Honor Thy Mother

 Much of what is said of the father in the previous post can be said here, so I won't reiterate it again other than to say that the same penalty of death and damnation is for those who dishonor their mothers by not listening to their instructions, mocking them, dismissing them, not taking care of them financially, not speaking well of them, etc. 

But I do want to make the case here that this is because the mother is in unity with the father. I tell my kids all of the time that if they do not listen to their mother, they do not listen to me. My wife is me. I am my wife. She instructs them in accordance with what I have instructed. Her teaching is my teaching. Her honor, therefore, is my honor. 

Hence, in Scripture, because the wife is one flesh with the husband, and because in the Bible and the ancient world, the father's religion is the mother's religion, the father's instructions are the mother's instructions, the father is being treated well or poorly by how the mother is being treated. This is not unlike an emissary of a king being treated a particular way and the king seeing it as a treatment of himself.

The Bible knows nothing of a wife who has divorced her husband, and it does not seem to treat a woman who dishonors her husband even while married to him as included in his honor. Instead, she has divorced herself from him even while married so that she does not partake in his glory and honor. In this regard, I would argue that a woman who has dishonored her husband is not to be joined by her children in that dishonor. She is no longer of the adult child's father and so she is no longer a part of honoring the father.

In contrast to this modern woman, however, the ancient woman who is one with her husband is to be honored even if the father dies and she alone is over the children now. This is still to honor the father who has passed on and should still continue him and his instructions. Hence, one must honor father or mother, not because they are two opposing authorities but because they are one unified authority over the adult child.

Some texts even place the mother as first, emphasizing that one cannot dismiss the authority of the mother and still claim that he or she is honoring the father. Her authority is to be "feared," i.e., recognized as God's given authority rather than an authority given by the child (Lev 19:3). In other words, the adult child does not get to decide whether she has authority to instruct him, rather her authority is from God as representative of the father who is the representative of God.

And this brings us to an interesting discussion about the image of God and how it relates to women in biblical texts. In Genesis 1:26-28, the man is said to be the image of God, but the man is said to then be both male and female, meaning that "the man" represents both genders. "So God created the man as His image, as the image of God He created him, male and female He created them." In 1 Corinthians 11:7-9, Paul interprets this as the woman partaking in the image of God through the man, not individually by herself. He states, "he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man, for the man does not originate from the woman but the woman from the man, for, certainly, the man was not created for the woman's sake but the woman for the man's sake."

Our culture wants to see women as autonomous and directly imaging God apart from the man, but the Bible knows of no such direct connection. The man is made to be God's image, the woman participates in the image by being made as a helper to the man. She is vehicle through which he images God, as imaging has to do with the bearing of children in being fruitful and multiplying and taking over the world from the wild animals that rule it. She, therefore, is his emissary, and to dishonor her is to dishonor the man she represents, and therefore, to dishonor the God the man represents. The chain cannot be broken unless she breaks it.

This is why child custody hearings that award the children to the woman so often are wicked. Our culture has been trained by feminism to believe that children belong to the woman, even to the point of her having the sole right to terminate them in the womb. But the Bible teaches that the children belong to the man, and only by extension, belong to the woman. If a woman were to divorce a man, the children are to honor the father over the mother, but if she is in unity with the father, the children are to honor the mother as they honor the father because the two are the same authority with the same instructions, wisdom, and representative role to the child.

Proverbs 31:10-31 states that the woman committed to her husband and household will be the one who is praised by her children and husband alike. She speaks well of her husband, makes sure that his household is run well, instructs her children in wisdom and abundant love, as she fears the Lord in all things. In fact, Proverbs 31 are the instructions of King Lemuel that his mother taught him.

Proverbs 11:16 states that it is a woman of favor that holds on to honor. In Proverbs 19:13, "the foolish son is a destruction to his father and the contentions of a wife are a constant erosion." In other words, both of the son who is a fool and does not listen to his father is coupled with a wife who also is at odds with the father. They both erode the life of the father and are viewed as wicked here and having forfeit any honor due themselves.

So as long as the woman is in continuity with the father, she is to be honored as the father is to be honored. She is his glory, and so one cannot dishonor the glory of a man and say that he honors the man. As the man must represent God's authority, and cannot instruct his children or wife to sin, so the woman must represent the man's authority and cannot divorce herself from him and his teaching if she is to hold onto the honor due her.

