness" (Rom 10:4), Pt. 4

Having given a cursory critique of the other main views, in this post I'm going to expound view 2b more fully. My old view (view 1a) was motivated largely by lexicographical concerns. I was convinced that the word telos is most frequently used in a temporal sense, meaning "terminus." This was based on the fact that the temporal/terminal usage of telos predominates in both the Septuagint and the New Testament.

However, what got me thinking along different lines was reading a 1985 dissertation by Robert Badenas titled Christ the End of the Law: Romans 10.4 in Pauline Perspective (JSNTSup 10; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985).

Badenas proved conclusively in case after case that in extra-biblical Greek telos has a strongly teleological meaning. He also showed that it can be used in a prospective or a retrospective teleological sense. When used prospectively, telos means "end" in the sense of a future goal not yet attained, and can be glossed "goal," "aim," "object," "purpose," or "intention." When used retrospectively, telos means "end" in the sense of a goal that has been attained, and can be glossed "completion," "culmination," "attainment," "fulfillment," "climax," "realization," "actualization," or "outcome."

With that extra-biblical usage firmly in place, when we turn to the New Testament – which uses the word around 40 times – we find that the teleological meanings, although infrequent, are not entirely absent. There is one indisputable text where telos is used in a prospective teleological sense:  "The goal (telos) of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith" (1 Tim 1:5 NASB; "aim" in ESV). And then there are seven instances where telos is used in a retrospective teleological sense. Of the seven, in six occurrences telos is rendered by the NASB as "outcome" (Matt 26:58; Rom 6:21-22; James 5:11; 1 Pet 1:9; 4:17). And on one occasion, it is rendered "fulfillment." This is where Jesus says to the disciples as he is about to go to the cross, "For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors.' For what is written about me has its fulfillment (telos)” (Luke 22:37 ESV).

At the very least we have to admit that both the temporal and the teleological meanings are possible in Rom 10:4. In the end, the context must decide.

Now Badenas took the teleological meaning in a prospective sense in Rom 10:4 and adopted view 2a. His interpretation of the verse was: "Paul seems to say that faith in Christ is at the same time true faith in the Torah … Right understanding of the law leads to faith in Jesus Christ … The law always required a response of faith" (Badenas, 149-50).

I was convinced by Badenas's examination of the extra-biblical sources, but not by his exegesis of Rom 10:4. I especially did not agree that the law required a response of faith – after all, Paul says that "the law is not of faith, rather 'The one who does them shall live by them'" (Gal 3:12). So I began to wonder, "What if we take Badenas's second teleological usage, the retrospective one, and what if we see the Law not as demanding faith but righteousness?"

And that is when the whole passage finally made sense to me. Here is my interpretive translation of the text:

Romans 10:3-4:  "Being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness [by keeping the Law], the Jews did not submit to the righteousness that comes from God. For Christ is the one in whom the Law's demand for righteousness is fulfilled, with the result that there is righteousness [from God] for everyone who believes."

In other words:

"'Christ is the end of the Law,' i.e., its completion or consummation. He gives that which the Law requires, that is, whoever believes in Christ has that which the Law demands, i.e., he is righteous by imputation" (Philipp Melanchthon, Commentarius in Epistolam ad Romanos, 1540; translation mine; the Concordia translation by Fred Kramer gets it wrong here).

"The moment that a man believes in [Christ], the end of the law is attained in that man; that is, it is fulfilled in him, and he is in possession of that righteousness which the law requires … and consequently he hath eternal life" (Robert Haldane, Commentary on Romans, 1853).

"Christ is the End of the Law for Righteousness" (Rom 10:4), Pt. 3

I will explain and defend view 2b in my next post. In this post, I want to address some of the problems with the other views.

As I mentioned in my first post, my main objection to view 1a – and this applies to view 2a as well – is that there is a weak logical connection between the two halves of the verse. Verse 4a: "Christ is the end of the law," and v 4b: "for (= so that there may be) righteousness to everyone who believes." How does the fact that Christ has abrogated the Law (view 1a) or the fact that Christ is the hermeneutical goal of the Law (view 2a) lead to righteousness being imputed to everyone who believes? The abrogation of the Law does not lead to or bring about "righteousness for all who believe" (view 1a). A Christocentric hermeneutic does not lead to or bring about "righteousness for all who believe" (view 2a). The only thing that does lead to or bring about "righteousness for all who believe" is Christ's obedience to the point of death, his active and passive obedience.