If she does hold onto it, the penalty for dishonoring her, not fearing her, not taking care of her financially, not obeying her when the adult child is instructed in wisdom, is death because to dishonor her is to dishonor and refuse to worship God in the way He has instructed He is to be worshiped.

Honor Thy Father

 It is amazing to me how modern Evangelicalism has allowed so many people to do what is right in their own eyes when it comes to family. If you're not familiar, the phrase, "did what was right in his/their own eyes" in Scripture is constantly a reference to the wicked. The wicked do what is right, not what is wrong, in their own opinion. They don't get it from Scripture. They use Scripture eisegetically to back their opinions but they and their opinions are not in submission to Scripture so as to let it correct them.

I want to begin a series here concerning the obligations that each member of the household has to family members, and I'm going to begin from the bottom up because I see that as the order of egregious behavior toward familial commitments our church culture has allowed us to indulge in. 

So we will begin with the child's commitment to the father. What does the Bible say about the commitment children have to their Father?

First, I want to be very clear that the Bible is primarily instructing adult children, not little children. It is a given in every culture that little children would obey their parents. Evangelicals who are completely ignorant of the biblical model of family often think that the instructions given to children are referring to kids under the age of 12 or 18 but this is nonsense, as once we go into these passages, it is clear that (1) the children being spoken of are adults, and (2) the age of a small child, a kid as we would call him or her, is prepubescent and incapable of doing most of what is said of the adult child.

The obligations the adult child has to a father seems to be total obedience, respect, financial commitment, and emulation in wisdom and moral conduct when the father lives a wise and moral life. When the latter is not there, the former is still to be given since the father represents God's authority to the child.

The Ten Commandments of course command the following.

Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee” (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16).

The commandment indicates that the inheritance of the land of promise is contingent upon the child honoring the father and the mother. Paul reiterates this in Ephesians 6:1-3 when he says, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life in the land," and in Colossians 3:20, "Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord."

The four things to note here from these texts for us is that children are to obey their parents in "everything" or they aren't honoring them, that long life in the land is contingent upon obeying one's parents, and that this commandment is likely of the first table, not the second because it associates the honor and obedience of the parents with fearing the Lord and receiving His reward. Hence, the commandments are to be divided as two tables consisting of five and five, rather than the traditional four and six. And, finally, that living long in the land is applied by Paul in a way to not be talking about having long life in the here and now but inheriting the world to come, which the land of Israel foreshadowed. Hence, obeying one's parents in all things, taking care of them, treating them with honor is the contingency upon which one will inherit eternal life, i.e., is saved or not.

The correct worship of God directly has to do with not worshiping other gods, making divine images, fearing God's name, honoring God's sovereignty through the Sabbath, and honoring/obeying one's father and mother. In fact, Leviticus 19:3-4 has the first table represented in a few of its commands (e.g., observe the Sabbath, no divine images), including the command that "Every man is to fear his mother and his father."

One worships God in whatever manner one treats his parents, particularly focusing in on the father here. He cannot claim to worship God better than he treats his father.

Jesus rebukes the Pharisees who think they can. They think they can treat their parents poorly but treat God well. They even contrast the two relationships by saying that they are giving to God by taking away their obligations to their parents. He confirms to them that they have set aside the commandment (and the reward with it I might add) by doing so. Notice the dialogue.

5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”
6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“‘These people honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.7 They worship me in vain;
    their teachings are merely human rules.’
8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
9 And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe[c] your own traditions! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’[d] and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’[e] 11 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— 12 then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

Christ here says that they actually do this with many things, but note that this is what he decided to focus on because it contrasts true worship with false worship. They are concerned with externals like physical cleanliness rituals and tithing. Christ is concerned with actually worshiping God through the honor and treatment of parents. The Pharisees, being very devoted, religiously pious men, don't know God and it evidences itself through their treatment of their father and mother.

Now, let's look at some texts that talk about a grown child's commitments to their parents.

If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

Notice here that this is not a five-year-old kid. He is a drunkard and a glutton. He also lives somewhere else. Note that it says that they are to bring this son to the elders of "his," not "their" town. So he lives in another town. He is still obligated to take care of them and obey them and yet refuses to do so. God says that he is to be violently executed by all of the men of his own town. He is not to inherit the land any longer. He is cut off from it. This is to purge the evil from among them, a phrase quoted by Paul when speaking of excommunication, and to cause other covenant members to be afraid to do the same thing lest they also lose their inheritance.

Again, this is an adult son who seems to now live in a different town than his parents but is not supporting or obeying them. 

Correspondingly, the children of a qualified elder must not be like this without having been cut off by his father, lest his father be disqualified from ministry. In 1 Timothy 3:4-5, Paul states:

He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) 

This is stated in different terms in Titus 1:6.

An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of participating in debauchery and disobedient. 

Notice that, like in Deuteronomy, the children are to obey their father, and that these are adult children who are partaking in debauchery and are disobedient. The New Catholic Bible translates this phrase as "free from any suspicion of licentious or rebellious behavior." Most translations translate it as dissipation and rebellion," which would likely then see Paul as referring back specifically to the passage in Deuteronomy, as dissipation refers to a participation in drunkeness or sexually immoral behavior, a throwing off of one's duties to parents, and so they are not faithful children, which is what the phrase tekna pista actually means in context here. 

Christ reaffirms the command in Matthew 15:4, a parallel to the Markan passage above, by noting not only the original command but the subsequent understanding that if one speaks poorly of his father or mother he is to be put to death. The word kakologion means one who insults or speaks bad about one's father or mother. Christ is alluding to the LXX of Leviticus 20:9 here that expands the original command concerning cursing father and mother and makes it even a lesser speech of just speaking bad about them. Nothing is said of whether the things spoken are true or not. It is the fact that the adult child (the Pharisees being spoken to here are all adults, and mostly much older adults) who is commanded to honor is dishonoring by speaking about their parents in ways that would cause others to think less of them. In Proverbs 20:20, the one who does this has his lamp go out, metaphorically meaning that he will lose the ability to see what is true and be blinded to what is right and good.

Proverbs 23:22 commands, "Obey your father who begot you, and do not reject your mother when she is old."

Notice that a mother who is old is not usually a mother of a young child. This is to an adult child, which means that the adult son be spoken to here is to obey the father who begot him. The idea of obeying is that the wisdom of the father is not dismissed but listened to, since only the fool goes on his own thinking or the thinking of his peers. The wise man listens to his father.

It should be noted here that the mother is included because she is one with the father. The father is in unity with the mother and vice versa so that one cannot disrespect one without also disrespecting the other. Some situation where the mother has divorced the father is not something that is in view, as the woman could not divorce in ancient Israel, so the Bible assumes a unity. Hence, it is father or mother because the mother is the father (see for example how this is assumed in the sexual laws of Lev 18:8, 20:11, Deut 22:30, and 27:30). Hence, the command is really about the father being honored, which includes the mother who is in unity with him. The Bible considers the children as those who belong to the man, and only to the woman because she is joined to the man. Hence, the proverb notes that the father begot the son.

Hence, in Proverbs 6:20 (also 1:8-10; 15:20), the command is given to the adult son to "keep your father's commandment, and do not abandon your mother's instruction." The two are in parallel because they are viewed as one and the same.

In Deuteronomy, the actual covenant promises that are made by the people who are stating they wish to be in God's covenant include the declaration, "Cursed is anyone who dishonors father or mother." All the people are to shout, Amen!

Proverbs agrees and says that "the eye that mocks a father and refuses to obey a mother will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by vultures."

The eye represents one's thinking about his father and mother. Again, his eye, his ability to see, is cursed.

In fact, the entire Book of Proverbs demands that the adult son obey his father's instructions and listens to his advise or he is branded a fool and wicked (Prov 4:1; 13:1).

Notice that the wise son in Proverbs 13:1 obeys his father's instructions but the scoffer does not listen to rebuke. In other words, the wicked and foolish son rolls his eyes at his father in contrast to the wise son who harkens to his fathers instructions.

All of this is the obligation of the adult child to his or her father. All of this must be adhered to if one is to claim that he or she is fulfilling this command. As Christ notes, honor cannot be divided up so that some of these are obeyed and others set aside. One only need to dishonor someone in one area for them to be dishonored. It is only one insult, one neglect, one dismissal, one rolling of the eyes, one stubborn rebellion, one refusal to care for a need, one act of disobedience that is persisted in or justified without repentance that evidences the damnation of the individual. 