It is interesting to notice how most of the commentators who argue for views 1a and 2a tend to ignore the second half of the verse. They are so focused on the meaning of the first half ("Christ is the telos of the Law") that they almost forget about the second half ("for righteousness to everyone who believes"). But this is the key to figuring out the meaning of the verse as a whole.

Only two of the four views take the second half of the verse seriously and provide a coherent explanation of the verse as a whole. I'm referring to view 1b and 2b (my view). Let's look at view 1b. This interpretation is favored by those who claim that (a) telos must have a temporal/terminating meaning, and (b) who are allergic to the alleged antinomian implications of view 1a. They take "for righteousness" and attach it to the word "Law" as an attributive, and they take "to everyone who believes" and move it to the beginning of the sentence. Their interpretation is that "To everyone who believes, Christ is the end of the Law-for-righteousness." In other words, Christ is not the end of the Law itself, but of the carnal misuse of the Law as a means of righteousness. When a person is converted, they stop using the Law as a means of justification.

But this interpretation is grammatically unlikely. In the Greek, the word "Christ" is sandwiched between "Law" and "for righteousness," which makes it nigh unto impossible that Paul intended "for righteousness" to be an attributive prepositional phrase modifying "Law" ("the-Law-for-righteousness"). Another problem is that when a prepositional phrase is used attributively, the definite article is almost always repeated before the preposition (this construction occurs over 400x in the NT), but here it is absent.

Another problem with view 1b is that it separates "to everyone who believes" from "for righteousness." The two phrases go together in order. This can be seen by comparing Rom 10:4 with 1:16 where Paul makes a statement with the same grammatical structure:

Rom 1:16	The gospel	is the power of God	for salvation	to everyone who believes
Rom 10:4	Christ	is the end of the Law	for righteousness	to everyone who believes

Note the similar structure:  X is Y so that there may be salvation (or righteousness) to everyone who believes. The phrase at the end, "to everyone who believes" is identical in Greek. And in both cases, it goes with the preceding noun ("salvation" or "righteousness"). 

As I see it, then, views 1a, 1b, and 2a are problematic. In my next post, I'll defend my new view, view 2b.

"Christ is the End of the Law for Righteousness" (Rom 10:4), Pt. 2

As I mentioned in my previous post, there are actually more views than just the two I have mentioned so far. The easiest way to understand this is to recognize that the two main meanings of telos can be subdivided into two sub-views, resulting in a total of four views. I will refer to the two temporal interpretations as view 1a and view 1b, and the two teleological interpretations as view 2a and view 2b.

Here is a table that summarizes the four views based on how they interpret telos (temporal vs. teleological), how they interpret the word nomos ("Law"), what they take the subject of the sentence to be ("Christ is the end of the Law" vs. "The end of the Law is Christ"), how they interpret the phrase "for righteousness," and then lists representative scholars for each view. I also mention at the bottom those who try to combine various views. The view I used to hold is view 1a. The view I now hold is view 2b.

View	Τέλος	Νόμος	Subject	Εἰς δικαιοσύνην	Scholars
1a	Temporal meaning: End as terminus, termination, cessation, abrogation	Mosaic Law as demanding works for justification	Χριστός	Result/purpose; consecutive clause	Hodge, Käsemann, Lietzmann, Meyer, Michel, Nygren, Sanday & Headlam, Stott, Talbert, Witherington
1b	Temporal meaning:  End as terminus, termination, cessation, abrogation	Misuse of the Mosaic Law as a means of justification	Χριστός	Attributive, modifying νόμου	Dunn, Hübner, Hultgren, Morris, Murray,  Schreiner
2a	Teleological meaning:  End in prospective or prophetic sense: the goal as future; i.e., aim, object, purpose, intention, σκοπός	The Torah as scripture, which demands faith	τέλος	Result/purpose; consecutive clause	Badenas, Byrne, Calvin, Cranfield,  Keck, Matera, Wright, Ziesler
2b	Teleological meaning:  End in retrospective sense: the goal as attained; i.e., completion, culmination, attainment, fulfillment, climax, realization, actualization, πλήρωμα	Mosaic Law as demanding works for justification	Χριστός	Result/purpose; consecutive clause; possibly predicate εἰς	Chrysostom, Fitzmyer, Haldane, Luther, Melanchthon, Rhyne, Shedd
	Combination of 2b & 1a				Barrett, Bruce, Moo
	Combination of 2b & 1b				Osborne
	Combination of 2a & 1a				Achtemeier