You see, we think that the obligation of the little child is to listen to a parent while young, but the children are extensions of the father and his household. Even when married, a son in particular is not then free to disrespect his father and to be a stubborn idiot who no longer has to listen to him. The son is to continue his father and his household. The adult child is not the judge of the father but to be judged by him. This does not mean that the father should insert himself into everything his son does but that is an issue for the father's obligations to his children we will deal with later. The point here is that even when married, as almost all Pharisees were btw, the obligations do not subside. While the father remains upon the earth and even after he leaves it, the adult child is to honor him in every way by adhering to his instructions, commandments, speaking well of him always, and continuing his household in acknowledgement of his good work and wisdom given to the child during his life.

All fathers are sinners, so one could easily excuse himself from obeying the command here by saying that his father doesn't deserve honor, but God doesn't position authority over us and then allow us to judge them as unworthy of that honor. God is the judge of those things. We are to honor and obey a father in the Lord who, like any authority, is exercising an authority on God's behalf and to the glory of God. Excuses are the roadways of the damned, or as Proverbs puts it, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the pathway of death" (Prov 14:12).

Emotional vs. Logical Thinkers

Watching the Gavin Ortlund/Jonathan Pageau debate (link here) got me thinking about people I've encountered in ministry many times. Gavin is a logical thinker but Jonathan is an emotional thinker, and it was frustrating for me, as a logical thinker, to get through this debate because I think the topic itself is a ridiculous one to debate simply because its a matter of historical fact that both EO and the RCC absolutely condemned anyone who was purposely outside of the physical body of their communions. But if you're a modern EO or RC and have been heavily influenced by pluralism then you have to somehow syncretize your two commitments, and thus, we get this debate. 

The problem is, as always, eisegesis. When one has an emotional commitment to something, he wants it to be true and then looks for ways that he can interpret the data in order for it to be true. This means making arguments that don't stem from the texts looked at. 

Logical reasoning is exegetical in nature because its ultimate commitment is to whatever the truth might be as it is concluded from the text alone. Hence, it does not begin with the idea as a foregone conclusion. Instead, in this case, I am perfectly willing to let the pluralist EO be the victor here if that's what the texts bear out. I am also perfectly willing to let the exclusivist EO be the victor. I really don't have skin the game which makes me capable of evaluating the texts correctly. It is abundantly clear that the exclusivism of traditional EO and modern pluralist EO visions are not in continuity with one another in the same way that Trent is not in continuity with Vatican II. 

However, I want to look at another claim, which is the one where these particular EO's argue that people outside EO are just missing the fulness of what it means to be a Christian. I find this fascinating in view of logical and emotional reasoning.

As I said, I've met many people who argue emotionally, and it always ends up in frustration because who can argue with bad arguments when the emotional thinker refuses to let logic correct them? 

But first I want to say that by "emotional thinker" I don't mean someone who gets animated when they argue. I get animated. Frankly, I've met very emotional thinkers who are extremely calm when they argue. It has nothing to do with getting animated. It has everything to do with how one argues, whether exegetically/logically or eisegetically/illogically. Emotional thinkers tend to be high on rhetoric devoid of logic rather than concentrating on the logic part due to emotional commitments to a proposition.

And this leads me to my main point. Logic is a characteristic of God. God is logic. Worshiping God means to be devoted in one's mind to logic and logical argumentation because one is seeking God through, not only the truth but the way one comes to it.

Worshiping God also means to be devoted to God in one's heart. Devoting one's emotions to God is to devote a part of one's being to Him.

But here is the issue. Only the logical thinker can be fully devoted to God in both mind and heart, in both logic and emotion.

I'm not saying that every logical thinker is. I am only saying that every logical thinker can be. But this is not true of the emotional thinker. Because the emotional thinker uses eisegetical and illogical arguments because his emotional commitments govern his arguments rather than logic, he can only be devoted to God in his feelings, not in his mind.

Hence, the emotional thinker cannot be fully devoted to God by loving Him with his whole being. Yet, we think the emotional thinker is more devoted to God than the logical thinker because we associate feelings with spirituality and logical thinking with cold, unbelieving self-reliance. It's almost as though we think logic is natural and devoid of the Spirit and feelings are something supernatural. 

The irony, therefore, is that the fullness is being missed by Jonathan in this debate, and frankly, when I've seen him discuss anything. This doesn't mean that all EO's argue this way. Some EO's are very logical. This isn't an EO, RC, Prot thing. 

If you think I'm being unfair to Jonathan, go through and count how many false dichotomies and non sequiturs are made throughout this debate. It's incredibly frustrating because these types of arguments don't say anything, and yet, like most emotional thinkers, he says a lot of words to say nothing when he does this. 

And that is what emotional thinkers do. Their minds are chaos because feeling rather than logic governs their thought processes. It's like stopping to get directions from a talker and three hours later you still don't know where you're supposed to go. But these people think they've built their cases because they feel emotionally satisfied with their positions, and that's all that matters.

But God uses language which is rooted in logic both to communicate to His people and to have them worship Him in return. Logic is a means of worship and emotions should be led by it, not the other way around. This gives us the fullness of devotion to God that Scripture pushes us toward. Anyone who argues emotionally, and I have known many, are the ones who are missing it.

Contra rebellem Christianismum

I wrote this post back in November of 2020. It remains unaltered. 

"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see the kingdom of God." I used to think this was talking about being a person of valor or having really pure motives or intentions. Now I realize that it's talking about one's mindset and whether it is cleared of false and rebellious ideas. Only these people get to see the kingdom of God, both now and in the eschaton. They can see it because all of the eye goop in the sights of other men isn't there. They see the authority and rule of God now and they will live in that authority then. But Christianity in the West has become something else these days. It has become a religion of goop.

Remember when churches used to gather as a church because it was about cultivating a spirit of submission to God's authority rather than flipping the government off? It's all about the spirit that is being cultivated, whether one of submission or one of rebellion. I have to say that I don't see a whole lot of the submissive spirit displayed among the Reformed these days, and that was long before the COVID thing came into our lives. What I see instead is a lot of people using the guise of obedience to the Bible to unleash their disdain for authority and spew venom toward restrictions they don't like. We can't be upset with God directly for anything going on of course. That would be wrong. But we can flip off His messengers by saying that they don't really represent Him and that allows us to say that they can go take a long walk off a short peer when they attempt to exercise actual authority over us. 

What is very clear, I think, to most people, even the rebellious, is that we are in a season of judgment. But that means that God will be giving people over to chaos, not just by sending viruses and financial distress, but also by giving them over to their spirits of rebellion and deception. They are rebellious because they are miffed when authorities restrict their "freedoms" and they are deceived in thinking that they don't need to submit to these authorities, that government no longer has authority whenever it gets in the way of our God-given, Declaration of Independence, card-carrying egalitarian freedom to do as I choose as long as, in my own eyes, I am obeying the Bible. Not quite the argument of the early church or that of 1 Peter but then again this was never about obeying the Bible anyway. It's about satisfying the fleshly desire to rule as god of my life. If I was a slave, then slaves obey their masters, even when it gets tough, even when its harsh and I don't think the masters deserve my obedience; but since I'm a god, how dare anyone restrict my reign. I'll let God do that occasionally when He agrees with me, but I am not going to allow a lesser god, even if he represents God in His authority, to tell me what to do. Jesus died so that I could be a god without restriction by others. At least that's what the Mormons, New Agers, and Secular Humanists tell me. 

The one question I have is this, however, "When exactly did the conservative Reformed church that whines so much about critical race theory, adopt liberation theology and its attitudes toward government? Of course, I already know this answer. It was adopted when people started to adopt political theories of liberation. It was adopted with the Libertarian view of government, which oddly adopts with it, at least amongst theonomy types, a strange application of the permissive principle that limits government to whatever specific laws are mentioned in Scripture and allows people to govern themselves in everything else. 

Most will talk about general equity but not necessarily in terms of applying that general equity to what laws one can have. So for instance, one might argue that having a fence railing on one's roof in the ancient Near East is equivalent to putting a gate around a pool, but then completely fail to see that it should apply to speed limits on the roads. Government has a household. That household is the country. If it does not regulate how fast cars can go or how they can drive, it is not being responsible in governing potentially unsafe space. Yet, the is the very reason one must put a railing on the roof. I could argue it's the responsibility of each person who comes to my home to govern himself and his children and I have no obligation to babysit people and their actions, but as a good theonomist we all must say, "By what standard?" God obviously does think it's your responsibility to make safe space that could be potentially dangerous.