Let me offer a translation and summary for each view:

View 1a: "Christ is the end of the Mosaic Law so that there may be righteousness for all who believe." This view sees Rom 10:4 as teaching the fundamental redemptive-historical truth that the Mosaic Law as a covenant has come to an end in Christ and is no longer the covenantal constitution of the people of God in the new covenant era.

View 1b: "For everyone who believes, Christ is the end of misusing the law as a means of justification." On this view, it is not a global statement about a key covenantal transition in redemptive-history from the old to the new covenant, but a statement about the ordo-salutis transition of the individual moving from a life of legalism (striving to be justified before God by keeping the Law) to a life of grace. On this view, Rom 10:4 is about how regeneration changes a person's attitude toward the Law.

View 2a: "The goal of the Torah (= the Law as divine revelation, as Scripture) is Christ so that there may be righteousness for all who believe." This view takes the verse as Paul's affirmation of his Christological hermeneutic. The revelation of God in the Torah (viewed not merely as the legal code of the Mosaic Law but as the entire Pentateuch including the Abrahamic promise) points to Christ.

View 2b: "The object of the law (namely, righteousness) is realized in Christ, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." This view regards the statement as a fundamental redemptive-historical statement about the relationship between Christ and the Law, namely, that Christ is the one in whom the Law's aim or object (which is to demand and offer righteousness to those who do it) has been realized in Christ, specifically, in his meritorious obedience to the point of death as accepted by God in his resurrection-vindication.

"Christ is the End of the Law for Righteousness" (Rom 10:4), Pt. 1

In Romans 10:1-4, Paul writes the following of his kinsmen according to the flesh, that is, the Jews who do not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah:

"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. ² For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. ³ For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. ⁴ For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." (ESV)

All commentators agree that Rom 10:4 is a critically important verse for understanding Paul's view of the Law. What does Paul mean by referring to Christ as "the end of the Law" (telos nomou)?

I have long been fascinated by this verse. Until recently, I held the view that "end" (telos) means "termination" or "abrogation," and argued that this verse meant that the Mosaic Law has come to an end with Christ. (This does not mean that the moral law has been abrogated, for that would be impossible; merely the Mosaic Law as a whole, the law as the covenantal constitution of theocratic Israel.) I argued this based on the fact that the word telos in both the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament seems predominantly to have a terminating significance. I was also attracted to this interpretation because it fit with other statements by Paul to the effect that the Mosaic Law as a covenant is no longer in effect after Christ has come (e.g., Rom 6:14-15; 7:1-6; Eph 2:15; 1 Cor 9:20-21; Gal 3:24-25; etc.). I advocated this interpretation as recently as my 2011 dissertation on "the righteousness of God" in Paul.

However, I have recently changed my mind. I now think that telos should be taken in a teleological sense, meaning "goal" or "aim." I would now translate the verse as follows: "The object of the Law is realized in Christ, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." My main reason for changing views is that my old view did not provide a reasonable explanation of the second half of the verse. How does Christ's being the termination or abrogation of the Mosaic Law result in righteousness being available to everyone who believes? It doesn't.

Furthermore, my old view does not fit well with the preceding context. In vv 1-3, Paul is expressing his heartfelt prayer and desire that his Jewish kinsmen would come to faith in Christ. He says that he acknowledges their zeal for God, as expressed in their zealous commitment to the scrupulous observance of the Mosaic Law, but the problem is that their zeal is not according to knowledge. Their problem is that they imagined that they could achieve righteousness before God by their own zeal in keeping the Law. But the righteousness that comes to humans as a free gift from God was revealed in Christ's death and resurrection. They chose to ignore and reject that righteousness, and instead sought to establish their own righteousness, rather than submitting to the righteousness God has made available in Christ. It is here that we come to our verse. They should have submitted to the righteousness of God, for the law's object (namely, righteousness) is not attained by human effort but by Christ himself, with the result that righteousness (i.e., the righteousness of God) is now available to everyone who believes.