It's my responsibility to make sure the food I serve is not poisoned. It's government's responsibility to do the same for its household. Yet, how many libertarian theonomists argue that the FDA is overreaching? 

What this also means is that if my home is filled with sickness, I have an obligation to quarantine and ban people from meeting there. The government has the same obligation with its home, the country. It has the right, according to the application of the general equity of the law, to make potentially unsafe space safe. 

So what are we to conclude with these libertarian theonomists who only want the specific laws mentioned in Scripture to limit governmental authority? I would argue that (1) a general equity view of the law does not limit diddly squat unless one compartmentalizes and arbitrarily decides to limit the application of such laws (2) the disposition of one in subjection is, wait for it, subjection, regardless of whether one agrees with their authorities or not (that's the actual point of having that relationship--if you agreed with everything, there would be no need of said relationship), (3) it's all a very big excuse to satisfy the rebellious nature of the flesh in a way that one feels allowed, and even encouraged by God, to do so, (4) it tends to be Gnostic in that it wants me to care for souls and not bodies unless the Scripture makes me care about bodies too and then I have to, (5) it has conflated a bit of liberation theology which itself stems from Enlightenment egalitarianism with Christian duty so much that now a contradiction exists between hearing these guys make their arguments and listening to Paul and Peter on the matter. Paul, if by any other name, rather than twisted would simply be rejected, and Peter would be viewed as a cowardly Christian, again, if we weren't supposed to actually see him as an apostle of Christ. Since we have to see them as having God's authority, we try to find better excuses to consider what they say cowardly and reject it.

Our motto as a church has been, "Obey until you can't obey," but it is clear that many in Reformed circles have the opposite motto, "Disobey until you're forced by Scripture into admitting that you may have to obey a little bit in such and such an area." This has become the religion of rebellious men and infects the rest of the body like a cancer. But that is the test of God's judgment. No one gets to stand except those who pure of heart, for only they will see the kingdom of God in the kingdom of men.

Justification and Sanctification, the Image of God, and the Distinction in Genders

There seems to have been some confusion about my previous post concerning the image of God and how the woman partakes in the image, so I've opted to attempt to explain it as plainly as I can.

There is often a breakdown in an egalitarian understanding of genders due to antinomian assumptions of salvation. If salvation is nothing more than justification then when Paul says something like "there is neither male nor female but all are one in Christ" that describes the equality of men and women in their union with Christ then equality in Christ completely defines the identity of the man and the woman. "There is no" male or female, so genders are not distinct. Both have become the new man, the restored image of God, and that is the end of the story.

The problem is that justification via unification with Christ is not the sum total of salvation as though antinomianism was true. Those who have been created in Christ Jesus must now realize that they have been created in Him, united to Him, for the purpose of putting His character on like a new garment (Rom 13:14). 

In Ephesians 4:24 // Colossians 3:10, believers are exhorted to put on the new man, which is being renewed into the image of God. In other words, they have been restored as the image through Jesus Christ and His imputed righteousness, holiness, and true knowledge but they must now put this on, which implies that they do not have this character already. The new man is being conformed to it in sanctification, which assumes that the new man is only the image positionally but not practically. The image of God in Christ that has been imputed to both males and females must now become who they are not only positionally but practically. 

The question now becomes whether the character of Christ expresses itself differently through the male and female, and therefore, whether their sanctification, their Christ-clothes look different. In other words, does the positional image in a man work itself out in a different way than it does in a woman?

We see throughout the Bible that they do. The man and woman are created for different roles in the first work with which God tasks them, i.e., to be fruitful and multiply. Adam's role as husband and father is to govern as king and priest. Eve's role as wife and mother is to help him in submission to his role. She joins with him in order to participate in his work rather than assigned a separate task by God. 

Likewise, in the restoration of this created order in Christ, Paul tells us that the sanctification of the man in the family looks very different than the sanctification of the woman. He is to love and sacrifice himself for her. She is to acknowledge his God-given role and submit to him.

This means that she does not express the new man in the same way that he does. She is not sanctified the same way that he is. Although she is imputed the image of God through Christ positionally, as the man is, having positional equality with him in Christ, she does not practically become that image of God in the same way that he does, as this would be to argue that she is sanctified as a woman in the same way that he is sanctified as a man.

Hence, Paul argues that the woman should not take upon leadership roles in the church over men because she is to be saved/sanctified through childbearing, i.e., motherhood, the role of Eve, in submission to the men in authority over her life (1 Tim 2:11-15). Instead, the man is to take upon leadership positions because that is fitting to his role and how he is saved/sanctified. 

In both Ephesians and Colossians, we are told that the man's new man/person is conformed to the image of its Creator via loving his wife in a leadership role but the woman's new man/person is conformed to the image of its Creator via submitting to her husband, her federal head. 

What this means is that the woman's path of sanctification is through submission to her federal head, as this restores who she was created to be as a woman. Hence, if the image of God is not only relational but functional, she is restored to the image via unification with Christ relationally and in participation with her federal head functionally. She, therefore, allows him to function as the image of God practically, as one cannot be father without a mother nor husband without a wife. 

Both are the renewed human in Christ but that renewed human expresses itself through each human's respective gender and not in disregard of it. But this means that they do not participate in the work of the image of God in the same way, and hence, if the image of God is functional, and they do not function the same way, they are not the image of God in the same way. 

Although the woman is the image of God relationally through Christ, she now functions as the image through participation in the man's functional expression of the image. In other words, having been restored as the image of God, the man receives his task given to him in the garden back to him and so does the woman, which means that the woman is not the functional image of God by herself but must become his helper in her role in order to become/put on the image practically. The man, likewise, would not become the image of God practically if he shunned his role by rejecting the task God gave him in creation. Hence, as many theologians in history have argued, her practical function as the image of God is derivative of the man, as it requires her to be connected to a federal head in order to be practically conformed to the image of God. As many have described it, her glory is that of the moon's light that is dependent upon the sun's. She must join with a man (e.g., father, husband, elders) in order to work out her character in Christ.

This brings us back to the antinomianism of egalitarianism. It would be absurd to say that one was united to Christ and justified by Him if he or she rejected the role of the image given to him or her in the renewed human. Hence, sanctification is the sign of justification. To argue that one is the image of God due to unification with Christ but deny the need to express the image in the respective roles of each gender is to deny the necessity of sanctification that always follows justification. If the woman must participate in the functional image through a federal head then to reject this is to reject the biblical path of sanctification, and therefore, to give evidence of a lack of justification and unity with Christ. In other words, being restored to the image of God in Christ positionally will always lead to the differing expressions of the male and female roles whereby each engendered human becomes the image of God practically in different ways, i.e., each by applying him or herself to the task given to them in creation.

The Path to the Right Church

 I often get asked the question, "How do I know what church is the one teaching the truth when there are so many opinions everywhere?" People seem to want some sort of intellectual key to figure it out, and if they don't have it, they get scared and confused as to whether they are in the right church, hearing the right things, living out the truths of God or just religious fictions made up by men. But this is not the path to understanding.

The Bible teaches that the path to the truth is through humility. Not worldly humility where one acts like nothing can be known, as though God is incapable of leading His sheep to green pastures, but biblical humility that evidences that one is teachable to whatever God may have for him. 

Biblical humility is the assumption that one does not know until God, through the ecclesiastically interpreted Word, reveals the truth to him. He does not arrogantly assume his own feelings, experiences, and reason is any sort of measuring stick for what is true and what is not. Isaiah 66:1-2 says,

This is what the LORD says:

“Heaven is My throne,

and earth is My footstool.

What kind of house will you build for Me?

Or where will My place of repose be?

Has not My hand made all these things?

And so they came into being,” declares the LORD.

“This is the one I will look to indwell:

he who is humble and lowly in spirit,

who trembles at My word.

God's Spirit leads the one who is lowly in spirit, who does not lift himself up. But what does this look like? It looks like submitting to church leadership by deeply contemplating its biblical interpretations and not assuming that you know the truth on your own. It looks like seeking to understand from the authorities God has placed over you, even if those authorities might be wrong. It's coming with an open hand rather than a closed fist, an empty cup rather than a full one. That's because being led into the truth isn't about you figuring it out. You are fallen and not able to figure it out. Your flesh won't allow you to do so. It suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. It will not allow you to reason your way there, and God does not honor self-reliance but rather faith and reliance upon Him. It's about God leading you into the truth and God does not lead the rebellious, arrogant man, but the one who seeks Him with all his being and subjects himself to the process of learning through those placed over you. 