So far I have presented the debate as being between two views - taking telos in a chronological or a teleological sense. But in my next post, I'll explain that the interpretive situation is more complex than this. These two main senses of telos can be subdivided into two sub-views, and so there are actually four main options for interpreting Rom 10:4. After that, I will provide brief arguments against three of these views and return to further explaining the view I am defending. Along the way, I'll mention commentators who hold to these various views.

The Benefits of Studying Biblical Languages

What are the benefits of learning Greek and Hebrew so as to study the Bible in the original languages?

Exegetical Benefits

• Being able to weigh exegetical options, based on text-critical, lexical, and syntactical possibilities and probabilities.
• Being able to grasp the flow of thought of a passage by discourse analysis, by examining the Greek particles, and by tracing lexical connections that are often obscured in translation (e.g., δίκαιος, δικαιοσύνη, δικαιόω).
• Being able to analyze the complexities of the NT use of the OT (MT vs. LXX vs. other).

 Practical Benefits

• Being able to use language tools such as lexica, grammars, commentaries, Bible software, and discourse analyses.
• Being able to read the Septuagint - useful for OT textual criticism; LXX has direct bearing on NT Greek, both lexically and syntactically.
• Being able to utilize extra-biblical corpera such as Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha (OT and NT), and so on.

 Aesthetic Benefits

• Being able to appreciate subtle nuances of meaning that are only apparent in the original, e.g., paronomasia, anacoluthon, chiasm, brachylogy, ellipsis, prolepsis, solecism, alliteration, hyperbaton, and so on.
• Being able to appreciate the distinctive styles of the human authors of Scripture.
• Being able to appreciate the highly crafted periods such as those found in the prologues of Luke-Acts and Hebrews.

 Elenctic Benefits

• Being able to expose mistaken interpretations, exegetical fallacies, the claims of anti-Trinitarians, overstated homiletical claims, bad proof-texting by systematic theologians, etc.
• Being able to evaluate the English versions. If one is unable to read the Bible in the original, then one is at the mercy of competing translations with no way to evaluate them.

 Spiritual Benefits

• Reading the Bible in the original can breathe fresh life into one's devotional reading of the Scriptures.
• It brings one closer to the very words that Holy Spirit chose to communicate divine revelation.
• Reading slowly in the original is like sucking out the marrow of a bone. It enables one to relish the words in greater spiritual depth and power.

 Homiletical Benefits

• Being able to better grasp the scope or thrust of a passage.
• Being able to see how the details contribute to the whole.
• Being able to discern the structure and coherence of a text.

PCA Study Committee on Insider Movements

I just finished reading the 2012 report of the PCA Ad Interim Study Committee on Insider Movements titled, A Call to Faithful Witness - Part One - Like Father, Like Son: Divine Familial Language in Bible Translation. Here is The Aquila Report's summary of the 2012 GA's action of approving the report.

For those who aren't familiar with the controversy, perhaps a little background would be helpful. In recent years, well-known missionary agencies have been sponsoring or have otherwise been involved in translations for Muslims in which biblical language that speaks of Jesus as God's "Son" or of God as "Father" (whether in reference to Christ or believers) has been systematically replaced with other terms so as to avoid giving offence to Muslims. These translations are referred to as Muslim Idiom Translations.

For example, a Turkish translation of the Gospel of Matthew called "The Noble Gospel" renders the Trinitarian baptismal formula, "in the name of the Protector, his Representative (deputy, agent) and the Holy Spirit" (back translation provided by Turkish Reformed pastor Fikret Bocek; cited on p. 44 of the Report). Other translations use "Messiah" or "Uniquely Beloved One" instead of "Son."

The concern of the translators involved in these projects is to avoid giving the mistaken impression that Jesus was the offspring of a sexual union between God and Mary. Muslims rightly view this as blasphemy but wrongly attribute it to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Experts in Muslim missions claim that many Muslims take such offense at the notion of God having offspring that they will not even touch a Bible that speaks of Jesus as "the Son of God" (p. 25).

Of course, the work of translating the Bible into indigenous languages is extremely important. We must also recognize the importance of avoiding needless misunderstaning on the part of users of Bibles written in various target languages. This requires tremendous skill in navigating the many hidden landmines in cross-cultural communication of the gospel. We cannot rule out the idea in principle that there may be cases where a free or dynamic equivalence rendering better expresses the meaning of the text than a literal or formal equivalence rendering of the Greek or the Hebrew.

However, the Ad Interim Report convincingly argues that Jesus' title as "the Son of God" is not such a case. The Report argues that Muslim revulsion to calling Jesus God's "Son" stems not primarily from a linguistic confusion or the limitations of the languages many Muslims use, but from the false views of God taught by Islam itself. 

Furthermore, those seeking to replace "Son of God" with "Messiah" or "God's beloved representative" reveal that they have a less than orthodox conception of what it means to affirm that Jesus is God's Son. Many of these Muslim Idiom Translations have footnotes and essays attempting to clarify and explain certain biblical teachings for Muslims. One explains that Jesus' Sonship means that he is "God's vice-regent" who has a "deep spiritual bond" with God (p. 41). Another, commenting on the baptism of Jesus where God speaks from heaven, "You are my beloved Son," glosses this as "my one and only Representative who is my Beloved," and appeals to the supposed fact that in the OT/Jewish background to call someone "God's son" was merely a way of referring to him as "God's beloved ruler" and was equivalent to "Messiah" (p. 44).

It seems to me that some of the authors of these Muslim Idiom Translations are not merely attempting to avoid needless offense. They appear to be misleading (presumably unintentionally) the Muslim community by articulating a low Christology that is neither biblical nor in accord with the church's historic doctrine of the Trinity. For the affirmation that Jesus is God's Son means that, as to his nature, he is all that the Father is. Just as a human father begets a human son in his own image and likeness, so the Father eternally begets the Son in a manner that involves the communication of the divine essence. (See my paper on The Eternal Generation of the Son.) Jesus is not merely God's representative on earth.

Nor is the title "Messiah" interchangeable with "God's Son." The eternal Son of God became man and, as the incarnate Son, was then appointed to be God's Messiah in order to accomplish atonement and salvation for his people. The logos asarkos was not the Messiah in eternity past. But he was the Son in eternity past. 

Muslim offense is not linguistic but theological. It is the same offense that the Jews took in response to Jesus' claim to be God's Son and later to the church's confession of the same, leading ultimately to "the parting of ways" between the Synagogue and the Church. And the Jewish rejection of the notion that God has a Son is based on reasoning nearly identical to that which drives the Muslim rejection. How blasphemous to think that the transcendent Creator God has a divine child! How utterly incompatible with the very conception of deity that it should replicate and divide itself! The unity and transcendence of God is taken by both Jews and Muslims to militate against the Christian conception of Jesus as the eternal, ontological Son of God.

But if Jesus and the Apostles did not seek to avoid Jewish offense by retooling their language, neither should we seek to avoid Muslim offense. Christ's eternal divine Sonship is part of what makes the gospel an offense and a stumbling block to unitarian monotheists of all stripes. 

It is quite disconcerting to contemplate that, through the instrumentality of such distorted translations claiming to be Bibles, there will undoubtedly arise individuals and whole communities who confess some allegiance to the Prophet Issa (the Quran's designation for Jesus) while maintaining woefully deficient views as to his true identity as the eternally divine Son of God who took a true human nature into personal union with himself in order to accomplish the redemption of sinners. 

I would encourage everyone interested in the intersection of missiology and theology to read the Report. It is an excellent summary of the issues, and I look forward to Part Two hopefully later this year. It is going to provide a critical analysis of Insider Movements where we hear of folks calling themselves "Muslim followers of Jesus."

The meaning of "hell" in English

It is interesting that in contemporary English, “hell” seems to be used, in theological discourse, to refer to the place of eternal punishment for the lost after the resurrection, i.e., “Gehenna” (Matt 5:22, 29; 10:28; Mk 9:43; etc.) or “the lake of fire” (Revelation 19:20; 20:10, 14-15; 21:8).

But according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first and oldest meaning was “the abode of the dead; the place of departed spirits; the infernal regions or ‘lower world’ regarded as the place of existence after death; the grave; Hades.” (“Hell,” OED [2nd ed., 1991], vol. 7, p. 117.) 