Because of this, God may have you in a church that doesn't have all of the right answers for a while. It is how you respond to that church that will show whether your self-assessment of humility is accurate. If you cannot submit to a local church body then you are not humble, and if you are not humble, you are not led by the Spirit into the truth. It's as simple as that. 

It is being teachable to where you are, seeking to learn what you can, questioning yourself and denying yourself within the times and places God has placed you. Many, and I do mean many, fail this test. Every man wants to believe he is teachable but so few are. 

Never would I believe that any of the pastors I was ever under were infallible or knew all the right answers but I sought to learn what I could from the churches I was under. I see the things I see today, not because I was smarter than anyone else but because God led me to see them, and I believe He led me to see them because I didn't assume that I knew already but always sought to understand, submit myself to where I was and under whom I was placed, and never stopped reforming because I wanted to know Him and His life-giving truths more. Always seeking, always asking, always knocking on the doors in front of me rather than always second guessing as to whether they were the right ones. I explored every question put in front of me and sought to listen to every answer that those who had authority to speak uttered to me. Whether they ended up being right or not wasn't the point. The point was to seek the truth from those God put over me rather than disregarding them to find it through my own religious experiences and reason.

My point to all of this is that one will never know enough to know whether he is in the right church. He may be fully convinced in his abilities to know but this is arrogance, and if this is his hope, he should be afraid. 

Instead, one needs to have his full confidence in God, that He is the Shepherd of His flock, and that if His sheep will follow the shepherds He places under Him in humility, no matter how imperfect their theology may be, He will guide them to green pastures. 

You want to know if you are in the right church? How submissive are you to its teaching? How much do you assume your inability to know versus your ability to rely on your own religious experiences, private biblical interpretations, traditions, knowledge, and reason? God casts down those who exalt their own abilities but He exalts the humble who trust in and seek Him with open arms toward those He has placed over them in various times and seasons of their lives. 

The path to the truth is the path of honest questions and a desire to listen to the answers no matter what they may be, but the one who assumes the truth before God has led him into it is lost. So if you want to know whether you are in the right church, do not ask what you need to know in order to evaluate it. Ask, instead, whether you are teachable enough for God to have guided you there.

When Is a Reformer Not a Reformer

 There are many claims as to what it means to be Reformed. To me, it means entering into a battle with tradition and human reason that conflicts with a solid exegesis of the Bible. In other words, it means the highest commitment to the banner of sola Scriptura as we march out to wage war with other ideas inside and outside the church.

I would strongly argue that the Reformers did not see their role as innovators but as discriminate preservers of orthodoxy. This means that when they came across ideas that were biblical, they attempted to keep them. When they came across ideas that stemmed from tradition or philosophy, they sought to be critical of them using the standard of sola Scriptura, i.e., Scripture as the ultimate judge, the norm that norms all other norms. 

When they innovated, and they did, they failed at their job, and it is my contention that it is our job to see where they failed and to correct it if we wish to take upon ourselves the role of reformers ourselves. 

They were wrong about divorce and remarriage. They were wrong about paedocommunion. They were wrong about the Sabbath. 

Interestingly enough, each of the above were all contrary positions to that of the church for the first 1000-1500 years. The reasoning as to why they took a contrary view to the historical understanding of the issue of divorce and remarriage was not on biblical grounds but human reasoning. The reason why it adopted a practice against the historic church's concerning paedocommunion was based upon a medieval tradition and the eisegesis of 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. The reason why it adopted a position contrary to the historic church's concerning the Sabbath was again based upon tradition and ignoring the biblical reasoning given by the early church concerning the day. 

In essence, it was tradition and human reason that led them to conclude contrary to the early church's positions on these issues, not a consistent commitment to sola Scriptura when it came to these. By their own job descriptions as Reformers, they have failed to fulfill their role. We must now do this for them. 

When is a Reformer not a Reformer? When he fails to decipher between what is tradition based upon the Bible and what is merely traditional. If sola Scriptura be not the highest banner in our theology, let our ideas lay slain upon the battlefield forever.