The OED says it is the name for the Norse god of the underworld. The word then entered Anglo-Saxon probably due to Viking influence. The earliest usages of “hell” cited by the OED are from Anglo-Saxon biblical texts:  the Vespasian Psalter (c. 825) and Aelfric’s translation of Genesis (c. 1000). John Wyclif (1382) used “hell” in his English translation of the Vulgate in the same places where the underlying Hebrew has “sheol,” e.g., Gen 42:38.

Accordingly, when theologians writing in English commented on the statement in the Apostles' Creed that Jesus descended into “hell,” they understood this (correctly) to mean that after his death and prior to his resurrection his soul descended into the abode of the dead, not the place of final punishment for the lost after the resurrection.

Here are three examples cited by the OED:

Sir Thomas More, The supplication of souls (1529):  “Descendit ad inferna:  that is to say he descended down beneath into the low places. Instead of which low places the English tongue hath ever used this word hell” (I have modernised the spelling).

Jeremy Taylor, The great exemplar of sanctity and holy life (1649):  “Our Lord descended into hell … that is into the state of separation and common receptacle of spirits.”

Isaac Watts, The improvement of the mind, II.v.2 (1748):  “I will explain the word hell to signify the state of the dead, or the separate state of souls … and … that the soul of Christ existed three days in the state of separation from his body, or was in the invisible world.”

For more on the descent clause in the Creed, see my paper He Descended Into Hell.

Savor the Greek New Testament: The Two Year Plan cont'd

Last December, I posted the first part of a two-year plan for reading the Greek New Testament, which covered Matthew through Acts 9. I have now provided the calendar for the second year, which begins with Acts 10 and goes to the end of the NT. I've combined it with the first year so that you can download the combined schedule, fold it in half, and put in your UBS Reader's Greek New Testament. Additionally, I removed the days of the week at the top of the schedule ("Sunday," "Monday," etc.). This makes the schedule useful regardless of the year. For those who want to read at a quicker pace, I've also provided a one-year schedule that works for any year. (One-year readers may also want to consult Denny Burk's schedule which is very similar to mine but with an increased pace in the Gospel of John.) Finally, check out my tips for reading the Greek New Testament.

The One-Year Calendar
The Two-Year Calendar
Tips for Reading the Greek NT 

 

Worship of God the Foundation of Righteousness

In his exposition of the Decalogue, Calvin asks why the ten commandments are divided into two tables, the first table setting forth our duty toward God and the second table setting forth our duty toward man. He answers: 

"The first foundation of righteousness undoubtedly is the worship of God. When it is subverted, all the other parts of righteousness, like a building rent asunder, and in ruins, are racked and scattered. What kind of righteousness do you call it, not to commit theft and rapine, if you, in the meantime, with impious sacrilege, rob God of his glory? or not to defile your body with fornication, if you profane his holy name with blasphemy? or not to take away the life of man, if you strive to cut off and destroy the remembrance of God? It is vain, therefore, to talk of righteousness apart from religion. Such righteousness has no more beauty than the trunk of a body deprived of its head. Nor is religion the principal part merely: it is the very soul by which the whole lives and breathes. Without the fear of God, men do not even observe justice and charity among themselves. We say, then, that the worship of God is the beginning and foundation of righteousness; and that wherever it is wanting, any degree of equity, or continence, or temperance, existing among men themselves, is empty and frivolous in the sight of God" (Calvin, Institutes, 2.8.11; Beveridge).

I like this quote because it suggests that how the church honors God in corporate worship, how the church teaches its members to revere, honor, and glorify God, has implications for the way we live the Christian life. Religion (in the sense Calvin means it, i.e., the fear of God) is the foundation of ethics. Get the vertical right, and the horizontal will follow. Get worship right, and mission will follow. This is contrary to those who imagine that the church can pursue the horizontal plane of being missional and reaching out to the culture, without first being rooted in the vertical aspect of worship. Worship is not a missional, horizontal, cultural, or evangelistic activity. In worship the redeemed covenant community gathers into the holy presence of God to be wholly occupied with God in union and communion with the Father through the Son by the Spirit. Love for neighbor flows from love for God. To subordinate worship as a means to the end of mission, is to lose the very motive of mission, for mission is a means to the end of worship. A church that structures all of its activity toward the horizontal plane becomes a body without a soul, a trunk deprived of its head. Only a church that is focused on the worship of the living, triune God will have the inner vitality needed to be a credible witness to the world.